Dec 9 (Reuters) - Every year, thousands of third-year law students across the country apply for coveted federal judicial clerkships, and every year, the same law schools -- Yale, Stanford, and Harvard -- top the list of those whose graduates populate federal judges' chambers.

But for the class of 2012, which began receiving its clerkship offers this fall, a new name has muscled in among the elite old guard: The University of California at Irvine School of Law, which only opened its doors in 2009 and is still waiting on full accreditation by the American Bar Association.

Despite not yet having bestowed a single law degree, UC Irvine says it has placed nearly a fifth of its 2012 graduates with district and circuit court judges. That rate was recently surpassed only by Yale, with 27 percent, and Stanford, with 24 percent, according to the latest figures from U.S. News & World Report, which tracks clerkship placement.

Had it been ranked, Irvine would have placed ahead of Harvard, which landed 18 percent of its graduates in federal clerkships in 2009.

"It's an impressive rate," said Debra M. Strauss, professor of business law at Fairfield University and former director of the judicial clerkship program at Yale Law School.

With just 58 students, UC Irvine's 2012 class is relatively small, but its results are "still striking," Strauss said. "These are very prominent judges ... truly prized clerkships."

UC Irvine Law has not yet been ranked by US News, but the ABA granted the school provisional accreditation in June, and could grant full accreditation by 2014, said Rex Bossert, a spokesman for the law school.

ESTABLISHING A REPUTATION

The clerkship selection process is a high-stakes game for all parties. Top law firms often pay former clerks generous signing bonuses, and law schools hunger for the prestige that comes from sending graduates to the most respected judges. But Strauss said it typically takes years to build up a clerkship-focused culture at a law school. "One would not have expected the traditional channels of feeding to clerkships to be in place so quickly," she said.

So how did UC Irvine do it? By relying on two of the usual suspects: money and influence.

From its conception in 2001, Irvine's founders sought to build a "dream" law school that would draw top student talent to the well-to-do city about 50 miles outside of Los Angeles, said Charles Cannon, assistant dean of development and external affairs.

To that end, the school gave a full scholarship to every member of its inaugural class, which increased applications to the extent that admissions officers were able to select just four percent of applicants. In comparison, Yale accepted 7 percent of applicants to its class of 2013, Stanford accepted 9 percent, and Harvard accepted 11 percent. The inaugural class's law-school admission test scores were also on par with those at the top law schools.

The other major factor in Irvine's unexpectedly high placement rate is the law school's dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, a prominent constitutional scholar and Harvard Law graduate. Chemerinsky told Reuters in an interview that he has made judicial clerkships a focus of his tenure, and has reached out to judges across the country.

"We have terrific students, and the judges who have met with them and made them offers have recognized that," he said. "I know a lot of judges and am known by a lot of judges, so I think that helped."

$30 MLN IN PRIVATE DONATIONS

Irvine is one of five law schools in the University of California system, which includes Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis and UC Hastings. All but Hastings were top-20 law schools in the most recent US News rankings, but none placed as many federal judicial clerks as Irvine: Berkley placed 11 percent, UCLA School of Law 9 percent, and UC Davis 5 percent.

Like the other UC law schools, Irvine receives only 13 percent of its funding from the state, which has been slashing money to universities for the past several years. In response the school raised $30 million in private donations over a three-year campaign beginning in 2007, and plans to raise an additional $70 million over the next five years, Cannon said. Among the largest gifts are contributions of $20 million from the Donald Bren Foundation and gifts of more than $100,000 each from dozens of law firms, including Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and O'Melveny & Myers.

"Securing private funding has been critical for all UC law schools," Cannon said. "Private gifts make all the difference between a decent and a top-tier institution."

'SELF-PERPETUATING' TREND

UC Irvine Law graduates will clerk for federal judges in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, along with eight federal trial judges.

However, it remains to be seen whether the school will keep up its clerkship-placement success as its acceptance rate rises. For the class of 2013, the school provided 50-percent scholarships, and its acceptance rate was 18 percent. The class of 2014 received 33-percent scholarships, and its rate was just under 24 percent. But LSAT scores for the classes of 2013 and 2014 stayed the same as those of the inaugural class.

Elizabeth Schroeder, the law school's dean of students, said the class of 2013 "is performing on target with the first class, and we expect them to do as well" in clerkship placement.

Irvine has also set aside up to 20 full scholarships for the class of 2015 -- some specifically for public interest law -- and additional financial aid will be available based on need, Cannon said.

Strauss said that UC Irvine Law's future placement success will depend on whether the school can continue to attract top talent and establish a reputation over time. But the early numbers don't hurt. "When a clerkship program is strong from the start, the trend tends to be self-perpetuating," she said.

(Reporting by Moira Herbst)

Follow us on Twitter: @ReutersLegal

(A previous version of this story stated that UC Irvine Law was expected to receive full ABA accreditation in five years. The school could receive full accreditation by 2014.)