California Western School of Law

California Western School of Law, founded in 1924, is a private, nonprofit law school located in San Diego, California. It is popularly known as California Western or Cal Western and formerly California Western University. The school was approved by the American Bar Association (ABA) in 1962and became a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) in 1967.It is the oldest law school in San Diego.

California Western was originally chartered in 1924 by Leland Ghent Stanford as a private graduate institution called Balboa Law College, the first law school in San Diego.His brother, Dwight Stanford, served as one of the first deans. (Leland Ghent Stanford is not related to the founder of Stanford University, Leland Stanford, although he did attend Stanford, where he earned undergraduate and law degrees, and also M.A. and Ph.D degrees in Government Administration.) Balboa Law College expanded to include undergraduate and other graduate studies and changed its name to Balboa University.The law school at Balboa University was closed in 1946.

In 1952, Balboa University became affiliated with the Southern California Methodist Conference, changed its name to California Western University, and relocated to Point Loma.The law school was reopened in downtown. In 1960, the law school had six full-time faculty and 23 students. In that year, it relocated to Rohr Hall at Point Loma. It received approval from the American Bar Association in 1962.