Gifts at Work

Joan Irvine Smith
Investing in the School of Law

In May, the Joan Irvine Smith and Athalie R. Clarke Foundation made a $1 million gift to the new law school at the University of California, Irvine. This was the law school’s first leadership gift and will support the establishment of the law library’s core collection. Smith, like her late mother, Athalie R. Clarke, has been a longtime advocate of establishing a law school at UC Irvine.

“The new law school will greatly benefit the university and the community, because in addition to taking the core curriculum, its students will have an opportunity to focus on intellectual property law, environmental law and public service law,” Smith says.

A staunch supporter of UC Irvine even before its first students arrived in 1965, Smith is the great-granddaughter of James Irvine, an immigrant who assembled about 120,000 acres of what is now Orange County to form the Irvine Ranch. Largely as a result of her efforts, The Irvine Company donated to the University of California Board of Regents 1,000 acres of land that became the UC Irvine campus. Smith has remained an important ally over the decades, donating her time and financial support to help advance the campus.

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