Monterey College of Law

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Monterey College of Law (MCL) is a private, non-profit law school founded in 1972 in Monterey, California. It provides part-time evening J.D. and Master of Legal Studies (M.L.S.) degrees. The school is accredited by the Committee of Bar Examiners of the State Bar of California. The school is not an American Bar Association accredited law school.

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History

Monterey College of Law was founded in 1972 to serve the communities of the California central coast. Alumni are community leaders, judges, lawyers, and business professionals. In August 2005, the College of Law moved into its home within the higher-education enclave being developed on the former Fort Ord Army base. The College of Law joins California State University, Monterey Bay and the Monterey Peninsula Community College in creating a rapidly growing educational destination for higher learning alongside Monterey Bay. The school opened its second building, a Certified LEED Platinum Community Justice Center, in April 2010. By achieving LEED Platinum certification, it is only the second law school in the US to open a LEED Platinum facility.

In 2010, the law school opened a first-year satellite campus in Santa Cruz, California. After successfully completing the first-year curriculum, Santa Cruz students commute to the main campus in Seaside, California to complete their degree programs. In early 2015, Monterey College of Law acquired the University of San Luis Obispo School of Law, a registered unaccredited law school formerly located in Morro Bay, California. The new law school became an accredited branch of Monterey College of Law, was moved to a new campus in downtown San Luis Obispo, and renamed the San Luis Obispo College of Law. In 2017, the law school opened its second accredited branch campus, Kern County College of Law in Bakersfield, California.

Maps Monterey College of Law

Academic programs

The J.D. academic program features a part-time, evening program with small classes. The College of Law is accredited by the California Board of Bar Examiners. J.D. graduates of the Monterey College of Law are eligible to sit for the California Bar Exam, and upon passing, be licensed to practice law in California. The law school is the first State Bar accredited law school to be authorized to offer both the M.L.S. and LL.M. degrees in addition to the traditional J.D. law degree.

General Information - Monterey College of Law

src: montereylaw.edu

Academic Leadership

Mitchel L. Winick has served as the full-time dean of the law school since August 2005. He previously served as the Assistant Dean at Texas Tech University School of Law, an ABA approved law school, and has more than three-decades of experience in law, legal education, and business. Dean Winick is a former Assistant Attorney General of Texas and has business experience serving as a senior partner in a management consulting firm, vice president of a publicly traded corporation, and founder of a venture capital firm. Dean Winick received his J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center and B.A. (with emphasis in economics and political science) from the University of the Pacific.

As President and Dean of the law school, Dean Winick serves as the chief executive and chief academic officer managing and administering the business, academic, and financial affairs of all locations of the law school. During Dean Winick's tenure, the law school has grown from approximately $785,000 (2005) to more than $2.2 million (2016) in gross revenue. and has improved its cumulative bar pass rate from 39% (2005) to 57% (2015). The law school has also expanded to include a satellite campus in Santa Cruz and successful branch campuses in San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield.

Dean Winick is active in higher education leadership, recently completing a term as chair of the CBE Rules Advisory Committee (RAC) and currently serving as the chair of the Law School Council. He previously served on the State Bar's Presidential Task Force on Admissions Regulatory Reform (TFARR) and on the Standing Committee for the Delivery of Legal Services. Locally he serves on the higher education advisory committees of the Monterey County Business Council, the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, and Leadership Monterey Peninsula.

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Bar Passage

In 2015, the first year the State Bar of California published cumulative pass rates for California Accredited Law Schools, Monterey College of Law reported a 57% cumulative pass rate.