IRVINE -- UC Irvine School of Law has established a Korea Law Center to promote practical solutions to problems arising at the intersection of U.S. and Korean law.

The center, part of a new, multi-continent UC Irvine International Commerce & Law Institute, will provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, legal scholars, judges, lawyers and business people from South Korea and the United States to learn and work together here and in Korea.

"We intend our Korea Law Center to be the first of several international branches of our UC Irvine International Commerce & Law Institute, the goal of which is to foster international cooperation among the business, legal and educational communities on several continents -- so far, Europe, North America and Asia," said UCI School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Partnerships with the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain, and law schools and lawyers in China are also in the works, Chemerinsky said. "No other American law school has a business and law institute with a comparable international reach," he said.

The Korea Law Center will operate in partnership with law schools at Seoul National University and Sogang University in Seoul. The center in Irvine will eventually function as a one-stop facility for U.S.-Korean business and legal matters, offering such services as continuing legal education, certification for practitioners, mediation, expert witnesses, consulting, research, and public policy guidance to support the academic, legal and business communities. Complementing the center's practice-oriented education will be a global clinical program working with real clients, including those in the Orange County Korean community.

A five-member board of directors, including Dean Chemerinsky, will direct the Korea Law Center, guided by a board of advisors to be drawn from law and business in the U.S. and Korea.

About UC Irvine School of Law: UCI School of Law seeks to create the ideal law school for the 21st century by doing the best job in the country of training lawyers for the practice of law at the highest levels of the profession. The law school's inaugural class will start classes Aug. 24 supported by a three-year, full-tuition scholarship and a 3:1 student-to-faculty ratio. Recruited from top schools, the faculty has been ranked in the top 10 in a recent study. The innovative curriculum stresses hands-on, interdisciplinary study and public service. www.law.uci.edu