Western State College of Law was founded in 1966 in Orange County, California. It is the oldest existing law school in the county. In 1987, the school applied for accreditation with the American Bar Association. Although the school was unsuccessful in this attempt, it was at the time accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and by the California State Committee of Bar Examiners. The accreditation by the CBE made graduates eligible to sit for the California Bar Examination. By 1990, Western State had expanded to three campuses in California including locations in Fullerton, Irvine and San Diego. At that time, the school was the largest law school in California. In 1995, Western State again began pursuing accreditation with the ABA for all three of its campuses. In the latter half of the 1990s, the school underwent several changes as part of the accreditation process. In 1995, the school's San Diego campus became the independently owned Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the following year, the school closed its Irvine location and consolidated students to its Fullerton campus. In 1998, the school received provisional accreditation from the ABA and opened a new law library. In 2000, the college's owners sold Western State to Argosy Education Group, which owned the school for a year before it was purchased by Education Management Corporation. Western State was granted full accreditation with the ABA in 2005, and became the third for-profit law school to receive ABA approval. In April 2012, the school was incorporated as one of the colleges of Argosy University and officially changed its name to Western State College of Law at Argosy University. The same year, the school sold its property to California State University, Fullerton for roughly $18 million. In January 2016, the campus moved to Irvine, California. In October 2017, it was announced that the college of law was sold, along with the rest of Argosy University, to the Dream Center Foundation, a subsidiary of the Dream Center megachurch. The transaction was funded in part by the Najafi Companies, a private equity firm. Critics have claimed that the sale and shift to non-profit status was designed to evade consumer protection regulations focused on for-profit institutions. In 2019, a federal court approved Westcliff University's plan to purchase the school and revert it to for-profit status. The ABA allowed continued accreditation under the ownership of Westcliff University in December 2019.
Academics
Programs
Western State offers both full-time and part-time programs. The school offers two areas of focus through their Business Law Center and their Criminal Law Practice Center, which are aimed at preparing graduates for a career in business or criminal law through additional training, internships and networking with lawyers. The law school also offers certificates in Immigration Law, Family Law, and Real Estate. , the school had 274 full-time students and 149 part-time students, and 61 members of faculty.
Bar passage
The school's bar pass rate was 58% for first-time takers of the July 2019 California bar exam. The Ultimate Bar Pass Rate, which the ABA defines as the pass rate for graduates who sat for a bar exam within two years of graduating, is 76.63% for the Class of 2018.
Rankings
US News and World Report ranks the school in the quartile known as #148-194. Among all law schools, Western State has the third-highest Diversity Index, as reported by US News and World Report. In addition, it received an A+ for Diversity in National Jurist's Best Law Schools.
Costs
The total cost of attendance at the Western State College of Law for the 2018-19 academic year is $63,692 for a student living at home and $77,126 for a full-time student that is self-supporting.
Post-graduation employment
According to Western State's ABA-required disclosures, 74% of the Class of 2018 obtained employment nine months after graduation. 62% of the class obtained JD-required or JD-advantage employment. Excluding solo practitioners, 45% of the class obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment.
