[9] Near the end of 1948, the Committee finally identified a sufficiently conservative candidate willing to take the job: L. Dale Coffman, then the dean of Vanderbilt University Law School.

[7] Coffman was able to recruit several distinguished faculty to UCLA, including Roscoe Pound, Brainerd Currie, Rollin M. Perkins, and Harold Verrall.

[7][8] On May 24, 1956, Coffman was stripped of his deanship after a lengthy investigation by a panel of deans of his biases and his "dictatorial, undemocratic, and autocratic" management style.

[7] He remained on the faculty until his forced retirement in 1973, but continued to face allegations as late as 1971 that he was "an unreconstructed McCarthyite and pro-segregationist.

[11] Dean Maxwell "presided over happier, more harmonious years of institutional growth,"[8] and it was under his deanship that UCLA became "the youngest top-ranked law school in the country.

[8] In October 1963, the law school administration announced a major remodeling and expansion project, which added air conditioning and a new wing to the building.

[8] The chronic space shortage was ultimately relieved by the addition of a wing for clinical education [12] and, after four grueling years of construction, completion of the new Hugh and Hazel Darling Law Library on January 22, 2000.

[14] In the 1990s and through subsequent years, the school established several "centers of excellence" that focus on education and advocacy in specific fields.

)[15] program for those who do not seek a law degree, but find a legal education an important complement to their professional obligations.

Through clinical courses and related offerings, the school allows students to directly represent clients in a variety of settings while under expert supervision.

The roughly 300 students who begin law school at UCLA every year are divided into sections to encourage a sense of community.

The oldest parts of the Law Building's interior are notorious for a "high school atmosphere" and "dark, drafty classrooms".

[26][27] In 2022, UCLA joined a growing list of law schools that said they would no longer actively participate in the U.S. News Rankings.