Western State College of Law

Western State College of Law at Westcliff University is a private, for-profit law school in Irvine, California. It offers full and part-time programs and is approved by the American Bar Association. Western State pays a fee to receive services from the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). History Western State College of Law was founded in 1966 in Orange County, California. In 1987, the school applied for accreditation with the American Bar Association (ABA). 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 (CBE). 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.