Welcome Back Open House Spotlights New Cotchett Law Center
UC Law SF hosted an open house on Sept. 17 to welcome community members and friends back to campus after a long pandemic-forced absence. Dozens of students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends, partners, and neighbors attended the celebratory event.
Standing on the quad that links Kane Hall and the new Cotchett Law Center, Chancellor and Dean David Faigman welcomed the UC Law SF community back after many months of virtual gatherings and Zoom classes. 鈥淭his is an open house: Check out the new building. Go up to the fifth floor of the Cotchett Center. Take a selfie with the City Hall in the background. Walk across the fourth-floor sky bridge. See our renovated sixth floor of the 200 building. And visit the first floor, which is also fully renovated,鈥 Faigman said. 鈥淲e have this sense of momentum. Things are really moving quickly and it鈥檚 very exciting.鈥
For those who had not been on campus since COVID-19 propelled the school online in March 2020, there was much to marvel at. Guests had the opportunity to tour the college鈥檚 new classroom and center spaces in Kane Hall as well as its spectacular Cotchett Law Center academic building. Food and drink were provided by UC Law SF鈥 neighbor , an innovative women-led food hall that launched mid-pandemic.
State Assemblymembers David Chiu and Phil Ting and former State Senator Mark Leno each offered remarks, as did Joe Cotchett 鈥64, ASUCH President Kameelah Sims-Traylor 鈥22, and Board of Directors Vice Chair Simona Agnolucci 鈥06.
Chiu, Ting, and Leno鈥檚 advocacy was key to securing California funding for the state-of-the-art, 57,000 square-foot building at 333 Golden Gate Ave, which was named in recognition of Cotchett鈥檚 substantial contributions to the school.
鈥淔or us, it was so easy to support moving this great institution forward, 鈥淐hiu said. 鈥淚 get asked a lot by young students graduating from college who want to go to law school, 鈥榃here should I go?鈥 And I say to them 鈥 with all due respect for anyone who might have gone to Stanford 鈥 don鈥檛 go to Stanford. Don鈥檛 go to the Ivy League. There is one school in the heart of our city where if you graduate and want to run for state assembly, you can become the speaker of the assembly and then the mayor of San Francisco, as UC Law SF graduate Willie Brown 鈥58 will tell you. You could even become an assistant DA, then an assistant city attorney, and then run for DA of the city, run for attorney general of our state, and then become the next vice president of the United States [like Kamala Harris 鈥89闭.鈥