I recall with fondness the optimism that guided my mind and spirit upon graduation from UCLA Law. The rigorous legal education I received instilled in me the knowledge, skills and experiences to confidently seek out and take advantage of life's many opportunities. This same optimism directed my thinking when I first conceived of a cutting-edge business law and policy institute at my alma mater. Over the last decade, that concept has taken shape as a vibrant and innovative locus for legal scholars, new entrepreneurship, and curricula, preparing the next generation of lawyers and leaders in so many arenas beyond the legal field. LMI's robust entrepreneurship programs have made it a cross-collaborative hub for UCLA schools of business, engineering and medicine, attracting hundreds of students across campus and inspiring them to launch new ventures to solve real-world problems. This includes sought-after LMI-sponsored courses in entrepreneurship and the law, and LMI's pioneering Lowell Milken Institute-Sandler Prize for new entrepreneurs, a competition out of which seven award-winning teams have launched their products and services.

LMI classes, workshops and colloquia attract top researchers and scholars in business law and tax law to campus near and far to share their research and thinking with law students. The result is that LMI and its faculty open up the wider academic world to students, providing opportunities to engage with scholars about burgeoning legal issues.

Sustaining impact well beyond the UCLA campus, LMI develops active partnerships in the greater business law community, bringing the most important thought leaders to campus to discuss current and emerging issues. Continually at the forefront of our nation's legal, economic and social conversations, LMI recently launched the Program on Philanthropy and Nonprofits in 2021, aiming to provide lawyers with leadership opportunities to address the major challenges in the ever growing area of philanthropy.

With much accomplished in these first ten years, I am confident LMI will build on these successes to provide greater reach and impact, shifting and growing to meet the needs of a legal, social, and corporate landscape that will inevitably grapple with new questions and challenges, as it has done in its first decade. LMI has become a critical part of what makes UCLA Law unique and exceptional. LMI has now guided hundreds of students towards successful careers in corporate governance, tax law, business, and philanthropy. It is from these students that my optimism is reinvigorated. There is something inherently optimistic about the fact that LMI has and will continue to create and foster the world's most important resource—human capital—a resource that is limitless and generative.

—Lowell Milken

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Read LMI's 10th Anniversary Annual Report here.