UC Hastings College of the Law was founded in 1878 as the first law department of the University of California, and today is one of the top-rated law schools in the United States. Our alumni span the globe and are among the most respected lawyers, judges and business leaders today. Our faculty are nationally renowned as both teachers and scholars.

UC Hastings College of the Law

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American Bar Association 

Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA),  Board of Directors (2004-2007) 

Association of American Law Schools 

One Justice (formerly Public Interest Clearinghouse)

State Bar of California 

Bar Association of San Francisco 

Legal Assistance Association of California

San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation, 

San Francisco Mayor’s Homeless Planning Council (1986-87) 

San Francisco Human Rights Commission, Employment Committee (1978-82)

Mark Aaronson joined the UC Hastings faculty in 1992 and was the founding director of its Civil Justice Clinic. Prior to joining the faculty he had an extensive career as a civil rights and anti-poverty lawyer. For 13 years he served as Executive Director of the San Francisco Lawyers' Committee for Urban Affairs (now known as the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area), during which time he argued a federal welfare rights case before the U. S. Supreme Court. He received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. Immediately after law school, he was a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellow with legal services programs in Chicago and Hartford. He later earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. He has written articles on practical judgment in lawyering, civility, legal education, and social welfare policy and a book on representing the poor. He is married to Marjorie Gelb, a now retired attorney, whom he met in law school. They have two daughters, two sons-in-law, and three granddaughters.

Courses Taught:  andProblem Solving & Professional Judgment in Practice

What I hope you get from a legal education at UC Hastings is... a strong commitment to work for the common good, whether as full-time lawyer for social justice or as pro bono volunteer, and that you leave with a solid foundation in law, various lawyering skills, and critical thinking, so that you are best able to learn from your future experiences in ways that will help you to develop the judgment needed to be an excellent problem-solving lawyer.

Community Economic Development

Social Welfare Policy

Clinical Legal Education

Legal Professionalism

Publications

California State-Federal Judicial Council Meeting, San Francisco, CA, June 5, 2015

Speaker, “Experiential Learning and the New Normal in Legal Education,”

Conference on What’s the ‘G’? Gentrification and the Myth of Fair Housing,
Hastings Race & Poverty Law Journal, San Francisco, CA, February 4, 2015

Panel Moderator, “Current Manifestations and Impact of the Tech Industry,”

Conference on the War on Poverty, 1964-2014: The Role of
Attorneys in Alleviating Poverty in the 21st Century, Hastings Race & Poverty
Law Journal, San Francisco, CA, February 13, 2014

Presenter and Panelist, “Legal Services and the War on Poverty in Historical Perspective,”

The Honorable Raymond L. Sullivan Professor of Law

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