If you want to practice in Southern Cal, I’d choose based on ranking more than location.

Take San Diego for example. Univ of San Diego is the best law school in San Diego (might be the only ABA approved school; go check the US News rankings to be sure). While USD graduates are going to be fine looking for jobs in San Diego, if I can get into a much high ranked school, I’d rather go there instead. It’d be a no brainer to go to UCLA or Berkeley over USD, even if they’re not in San Diego.

As a general rule of thumb, I say if the out of area school is two tiers higher than the local school, go to the out of area school. If it’s one tier difference, then maybe consider the local school. If they’re in the same tier, than definitely go with the local school.

http://www.sandiego.edu/usdlaw/

Click the link to see more information.

Degrees offered:

J.D. (Juris Doctor)

LL.M. (Master of Laws) general

LL.M. in Taxation

LL.M. in International Law

LL.M. in Comparative Law (for foreign lawyers)

LL.M. in Business and Corporate Law

(Concurrent Degrees Offered, with other major)

JD/MBA (Master in Business Administration)

JD/IMBA (International Master of Business Administration)

JD/MA (Master of Arts in International Relations)

Accreditation:

-Member

*Association of American Law Schools

*The Order of the Coif

-Accredited

*American Bar Association

*Committee of Bar Examiners-State of California

Not only is the program top-rated, but the campus is beautiful and is close to Downtown, the Beach, the Malls, and close to other Univeristies. I used its (Pardee Legal Research Center) Law Library for studying my undergraduate courses, and I know that other students who are in other Law Programs from other Univeristies frequent the Law Library.

Sources:

Click the first link for its Home Page

Click the second link for its Law Library link

Click the last link for general facts