Berkeley Law alumni include notable federal judges, politicians, Fortune 500 executives, noted legal academics and civil rights experts.

Prominent alumni include Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and Chair of the Federal Reserve G. William Miller, President of the International Court of Justice Joan Donoghue, Mayor of San Francisco Ed Lee, Dallas Mavericks CEO Terdema Ussery, and Nuremberg Trials prosecutor Whitney Robson Harris.

[10] In 1901, the number of faculty was increased to six by the hiring of one lecturer and two instructors, which enabled the department to offer courses adding up to two years of instruction.

[10] On June 26, 1902, newspapers in San Francisco and Oakland reported that there was now a "complete law school" at Berkeley, whose graduates would be eligible to immediately apply for admission to the California bar without having to take additional courses at Hastings.

[1]: 171  This proved to be too much for the school's beautiful but tiny Beaux-Arts building, with everyone from the dean on down complaining incessantly for three decades about extreme overcrowding in Boalt Hall.

[1]: 171  The Great Depression caused even more young people to seek refuge from the economic crisis in law school, with enrollment reaching 297.

When it turned out the $1.35 million allocated by the state government would be insufficient, the School of Jurisprudence raised $885,000 from private sources to make up the difference.

[1]: 202–204 After World War II, the greatest problem facing the School of Jurisprudence was the considerable political pressure to ease up on admissions standards and grow larger to accommodate a surge of interest in legal careers from G.I.

[1]: 197, 241  Hastings underwent rapid expansion to meet this demand, while in 1947, Southern Californians finally succeeded in persuading the state legislature to appropriate over a million dollars for the construction of a law school at the University of California, Los Angeles.

[1]: 200, 241  The faculty at Berkeley came to understand that these developments were beneficial—in that they relieved pressure to compromise on their standards—which explains why they later supported and worked on the creation of another UC law school at Davis during the 1960s.

[1]: 202, 241, 261  It was Berkeley's ability to hold the line on its elitist standards which led to its ascent to the top tier of American law schools by the 1990s.

[1]: 202 The California Law Review was historically run as a nonprofit corporation independent of the School of Jurisprudence which relied largely on income from subscriptions and advertising.

[1]: 218 Through his alliance with the conservative regents who had hired him, Coffman was able to secure an unusual amount of autonomy for the law faculty at Los Angeles from the Academic Senate with respect to appointments, courses, and budgets.

[1]: 211–215  However, the resulting 1952 amendments to the regents' standing orders were so broadly worded as to affect all UC professional schools offering courses only at the graduate level.

[1]: 211–215  The deep rupture between the law and non-law faculty caused great consternation for Clark Kerr throughout his term as Berkeley chancellor, as well as his early years as university president.

[18] At ground level, they built a glass pavilion housing classrooms, a student lounge, and a cafe, all of which is topped off by a rooftop garden accessible by a second-floor bridge.

[18] The North Addition is now home to the Robbins Collection (a separate library of religious and civil law materials) and the Visiting Scholar Program.

[19] The de-naming was the outcome of a nearly three-year process launched after a UC Berkeley lecturer discovered writings by John Henry Boalt expressing flagrantly racist views.

The faculty of Berkeley Law also provide academic direction and the bulk of the instruction for the undergraduate program in Legal Studies, which is organized as a major in Letters and Science.

[37] The total cost of attendance (adding estimated living expenses to the aforementioned tuition and fees) at Berkeley Law for the 2018–2019 academic year is $85,315 for California residents and $89,266 for non-residents.

[23] These institutes are located both on the UC Berkeley campus and in other regions of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, and are often conducted through partnerships with attorneys, interest groups, law firms, and corporations throughout Northern California and the United States.

[42] In addition to housing chapters of the American Constitution Society and The Federalist Society, the Law School enables interested students to spend a semester studying constitutional and regulatory law at the University of California's Washington campus, and hosts civil field placements and externships with the offices of various judges, United States Attorneys, Attorneys General, and other government offices.

Berkeley Law has several clinical programs and centers that allow students to gain practical experience advocating for social justice and assisting low-income or marginalized individuals.

[43][44] Many clinics, externships, field placements, and programs are hosted in partnership with the nearby East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC), which provides legal aid for disadvantaged Alameda County residents.

Students can work with the EBCLC on issues such as juvenile justice, expungement of minor crimes, housing law, tax assistance, and small business establishment.

It publishes an annual print journal and blog (called The Network) and connects students to professors and practitioners in the corporate law space through on-campus symposia and events.

Berkeley Law has produced a substantial number of prominent alumni at all levels of government, jurisprudence, business, legal practice, academia, and society.

Berkeley Law has also produced various international leaders, including Nuremberg Trials prosecutor Whitney Robson Harris and Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand Wissanu Krea-ngam.

These graduates encompass current influential federal judges Miranda Du, Amul Thapar, Vince Chhabria, Marsha Berzon, and Evan Wallach.

Included are Paula Boggs, Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Starbucks Corporation, Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal, Mitchell Baker, current CEO and Executive Chair of the Mozilla Corporation, Larry Hillblom, co-founder of DHL], and James Cavallaro, who served as President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.