Could San Jose State get a law school? CA bill aims to make it happen

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- A big push to bring a public law school to San Jose State has passed a legislative hurdle.

Supporters say it could create more opportunities for aspiring lawyers in Silicon Valley.

San Jose is the largest city in the Bay Area, but unlike Berkeley or San Francisco, the city has no public law school.

State Senator Dave Cortese says he's aiming to change that with SB 550.

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"SB 550 is a bill that enables California State University, San Jose, otherwise known as San Jose State, to negotiate with an accredited law school to incorporate and to merge the two together in San Jose," said Cortese, the bill's author.

The idea of a public law school in San Jose is popular with Magnus Herrlin, an SJSU student and president of the school's pre-law association.

"Basically, you have Stanford University and then another private university that is very expensive. By creating a public law school here in San Jose, we'll be able to provide the opportunity and access to a quality, affordable legal education," Herrlin said.

Cortese's alma mater is Lincoln Law School. The nonprofit, state-accredited school just blocks from the SJSU campus is the one he has in mind to merge with SJSU.

"Lincoln is a part-time evening program for that teaches legal education to qualify with the JD and take the California Bar Exam," said Jason Amezcua's, the school's dean.

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Amezcua said many of its students have full-time jobs and families. He said a lot of those students stay in the area after graduation, practicing law in ways that serve local communities.

"Turning up the volume and the access to that education would be vastly increased through a relationship with San Jose State University," he said.

Not everyone is in support of the bill, including the University of California.

The bill analysis showed that the UC system argued in part that it already has law schools close to San Jose, including two accessible via public transit.

A UC spokesperson sent a statement saying: "The University of California recognizes the changing nature of education and labor force needs of the state. The Master Plan on Higher Education designates UC as the only public university system that may offer doctoral degrees. However, UC has come to agreements with the other segments on degree programs out of the scope of the Master Plan in recent years. UC looks forward to continuing our conversations with the author's office."

Cortese said he's not trying to pit the UC and CSU systems against each other.

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"We're not trying to do this somewhere else in the state. We're just saying San Jose, that at least in San Jose, we ought to give this model a try," he said.

We reached out to San Jose State, who did not want to comment for now.

Cortese said no one has agreed to anything yet but said that the university's president is open to the conversation.

The bill still has more hurdles to clear. It goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.