Centers & Programs
Working Together
All of our Centers work in cutting-edge or innovative areas of the law and provide opportunities for students and practitioners to work together and collaborate. UC Law SF faculty and center staffs share their results with the legal community through special programs, events, and reports.
The Center for Business Law
The Center for Business Law (CBL) at UC Law SF brings together a vast array of opportunities for students, faculty and alumni to engage in the study, teaching and practice of business law in the one of the world’s great centers of commerce, finance and technology.
Indigenous Law Center
The UC Law SF Indigenous Law Center (ILC) advances the position that UC Law SF, as a public law school, has a responsibility and an opportunity to educate students about how U.S. law impacts Native American Nations and peoples. The charge of the ILC is thus to enhance our curriculum by offering courses, seminars, public lecture series, panels, and an affiliated scholar program.
Institute for Criminal Justice
The Institute for Criminal Justice is dedicated to promoting the fair, effective, and ethical administration of criminal justice. An umbrella entity for criminal justice engagement by the UC Law SF community, the Institute pursues these goals through rigorous and engaged scholarship, high-quality pedagogy and educational programs, legal representation, and community outreach. Consistent with the public service ideals of the University, the Institute will place particular emphasis on serving the needs of the local community, with an eye towards reform of the criminal justice system on a statewide and national basis.
International Development Law Center
The mission of the International Development Law Center is to share international development expertise while providing research and learning opportunities for UC Law SF students, graduates, and faculty. The Center implements international projects in a variety of subject areas, including food and agriculture, sustainable development, and legal education. Established with the explicit objective of collaborating across disciplines and cultures, the Center pursues links with other academic and research organizations, increasing the law school’s global footprint while generating international contacts and opportunities for the UC Law SF community. Jessica Vapnek directs the Center.
Center for East Asian Legal Studies
The Center for East Asian Legal Studies (CEALS) is preparing the next generation of global legal professionals to meet demands created by the economic and growth and legal transformation in East Asia. Building on our law school’s existing strengths in international and comparative law, CEALS offers a broad range of courses, exchange programs, internships and public events on key East Asian legal systems. The CEALS program is advancing understanding of legal change in East Asia and providing students with tools to work effectively with clients and counterparts in this dynamic region.
The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies
The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) founded in 1999, is the nation’s leading advocacy organization on the issue of women asylum-seekers fleeing gender-related violence. CGRS provides legal expertise and resources to attorneys and coordinates legal and national public policy advocacy efforts. The center integrates students and international scholars into all aspects of its work.
Center for Innovation
The Center for Innovation (C4i) promotes data-driven law-making and seeks to empower regulators to make informed, evidence-based decisions, particularly at the intersection of law and technology. More than a think tank, C4i is an action tank invested in identifying implementable solutions to today’s problems. Research initiatives and classroom components are integral to the Center as it identifies and advances the knowledge, tools, and skills necessary to foster innovation in the practice and development of law and policy. Three primary programs comprise the Center’s work: Startup Legal Garage, the Law & Medicine Initiative, and The AI & Capital Markets Initiative.
LexLab
LexLab is a legal tech hub connecting UC Law SF students and alumni to investors, founders, lawyers, engineers and companies building the future of legal services.
The Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution
The Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution (CNDR). As lawyers turn to negotiation, mediation, and arbitration to settle matters that previously were adjudicated, the need has increased for attorneys to master dispute resolution. CNDR organizes classes, research, and professional programs for the study of alternative ways to settle disputes.
Center for Litigation and Courts
The nonpartisan Center for Litigation and Courts was established in 2021 to expand the knowledge of civil litigation, alternative dispute resolution, and the courts; to disseminate that knowledge to the bench, bar, legal academy, and lay public; and to supply resources and guidance to members of the UC Law SF community interested in civil litigation. In addition to offering its own products and programs, the Center for Litigation and Courts serves as the umbrella organization for other UC Law SF institutes and projects focused on litigation or courts.
Center for Racial and Economic Justice
The Center for Racial and Economic Justice (CREJ) works to advance equity through legal education, scholarship and collaboration. CREJ enriches UC Law SF by providing our intellectual community with access to nationally renowned thinkers on issues of racial and economic inequality and the space to critically examine how the law reinforces subordination.
Center for Race, Immigration, Citizenship, and Equality
The Center for Race, Immigration, Citizenship, and Equality (RICE) supports scholarship, education, and public service on the ways that intersectional and marginalized identities produce and reflect structural inequality.
Center for Social Justice
The Center for Social Justice provides strategic leadership of social justice activities at the law school and promotes a strong public interest campus culture. The Center’s goal is to help all students find meaningful ways to incorporate justice work into their professional identity and future practice.
UC Law SF Center on Tax Law
The UC Law SF Center on Tax Law connects students, faculty, alumni, and friends who study, discuss, practice, and seek to improve tax law. In addition to sponsoring on-campus presentations by both academics and practitioners, members of our tax faculty are frequent contributors to both academic journals and real-time, current events in taxation. The Center also develops relationships between current and former students, potential employers, and the community. If you are interested in participating in the Center’s activities, please let us know.
UCSF – UC Law Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy
UCSF/UC Law Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy is dedicated to promoting research, education, and service opportunities that bridge the gap between law and science. To a large extent, scientists and health care professionals operate largely insulated from one another, both in their formal training and their daily practice. Increasingly, the demands of modern law and science require a sophisticated understanding of the other’s form and function. Lawyers and scientists can no longer continue to work in isolation. Instead, they must be well-versed in one another’s vocabulary and their practices need to be integrated. The UCSF/UC Law SF Consortium was founded to promote this collaboration.
The Center for Worklife Law
The Center for WorkLife Law (WLL) seeks to jump-start the stalled gender revolution by focusing, at any given time, on a few projects that hold the promise of producing concrete social or institutional change within a three-to-five year time frame. We concentrate our efforts on advancing women’s leadership, developing legal protections for employees with family responsibilities, and promoting better work-life policies within institutions. Our current initiatives include programs and best practices for advancing women leaders, case studies on major law firm rainmakers and new models of legal practice, research on how gender bias differs by race, and an innovative working group on pregnancy accommodation.