Students

This week, UC Davis School of Law welcomed one of the most accomplished and diverse first-year classes in the law school’s history.

The Class of 2027 consists of 198 students, with a median undergraduate GPA of 3.68 and median LSAT score of 163. A remarkable 68% of the class are students of color, with enrollment of African American (14%) and Latinx (26%) first-year students at their highest levels in at least a decade. The class includes four Native American students. Women compose 54% of the class, and 24% of 1L students identify as LGBTQ+.

UC Davis ranks No. 2 historically in student diversity, according to the new Northwestern Pritzker School of Law paper “Affirmative Action and Racial Diversity in U.S. Law Schools, 1980-2021.”

The paper by New York University Professor Richard R.W. Brooks, Northwestern Law Professor Kyle Rozema and Yale Law Professor Sarath Sanga studies racial diversity in American law schools and the impact of state-level affirmative action bans.

Thirty-two talented teams from the Class of 2026 participated in the 17th UC Davis Law Intraschool Negotiations Competition, held March 2 at King Hall.

Congratulations to winning teams Nicole Larson and Olivia Shaw and Artem Borysyuk and Michael Yoakam, and to finalist teams Ramanjit Kaur and Sabrina Duvall and Lexi Vitangcol and Victoria Wong.

Maxwell Davis ’25 and Aeman Shahbaz ’25 placed first at the regional ABA Client Counseling Competition held Feb. 16-18 at the University of Oregon School of Law. The pair will compete in the national finals March 15-16 at Louisiana State University.

In a Feb.

The Chicago Cafe in Woodland is the oldest Chinese restaurant in California – and possibly the United States – an interdisciplinary UC Davis research project led by Professor Gabriel “Jack” Chin has found.

The Unity Bar of Yolo County honored Dean Kevin R. Johnson, Professor Amagda Pérez ’91 and the UC Davis Law Black Law Students Association at its first awards gala on Nov. 2.

Criminal law Professors Irene Joe, Andrea Cann Chandrasekher and Gabriel “Jack” Chin will hold a special class for first-year law and LL.M. students at 1 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 3 at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

Professors Rick Frank and Karrigan Börk led a group of 25 King Hall law students who attended the California Lawyers Association’s/Environmental Law Section’s 32nd Environmental Law Conference Oct. 18-22 at Yosemite.

Thirty-one teams from the Class of 2026 competed in the King Hall Negotiations Team’s 12th annual 1L Negotiations Competition, held Saturday, Oct. 7.

Congratulations to winning teams Claire Stoecklein and Mia Brittingham and Steven Li and Parham Pahlevani, and to finalist teams Kessie Huang and Victoria Tam and Allison Hodge and Pendar Salemi.

Many thanks go to the judges and to the KHNT membership, executive board and advisor Professor Donna Shestowsky.