Notre Dame Law School
Parent schoolUniversity of Notre Dame
Religious affiliationRoman Catholic (Congregation of Holy Cross)
Established1869 (1869)
School typePrivate law school
Parent endowment$18.9 billion[1]
DeanG. Marcus Cole
LocationNotre Dame, Indiana, U.S.
41°41′55.27″N 86°14′16.45″W / 41.6986861°N 86.2379028°W / 41.6986861; -86.2379028
Enrollment529 (2022)[2]
Faculty135 (2022)[2]
USNWR ranking27th (2023)[3]
Bar pass rate90.16% (2019)[4]
Websitelaw.nd.edu

Notre Dame Law School is the professional graduate law school of the University of Notre Dame. Established in 1869,[5][6] it is the oldest continuously operating Catholic law school in the United States.[7]

According to Notre Dame's 2022 ABA-required disclosures, 91% of the Class of 2022 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment ten months after graduation.[8] The law school is notable for its high rate of students accepting federal judicial clerkships, placing 4th in the nation with a clerkship rate of 15.2%, behind Stanford Law School, Yale Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School.[9]

The school enrolls about 600 students and in addition to the J.D. degree it also offers dual JD–MBA and several a dual J.D. and Masters combined degrees (including JD/MS, JD/MA, JD/M.Eng.). It also offers the only American Bar Association–approved, year-long, study-abroad program, which is based in London.[10]

History

Beginnings

Notre Dame Law School opened in February 1869. It was the second Catholic law school opened in the United States, and the oldest in continuous operation. The first was the law school of Saint Louis University, which opened in 1843 but closed soon after in 1847 (it was then re-opened in 1908).[7] Despite its humble beginning, right from the start, the Law School required law students to have completed previous education in a thorough course in the liberal arts. This was uncommon at the time when Law School applicants only had to be 18. The first “principal” of the law department and Professor of Law was Matthew F. Colovin. Other law faculty in the early years included Lucius Tong and Timothy Howard. The first class graduated in 1871 and consisted of three students.

The reading room of the Kresge Law Library, in Biolchini Hall

"Colonel" Hoynes era

The Arch connecting Eck (left) and Biolchini (right) Halls

One of the most important names in the history of the school was "Colonel" William J. Hoynes. He was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1847 and emigrated with his parents at age seven. He fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war, he was a student at Notre Dame from 1867 to 1872, and later went to Brunswick, New Jersey where he was editor of the Daily Times. Hoynes later attended the University of Michigan Law School where he obtained his LL.B. In 1882, Rev. Walsh, then the president of the university, invited Hoynes to take control of the Law School, which was in demise. Hoynes accepted Rev. Walsh's offer in 1883, and taught classes in the Main Administration Building and in Sorin Hall where a large room permitted him to set up a "Moot Court". The course of study was extended from two to three years. Hoynes was assisted in various subjects by John Ewing and Lucius Hubbard of South Bend. Under his tenure, enrollment in the law school began to rise immediately.

The university restored the old building of the Institute of Technology after it was damaged by fire in 1916, and renamed it Hoynes Hall in honor of Dean William Hoynes. It was given to the exclusive use of the law students who moved there from Sorin Hall.[11] After the Law School moved to its own building, Hoynes Hall housed the Architecture Department until 1963 and the Psychology Department until 1974, and then was renamed Crowley Hall and became the house of the Music Department since 1976. In 1925 John Whitman was appointed by Dean Thomas Konop as the first Law School librarian, and the collection grew to 7,000 volumes. In 1921 Maxine Evelyn Ryer became the first woman to study law at Notre Dame and the first woman to practice law in St. Joseph County, Indiana. In 1944, statues by Eugene Kormendi were added to the building as part of a campus beautification project.[12]

20th century

On October 7, 1930, the Law School was transferred to the new building located on Notre Dame Avenue. The beautiful Gothic building, which still stands today, has a large reading room. The second librarian, Lora Lashbrook, and the third, Marie Lawrence, grew the library's collection to 20,000 volumes by 1952, and 55,000 volumes by 1960. The increase of both the library collection and student population reduced the available space. Regardless, this was balanced by the expansion of the law school funded by a donation from S. S. Kresge, the namesake of the Kresge Law Library. Under the guidance of Dean Lawless the school started one of the nation's first programs allowing law students to study abroad, with a year-long program in London to study the roots of common law.[13] In 1986 a further expansion added the East Reading Room and created the reference librarian offices. In 1990 alumnus John F. Sandner donated funding for the acquisition of the entire 120,000 volume collection of the Chicago Bar Association Library. In 1970, Graciela Olivarez became the first woman and Latina to graduate from Notre Dame Law School. The next class to graduate women would be 1973.

21st-century

New resources for scholarship

In 2004, the Kresge Law Library became one of the few academic law libraries to own more than 600,000 volumes. This was accomplished mainly under the tenure of the fifth law librarian, Roger Jacobs, who also served as head librarian of the Library of the United States Supreme Court. Between 2007 and 2008, a new building, the Eck Hall of Law, was constructed to provide the Law School with an additional 85,000 square feet of classroom and office space. In 2010 Robert Biolchini, alumnus and entrepreneur from Tulsa, Oklahoma, funded the renovation of the Kresge Law Library, located in the renamed Biolchini Hall of Law. The renovated Biolchini Hall is 106,500 square feet, has two 50-seat classrooms, a seminar room, 29 group study rooms, and holds 300,000 book volumes and more than 300,000 volumes in microfilm. The total cost of renovations and expansions was approximately 58 million dollars.

Faculty hiring momentum

In recent years, the expanding Notre Dame Law faculty has attracted several accomplished scholars from other top law schools. In 2009, University of Virginia Law School Professor Stephen Smith left a tenured position to join the Notre Dame Law faculty.[14] In 2012, Professor Barry Cushman, the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of History at the University of Virginia, joined the ND Law faculty.[15] In 2017, it was announced that private law theorist Paul Miller from McGill University would join the Notre Dame faculty. Samuel Bray, a remedies theorist previously teaching at UCLA law, joined the faculty in 2018. During the same period, long-time Notre Dame professors have been invited for visiting faculty positions at Harvard, the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago law schools.

Expanded urban presence in DC and Chicago

In 2013, new space was secured for the Notre Dame Law in Chicago program, which allows ND Law students to pursue their studies from an urban campus in downtown Chicago ("in the Loop").[16] In 2015, in partnership with Kirkland & Ellis, the law school debuted its Notre Dame Law in DC program, which allows students to spend a semester studying in Washington, DC.[17]

In recent years, the school has hosted talks and events by many prominent legal figures, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, William Barr, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]

Deans

Admissions and rankings

Biolchini Hall in winter

Admission to Notre Dame Law School is highly selective. For the class entering in the fall of 2023, the median LSAT score was 169 and the median undergraduate GPA was 3.83.[26]

Notre Dame Law School is ranked 27th among the nation's "Top 100 Law Schools" by U.S. News & World Report for 2023[27] and 10th by Above The Law in their annual Top 50 Law School Rankings for 2023.[28] The law School is a top 10 runner-up for Elite Litigation boutique hiring.[29]

Degrees

The law school grants the professional Juris Doctor, Master of Laws and Doctor of Juridical Science degrees. The Master of Laws program can be pursued either at the main campus in South Bend or at the Law School's London Law Centre in the United Kingdom. The law school also offers a Master of Science in Patent Law, Certificate in Patent Prosecution, and LL.M. in International Human Rights Law.

Job and clerkship placement

For the class of 2022, 191 out of 210 graduates (90%) secured full-time, long-term employment requiring passage of the bar exam within ten months of graduation.[30] The top 3 most popular destinations for graduates in the class of 2018 were Illinois (18.1%), New York (13.3%), and California (7.1%). Furthermore, 38.6% of graduates in the class of 2022 found employment at national law firms and 15.2% pursued federal clerkships.[31] Notre Dame has been recognized as a feeder school for federal clerks and in recent years has placed a higher percentage of its graduates as federal clerks than other top law schools, such as Harvard Law School, University of Pennsylvania Law School and Columbia Law School.[32] It is ranked 4th in graduates attaining federal judicial clerkships[33] and 5th in graduates attaining Supreme Court clerkships.[34]

Costs

The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Notre Dame Law School for the 2023-2024 academic year is $92,744.[35]

Facilities

Former main entrance to Notre Dame Law School; the new Eck Hall of Law opened in 2009.

Notre Dame Law School is located in the heart of Notre Dame's campus and it housed in the Eck and Biochini Halls, two buildings connected by a suspended walkway.

Biolchini Hall was designed by architect Charles Donagh Maginnis in 1930 and serves as a prominent example of collegiate Gothic architecture. It was renovated in 2010 thanks to a gift from Robert Biolchini and renamed to its current name. The Kresge Law Library is located in Biochini Hall, while most of the classrooms are in Eck Hall. Funding for the law library was provided by businessman S.S. Kresge, the founder of what is now Sears Holding Corporation. In 2004, the Kresge Law Library became one of the few academic law libraries to own more than 600,000 volumes. This was accomplished mainly under the tenure of the fifth law librarian, Roger Jacobs, who also served as head librarian of the Library of the United States Supreme Court.

Eck Hall was built in 2010. The $57-million, 85,000-square-foot building was connected to the original building through a suspended walkway that constitutes a common area. Eck includes both classrooms and faculty and administrative offices, as well as space for student services and activities. In addition to a 205-seat moot courtroom, the Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom, there are four lecture halls, five seminar rooms, and three skills training rooms available for classes and events.[36] The construction of Eck and the connecting walkway to Biolchini also allowed for the creation of a new chapel dedicated to St. Thomas More. The building was named in honor of school graduate, benefactor, and advisor Frank E. Eck.[37]

The Law School also hosts a legal aid clinic in South Bend.[38]

Notable alumni

Despite having smaller graduating classes than most of America's top law schools, Notre Dame's alumni roster includes a range of distinguished jurists, advocates, politicians, and business leaders.

Notable faculty

Notable current faculty include:

Notable former faculty include:

Law journals

Notre Dame Law School publishes five student-run journals:[40]

References

  1. ↑ Vales, Emma (March 8, 2023). "Notre Dame's Endowment Value Hits Record $13.1 Billion". Retrieved July 14, 2023.
  2. 1 2 "ABA Standard 509 Information Report" (PDF). ABA Standard 509 Information Report. ABA. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
  3. ↑ "Best Law Schools". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 13 May 2023.
  4. ↑ "CombinedBPReportForDisclosure2018" (PDF). Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  5. ↑ Konop, Thomas (November 1930). "History of the Notre Dame College of Law". Notre Dame Law Review. 6 (1): 5. Retrieved 10 September 2015.
  6. ↑ "Century of Law at Notre Dame" (PDF). Century of Law at Notre Dame. Rev. Philip S. Moore, C.S.C. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  7. 1 2 Owens, Dennis (1976). "American Law Schools in Their Second Century". Journal of Legal Education. 28 (2): 210–215. ISSN 0022-2208. JSTOR 42892391.
  8. ↑ "University of Notre Dame" (PDF). www.nd.edu. Retrieved 2023-07-14.
  9. ↑ "These law schools sent the most grads to federal clerkships". www.reuters.com.
  10. ↑ "University of Notre Dame Law School". Retrieved Apr 20, 2020.
  11. ↑ "When It's Time to Change, You've Got to Rearrange". 15 April 2011. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  12. ↑ "N.D. Planning New Statues for Buildings". South Bend Tribune. May 12, 1944. p. 17.
  13. ↑ Hevesi, Dennis (27 April 2007). "William B. Lawless Jr., 84, Former Justice and Law Dean, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  14. ↑ "Stephen Smith". University of Notre Dame Law School. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  15. ↑ Williams, Charles (3 April 2012). "Professor Barry Cushman to Join the Faculty of Notre Dame Law School". Notre Dame Law School. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  16. ↑ "Notre Dame Law in Chicago Has Room to Move in New Loop Quarters". Notre Dame News. 18 September 2013. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  17. ↑ "Notre Dame Law in DC Set for Spring Launch". University of Notre Dame NEws. 7 October 2014. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  18. ↑ Wager, Denise (30 August 2016). "U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg to speak with Notre Dame Law Students". Notre Dame Law School. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  19. ↑ Tribune, Christian Sheckler South Bend. "Scalia made three visits to Notre Dame and received honorary degree". South Bend Tribune. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  20. ↑ Dame, Marketing Communications: Web | University of Notre. "Letter from Campus: Breakfast with Clarence Thomas | Stories | Notre Dame Magazine | University of Notre Dame". Notre Dame Magazine. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  21. ↑ Wager, Denise (27 October 2015). "U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to Visit Notre Dame Law School". Notre Dame Law School. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  22. ↑ Garvey, Michael O. (3 September 2015). "A conversation with Justice Sonia Sotomayor". Notre Dame News. University of Notre Dame. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  23. ↑ "Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Remarks to the Law School and the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame". www.justice.gov. 2019-10-14. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  24. ↑ Peters, Ryan (2022-02-15). "'Law is king': Amy Coney Barrett discusses constitutional interpretation, life on Supreme Court in return to Notre Dame // The Observer". The Observer. Retrieved 2022-02-17.
  25. ↑ Wager, Denise. "ND Law Review symposium features Q&A with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh | the Law School | University of Notre Dame".
  26. ↑ "Notre Dame, University of – 2023 Class Profile". Notre Dame Law School. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
  27. ↑ "University of Notre Dame". 2023 Best Law Schools. U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 12 September 2022.
  28. ↑ "Top Law Schools 2023". Retrieved 27 June 2023.
  29. ↑ "Faculty Quality Based on Membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2012". www.leiterrankings.com. Retrieved Apr 20, 2020.
  30. ↑ "University of Notre Dame". www.lstreports.com. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
  31. ↑ "EMPLOYMENT SUMMARY FOR 2013 GRADUATES" (PDF). University of Notre Dame. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  32. ↑ Morse, Robert (12 June 2014). "Grads of These Law Schools Get the Most Judicial Clerkships". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
  33. ↑ Sloan, Karen (2023-05-01). "These law schools sent the most grads to federal clerkships". Reuters. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  34. ↑ "Brian Leiter's Law School Reports". leiterlawschool.typepad.com. Retrieved 2023-05-04.
  35. ↑ Marketing Communications: Web | University of Notre Dame. "Cost of Attendance | The Law School | University of Notre Dame". The Law School. Retrieved July 14, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  36. ↑ "Eck Hall of Law, University of Notre Dame | BVH Integrated Services, PC". www.bvhis.com. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  37. ↑ Staff, I. L. "ND Law School moves to new building". The Indiana Lawyer. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  38. ↑ "History // Law School // University of Notre Dame". law.nd.edu. Archived from the original on January 26, 2012.
  39. ↑ Lucille Davy, Office of the governor of New Jersey. Accessed December 6, 2007. Archived May 23, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  40. ↑ "Journals". Notre Dame Law School. Retrieved 7 August 2019.
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