University of Chicago Law School
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| Established: | 1902 |
| Type: | Private |
| Endowment: | US $209 million |
| Dean: | Saul Levmore |
| Staff: | 124 |
| Students: | 589 |
| Location: | Chicago, Illinois, USA |
| Campus: | Urban |
| Website: | http://www.law.uchicago.edu/ |
The University of Chicago Law School, having recently celebrated its centennial in the 2002-2003 school year, has established itself as a high profile part of the University of Chicago.
It is ranked 7th overall in the US News & World Report graduate school rankings, with its student body ranking 5th in the nation. [1] Additionally, Chicago's faculty has the highest per capita article citation rate of any American law school. [2] Chicago ranks second on a ranking of the "Top 15 Schools From Which the Most 'Prestigious' Law Firms Hire New Lawyers"; second for "Faculty Quality"; third for "Supreme Court Clerkship Placement"; and fifth for "Student Quality".[1] The Law School is also notable for having the third highest gross and second highest per capita placement of alumni as U.S. Supreme Court clerkships [3], with roughly 15-25% of each graduating class going on to clerkships at the federal or state level. Private career prospects are equally bright for graduates, placing highly into elite firms. [4] The school awards the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree, as well as the L.L.M., J.S.D and D.Comp.L (solely to foreign trained lawyers).
The Law School is well-known for its advancement of the application of social science to the law. A significant movement in jurisprudence began at the law school when Aaron Director initiated the first modern systemic investigation between the intersection of law and economics, an area in which the law school's faculty figure prominently.
In addition, the law school is known for the fact that President Barack Obama served on its faculty for twelve years, teaching constitutional law. He was first classified as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.
Publications
The University of Chicago Law Review is one of the school's flagship student-run journals. The Chicago Journal of International Law and the University of Chicago Legal Forum are the Law School's other well-known student-run journals. Students interested in membership on any of these journals participate in a writing competition at the end of the first year. The Law Review selects 19 students for membership based on first year GPA ("grade on"), and 10 students for the quality of their writing competition submission ("write on"). The other two student-run journals select members on the basis of writing competition submissions alone (without regard to GPA). All three student-run journals also allow second and third year students to "write on" by submitting a piece of legal scholarship worthy of publication.
The Supreme Court Review, published by the law school and overseen by faculty since the 1960s, remains the most cited legal journal internationally with respect to commentary on the nation's highest court. The faculty also oversees publication of the Journal of Law and Economics and the Journal of Legal Studies.
Legal Clinics
The Law School boasts three highly-regarded legal clinics: the Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, the Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project, and the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship. Second and third year students at the Law School are afforded the opportunity to work within these clinics
Courses that are linked to these clinical programs include: Appellate Advocacy, the Civil Rights Police Accountability Project, the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Project, the Employment Discrimination Project, the Housing Initiative, Mental Health Advocacy (within the Mandel Clinic), Immigrant Children's Advocacy, and Entrepreneurship (associated with the Institute for Justice).
Student Organizations
The Law School is home to one of the three founding chapters of the Federalist Society. It is also home to a large chapter of the progressive American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
[edit] Grading
The Law School employs a unique grading system with a range from 155 to 186. These numerical grades convert to the more familiar alphabetical scale as follows: 155-159 = F, 160-167 = D, 168-173 = C, 174-179 = B, 180-186 = A. For classes of more than 50 students, the median grade is 177, and the number of As should approximately equal the number of Cs.
A student graduates "with honors" if a final average of 179 is attained, "with high honors" if a final average of 180.5 is attained, and "with highest honors" if a final average of 182 is attained. The last of these achievements is rare; typically only one student every few years will attain the requisite 182 average. Additionally, the Law School awards two class-rank based honors at graduation. The top 10% are honored as "Order of the Coif," and the top 5% are honored as "Kirkland Scholars" (a designation created in 2006 by a $7 million donation from the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis). [5]
The grading scale was previously 55-86, but the school prefixed their grades with a "1" in 2003 to avoid confusion with traditional grading scales.
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