Mission Statement of the School of Law

The primary mission of Golden Gate University School of Law is to provide our students with the intellectual and moral foundation which will enable them to become ethical, competent, and socially responsible professionals in a complex and interrelated legal world. The ethic we share is that lawyering is an honorable and valuable profession worthy of the public trust.

We believe that we must prepare our students to practice law, not merely to be ready to learn to practice law. To that end, we devote a substantial portion of our resources to skills training. This includes not only traditional skills courses, clinical programs, simulation courses, and skills components in our traditional courses, but also our apprenticeship-based Honors Lawyering Program.

Moreover, because of the increasing complexity and globalization of the law, we have instituted five programs leading to an LLM degree and one program leading to an SJD degree, specifically in the area of international legal studies.

Our first priority in all of our programs is to produce graduates with the skill, judgment, and ethical and moral compass to assume their responsibilities as outstanding members of the legal profession.

(Approved by Faculty at May 1, 2005 Faculty Retreat)