Boston College Law School

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Established 1863
School type Jesuit
President William P. Leahy, SJ
Location Newton, Massachusetts, USA
Enrollment 800
students
Campus Urban
Homepage http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/
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Boston College Law School, known colloquially as BC Law, is one of the professional graduate schools of Boston College. Located approximately 1.5 miles from the main Boston College campus in Chestnut Hill, Boston College Law School is situated on a 40-acre wooded campus in Newton, Massachusetts. With approximately 800 students and 125 faculty members, the Law School is the largest of BC's seven graduate and professional schools.[1] Admission to BC Law is among the most selective in the United States, with approximately 7,000 applicants for the 275 places in the first year class in 2005.[2] 25% of the students are AHANA. Reflecting its Jesuit heritage, BC Law is noted for its programs in human rights, social justice and public interest law. Its faculty has played a significant national role arguing for the repeal of the Solomon Amendment, presenting oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court in Rumsfeld v. FAIR. The U.S. News and World Report 2006 Law School Rankings placed Boston College Law School 27th in the country, fourth in New England, and Brody Admissions ranks BC Law 23rd in the country, third in New England. [3]

Over the past several years BC Law graduates have received prestigious post-graduate fellowships in the public interest field, including the Skadden Fellowship, the Soros Justice Fellowship, and the NAPIL Equal Justice Fellowship. The Law School was listed by NAPIL as among the top 25 law schools for commitment to loan repayment assistance and easing student debt. BC Law currently provides over $120,000 each year in loan repayment assistance to graduates pursuing public interest careers, an increase of over 50% from prior years. BC Law has also consistently been ranked in the top 5 by US News in Most Collegiate Law Schools, and the friendly atmosphere has led Vault.com to name it the Disney land of law schools.

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Contents

[edit] History

Although provisions for a law school were included in the original charter for Boston College, ratified by the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1863, Boston College Law School was formally organized in the 1920s and opened its doors on September 26, 1929. It was accredited by the American Bar Association in 1932 and the Association of American Law Schools in 1937. Originally located in the Lawyer's Building opposite the Massachusetts State House in central Boston, it moved to the main Boston College campus in 1954 and to its present 40-acre campus in 1975. Boston College has consistently been ranked a top-tier law school since law school rankings began being published.

[edit] Curriculum

In addition to J.D., M.A. and Ph.D. programs, Boston College Law School offers joint degrees with BC's Carroll School of Management (J.D./M.B.A.), Graduate School of Social Work (J.D./M.S.W.) and Lynch School of Education (J.D./M.Ed.). Joint degrees in the humanities, fine arts, natural sciences and social sciences are offered with BC's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

BC Law also offers two programs abroad: the Semester in London Program and the Semester in The Hague Program with the International Criminal Court.

Speakers also frequently attend the law school. Past speakers have included supreme court justices, federal appellate court judges and famous scholars of law.

[edit] Libraries

Law School library on Newton Campus
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Law School library on Newton Campus

In a new building opened in 1996, the Law Library is located on the Boston College Law School campus in Newton, Massachusetts and contains approximately 500,000 volumes covering all major areas of American law and primary legal materials from the federal government, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the European Union. The library also features a substantial treatise and periodical collection and a growing collection of international and comparative law material. The library's Coquillette Rare Book Room houses works from the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries, including works by and about Saint Thomas More.

In addition, Boston College Law students are encouraged by the University to enjoy the eight other graduate and undergraduate libraries of Boston College, many of which are in the gothic style buildings on the main campus. The Bapst Library on the main campus is where many Boston College Law Students study, as there is a portion of the library reserved for graduate students.

[edit] Law Review publications

Boston College Law School maintains six student-run publications. The Boston College Law Review is the oldest scholarly publication at the law school. The Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review is the nation's second oldest law review dedicated solely to environmental law. The Boston College International & Comparative Law Review is one of approximately 30 law reviews in the United States that focus on international legal issues. The Third World Law Journal is a unique legal periodical that fills the need for a progressive, alternative legal perspective on issues both within the United States and in the developing world. The Uniform Commercial Code Reporter-Digest is the only student-written publication at Boston College Law School published by a private corporation.[4] Furthermore, Boston College is the first law school to implement a completely online publication, the Intellectual Property and Technology Forum, providing research articles on issues of copyright, trademark and patent law.[5]

[edit] Student Statistics

The total enrollment for BC Law is 800 students. 21% of the student population are students of color and 2% of the population are international students. The student/Facultry Ration is 14:1 and the students employed at graduation is 98%. The median starting private salary is $125,000 a year. 49% of the law students receive grant assistance to pay for their education.

The 2006 entering class was composed of 257 students (from 6322 applicants) and it had a median LSAT score of 164 and a median GPA of 3.58. There were 31 students with graduate degrees.

Collegiate Gothic buildings on Chestnut Hill.
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Collegiate Gothic buildings on Chestnut Hill.

[edit] BC Law Clinics

[edit] BC Law Civil Litigation Clinic

The civil clinical course allows students the opportunity to work as practicing lawyers representing actual clients at the Boston College Legal Assistance Bureau (LAB), a legal services office founded by Boston College law students in 1968. Pursuant to the Massachusetts student practice rule (SJC 3:03), students are certified to represent clients in every aspect of litigation, including appearing in court and at federal and state administrative hearings (e.g., Social Security Administration, Department of Employment and Training, Bureau of Special Education Appeals). Students advise and represent clients with a variety of legal problems, including divorce and custody proceedings, landlord-tenant disputes, Social Security appeals, employment discrimination suits, and consumer complaints. Students are responsible for their own cases and have the opportunity to plan and conduct every phase of civil litigation, from initial client interviews, through formulating a legal strategy, to counseling clients, conducting pretrial discovery and motion hearings, engaging in settlement negotiations, drafting pleadings, up to and including trials and administrative hearings, as well as drafting and arguing appeals.

Students are closely supervised by clinical faculty who guide them carefully through their work. Supervisors sit in on most meetings with clients, assist in the preparation for events such as counseling sessions, negotiations, and court appearances, and they accompany their students to court. Supervisors provide thorough feedback to students about their work at all stages in order to help students build on their skills and learn from their experiences. In addition to individual supervision, students participate in a weekly seminar where issues related to students' actual cases are examined. The practical, legal and ethical issues of lawyering are explored in detail through discussion, simulations, and review of videotaped portions of students' meetings with their clients.

The Legal Assistance Bureau is located only 15 minutes from the law school, in Waltham. Its faculty consists of four supervising attorneys and a clinical social worker. Additional staff includes an intake worker, and a fiscal manager. Students are provided with comfortable individual workspace and voicemail, conference rooms, a computer center, access to Lexis, Westlaw, a database of approved pleadings, and a well-developed office library. Course satisfies the upper-level professional responsibility requirement. No examination; grade determined by evaluation of fieldwork and a short paper (reflection, not research).

Collegiate Gothic buildings on Chestnut Hill.
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Collegiate Gothic buildings on Chestnut Hill.

[edit] Criminal Justice Clinic: BC Defenders and BC Law Prosecution Program

The Fall Classes: The Criminal Justice Clinic is a unique and exciting program, which examines the criminal justice system from the perspective of both defense attorneys and prosecutors. The Clinic is made up of two programs: BC Law Prosecution Program and BC Defenders. BC Defenders represent indigent clients in District Court, while student prosecutors prosecute cases under the auspices of a District Attorney's Office. Each side meets separately once a week to focus more intently on the skills particular to each profession and to discuss issues which students confront during the term. Both sides also meet in class together once a week to explore systemic issues and practical problems and to compare their experiences, analyses, and conclusions with insights gathered by students practicing on the opposite side.

Students enrolled in the course will experience, participate in, and evaluate the local criminal justice system. Through practice in a district court, combined with one-on-one supervision, class exercises, readings and discussion, students have the opportunity to closely and critically examine the functioning of the criminal justice system and measure it against conceptions of fairness. Students will reflect on their actions in the criminal justice system (with special attention paid to the attorney-client relationship and the prosecution function), and will consider the ethical and moral issues which inevitably arise in criminal casework. Students examine these and other criminal justice issues while learning the habits of mind and behavior necessary to function effectively in that system. Course satisfies the upper-level professional responsibility requirement.

BC Law Library
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BC Law Library

[edit] BC Defenders

The BC Defenders pick up cases at arraignment, where they interview their clients for the first time and present bail arguments before a judge. Students then begin to prepare their cases, researching the legal issues, investigating the facts, and helping the client with services whenever possible. A pre-trial hearing is held usually within the first semester to finalize discovery and determine if the case can be resolved. If the case is not resolved then, the case is scheduled for jury trial during the second semester. Jury trials are held before a jury of six persons. To prepare for jury trials, students role-play their cases in the form of mock trials with group participation. Students handle misdemeanors and those felonies for which district court jurisdiction exists, such as charges of assault, larcenies, and drug offenses. Students are responsible for their own cases and are closely supervised, both in court and out of court, by the defense supervisor.

Second semester is a jury trial seminar where students complete their cases. Each case scheduled for jury trial will be performed in class as a mock trial at least once, and all students will participate as witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and critiquers. The class meets weekly for two hours for this purpose. Other mock trial classes will also be scheduled as needed. The hours of preparation are dependent upon the trial schedule, but average at least five hours of additional work per week. As a BC Defender, you will help other students with their cases as well as working on your own. There will also be opportunities for research and writing.

[edit] BC Law Prosecution Program

What is the primary task of a prosecutor? Enforcing the law? Securing convictions? Punishing offenders? Seeking justice? Even if we agree that a prosecutor's primary task is to seek justice, will we be able to articulate a shared notion of what "to seek justice" means? One of the central challenges that students will face in this clinic will be to understand and articulate the primary task of a prosecutor and how our notions (both conscious and unconscious) of authority, role, boundary, and task affect the way we take up our role. Students will join a group of assistant district attorneys in a local District Attorney's Office and take up the demanding role of prosecutor in a highly challenging local criminal justice system. Each student will become an active participant in the criminal justice system, receiving several cases during the semester, handling various charges, and appearing numerous times in an adult court session. Students are responsible for their own cases and are closely supervised, both in court and out of court. Students' experiences in court will provide the basis for a close and critical examination of the criminal justice system, which will necessarily include self-reflection and self-critique, as students analyze the various roles they take up in the system, and their own participation in the dynamics that they witness. The Prosecution Program is a one-semester course offered only in the Fall.

[edit] Homelessness Litigation Clinic

This course introduces students to the pervasive problem of homelessness in our cities. It is a clinical course in which students will litigate cases on behalf on poor individuals who are homeless, or who risk becoming homeless if they lose their current housing. The course includes fieldwork and a weekly seminar. The fieldwork is based at the Law School's civil clinical office known as the Legal Assistance Bureau in Waltham, four miles from the Law School. The seminar will be held at the Law School.

Students who enroll in this course will be assigned to work with families or individuals who are facing or experiencing having no place to live. Students can expect to defend eviction actions in local District Courts and Boston Housing Court; to represent individuals before local Housing Authorities in an effort to obtain affordable housing for them; to work with community organizations seeking to increase the supply of affordable housing; and, on occasion, to assist in affirmative litigation on issues of low-income housing. Students will be trained in essential lawyering skills and trial advocacy techniques. For fieldwork purposes students will be assigned seven office hours per week at the clinic. Students can expect to spend an additional ten to twelve hours per week, on average, on their client representation work.

The fieldwork is complemented by a weekly seminar. The seminar will cover trial advocacy skills; exploration of the social and political underpinnings of homelessness; and ethical issues encountered in public interest practice.

[edit] Immigration Law Clinic

Clinical opportunities will include working with pro-bono attorneys on political asylum cases in conjunction with the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project (PAIR); interviewing, counseling, and representing clients in Detention Facilities and Immigration Court, and working on various types of national and regional "impact" litigation, especially regarding detention policies. Students will be able to choose the type of work which most interests them and will be specially trained and supervised. More detailed information will be available in the first Immigration Law class of the Fall semester.

[edit] Advanced Immigration Law: Seminar and Clinic

In the seminar, a variety of advanced topics in U.S. Immigration law will be examined and discussed. The focus will primarily be on asylum and defenses to removal, although these topics necessarily involve other questions of procedure, criminal law, constitutional law, and statutory construction. At the beginning, the faculty will be the primary presenters. However, as the class progresses, students will also present in class on selected topics. Class discussion is an integral part of the learning process in the seminar. In the clinic, each student will be working with clients on immigration matters. Students may choose from a variety of projects. Some will go to detention centers to give "Know Your Rights Presentations" and interview and counsel clients. Others will conduct intake of possible new clients. Others may represent clients on asylum cases. Some may work on litigation and amicus briefs challenging DHS policies on detention and other issues. During the first two classes faculty will present all of these options. Course satisfies the upper-level writing requirement. No examination; grading will be based upon class participation, outside work, and writing projects.

[edit] The Juvenile Rights Advocacy Clinic

Students apply their education in juvenile justice and child advocacy to problem areas of juvenile representation and policy. Students primarily represent juveniles in the Massachusetts justice system across the full-range of their legal needs. Issues include delinquency, post-disposition administrative advocacy, special education, personal injury, status offenses, child abuse and neglect, and public benefits. In addition, students work as guardians-ad-litem for girlsItalic text in the status offender system with a focus on education law. Drawing on the individual case experience, students work on policy development for girls in the system. Students are involved in data collection, research and report writing and dissemination, helping to develop models that work for system involved girls. Students also provide legal education to high school students at Brighton High School. The JRAP operates in an interdisciplinary manner in collaboration with Boston College counseling psychology graduate students. Student will meet every week to discuss advanced topics in juvenile law as they relate to the work of the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project. Course satisfies the upper-level professional responsibility and writing requirements.

[edit] The Women and the Law Clinic

"Women and the Law Clinic" is a clinical and theoretical course. The course would be part of the Legal Assistance Bureau (LAB) and located at the LAB in Waltham. The text is, Feminist Jurisprudence: Taking Women Seriously, by Becker, Bowman and Torrey (2nd Ed.). In addition, students will read several short stories and the novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy, by Alice Walker. Students are also assigned two to three domestic cases involving divorce, custody, child support, spousal support, visitation, restraining orders, etc. The class meetings allow the class to explore the theoretical materials and appellate cases in the context of actual client service. It also exposes students to the invisible ways in which the law structures women's experiences. Students are required each week to have seven scheduled office hours at the LAB, in addition to scheduled class time. The students are required to submit a 10-12-page paper analyzing a topic from the course in terms of their clinical experience.

[edit] The Attorney General Clinic

The Attorney General Program provides an intensive full-year clinical experience in civil litigation in the Government Bureau of the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. Students practice under the supervision of a faculty member who is an assistant attorney general in that Bureau. Students work directly with Bureau attorneys in the representation of state agencies and officials in state and federal courts. The clinic teaches litigation skills and strategy and includes the following types of legal work: (1) the drafting of pleadings, motions, discovery requests and responses, and other litigation documents; (2) legal research and writing of briefs in the trial and appellate courts; (3) oral argument in the state courts; and (4) other litigation tasks. Students will be expected to do a significant amount of legal writing. Pursuant to Rule 3:03 of the Supreme Judicial Court, students will argue orally in Superior Court in behalf of state agencies. Students will work on a variety of court cases involving administrative and constitutional law, federal courts, and statutory construction. Students receive written and oral comments on their memoranda and written evaluations of their performance. The overall goal of the program is to provide an in-depth exposure to administrative and constitutional law and related issues, in the context of a high-level practice that deals with these issues on a daily basis.

The clinical program includes a weekly two-hour seminar on litigation skills, substantive law topics, and the discussion of student work. Topics include state and federal jurisdiction, administrative law and procedure, drafting litigation documents, motion practice, discovery, trial preparation, appellate practice, and the role of state attorneys general. The seminar for the fall semester is usually held on Wednesday afternoon from 12:30-2:30 p.m.; the time for Spring semester seminar is scheduled after consultation with the class.Assistant Attorney General Thomas A. Barnico will interview and admit six third-year students to the program. Students must commit 20 hours per week (exclusive of commuting time) to the program at the Attorney General's Office. This normally requires two full days and one half day at the office. Students will receive 13 credits for the full year (seven in the Fall semester and six credits in the Spring semester). Course satisfies the upper-level professional responsibility and writing requirements. The course is graded on a pass-fail basis.

[edit] International Criminal Tribunal: Theory and Practice Seminar

This program offers a unique opportunity to work on-site in either the fall or spring semester at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) or the newly-established International Criminal Court (ICC), both located in The Hague, Netherlands. The ICTY, established by the UN Security Council in 1993, is charged with prosecuting and trying persons allegedly responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the former Yugoslavia during the conflict resulting from the breakup of that country. The ICC, which came into being in 2002, was created to serve as a standing tribunal to try war criminals in a wider variety of situations. The goals of the program are provisions of a meaningful educational experience, instruction in international law, and exposure to different legal cultures. Typical work includes the investigation of pending cases and drafting of indictments in a setting that is one of the principal focal points for the current development of international law. This program also offers the unusual opportunity to "learn by doing" in the area of international law and to identify long-term academic and career options in the field.

Barat House
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Barat House

[edit] The BC Law London Program

The London Program is given each Spring Semester at King's College London. The on-site Director teaches a course and a seminar in London. The Advanced European Law and King's College course are taught by members of the King's College Law School faculty. The Program has two major components, one classroom based, and the other experiential. The classroom component consists of four courses. In the fall semester, all students intending to go to London must take, or have previously taken, an introductory course in European Union Law. In London, students take two required courses, Introduction to British Law and Institutions and European Community Competition Law, and choose an additional master's level course from the King's College Law School curriculum. In the past, students have taken courses in International Environmental Law, International Business Transactions, European Internal Market, The Theory and Practice of Parliament, International Securities Regulation and the Law of Treaties. Papers will be required for several of these courses, including the Introduction to British Law and Institutions course.

The centerpiece of the London Program is its internship component. This represents an effort to replicate, in a foreign setting, some of the features of the School's highly successful Semester in Practice program. Students in London have worked with a number of non-profit environmental organizations, Amnesty International, the National Council for Civil Liberties, Interights, a barrister's chambers, the Financial Services Authority, and the London branches of four major United States law firms. The students spend 20 to 25 hours per week at their placement, work under close supervision, and maintain journals relating to their research, writing and observations. These are then discussed at a regularly scheduled Seminar held by the Director. In addition, students visit legal and political institutions, and have library privileges at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies which is also part of London University.

[edit] Semester in Practice

Unique among BC Law's' clinical offerings, this limited enrollment, semester course is designed to maximize students' ability to improve their lawyering skills while observing experienced local lawyers and judges. Students spend approximately 30 hours per week at their placement, or, with the Director's permission, 24 hours per week, and attend a weekly classroom seminar. Generally, students chose their placement from a pre-existing pool of opportunities that includes diverse subject areas (labor, civil rights, environmental, business law, etc.) and diverse settings (government, law firms, public interest groups, in-house counsel, judicial clerkships, etc.). It is also possible under certain circumstances for students to obtain their own placements, subject to approval of the Director.

In class, students analyze the lawyering process through readings, discussion, and student presentations. Students will be asked to prepare written assignments in which they reflect on their experience and readings, and to keep a daily journal. The Director monitors individual placements to ensure the supervising attorney is providing a significant educational experience including the following: feedback on work product, planned work assignments, exposure to the various aspects of lawyering, and mini-lectures.


[edit] The Judge and The Community Court Clinic

This class examines through participant observation the functioning of the judicial process in our lower-level trial courts. Attention is paid to the various roles (adjudicatory, administrative, educational, sanctioning and symbolic) that judges play in these courts. The seminar's focus is on the interaction between the local court and the community it serves, with a view toward evaluating the role of decentralized, neighborhood-oriented courts in contemporary society. The contributions of various scholars to understanding these courts is reviewed, as well as distinct proposals for increasing judicial accountability, citizen participation, and court reform. Students receive two graded credits for the classroom component and two pass/fail credits for the fieldwork activity. Students undertake this study of lower court judicial performance through clerkship-like, fieldwork placements with individual Justices of the District Court, Boston Municipal Court, Juvenile Court, and Housing Court Departments of the Massachusetts Trial Court. These justices are expected to assign research and writing projects to their students.

[edit] The Judicial Process Clinic

Judicial Process is a course which allows a student to sit as an intern one day per week with a series of Massachusetts Superior Court Judges (Trial Court). This is a unique opportunity to compare and contrast trial Judges in both civil and criminal proceedings. The student is in court as an observer, not as a law clerk. Readings will be assigned in preparation for weekly seminar meetings, which will be used to discuss various aspects of the judicial process in light of the students' actual courtroom and lobby experiences. The topics discussed include the following: Selection and Discipline of Judges; Role of the Jury; and a Critique of the Adversary System. One substantial paper and one oral presentation will be required. Two-hour weekly seminar meetings will be scheduled at the convenience of the participants and professor. Each student must have one day per week free in his or her schedule for court observation.

[edit] Research centers & institutes

  • Center for Human Rights and International Justice
  • Business Institute, Boston College
  • Center for Asset Mangement
  • Center for Corporate Citizenship (CCC)
  • Center for East Europe, Russia and Asia
  • Center for Ignatian Spirituality
  • Center for International Higher Education
  • Center For Investment Research And Management
  • Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture (ISPRC)
  • International Study Center
  • Irish Institute
  • Jesuit Institute
  • Small Business Development Center
  • Urban Ecology Institute
  • Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics
  • Women's Resource Center

[edit] Notable alumni

Paul Cellucci ' 73

John Kerry ' 76

Bobby Scott '73

Debra Wong Yang ' 84

[edit] Trivia

  • The Boston College Club is an exclusive club located on the top floor of a Boston skyscraper. BC Law events are often held at the club.
  • Stemming from the nickname of Boston College athletics teams, the term "Legal Eagle" is used to refer to students and alumni of Boston College Law School.
  • The term "Triple Eagle," which technically refers to a recipient of any three degrees from Boston College, is usually used to designate graduates of Boston College High School, Boston College, and BC Law.
  • Boston College Law students popularly use the epithet "that's BC lawyering" to describe an act of exceptional wit and ingenuity that has a sense of absurdity.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.bc.edu/schools/
  2. ^ http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/about/ataglance/
  3. ^ prestige rankings
  4. ^ U.C.C. Reporter Digest
  5. ^ http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/
  6. ^ http://gopliberty.redstate.org/story/2005/10/8/222634/085

[edit] External links


Constituent Colleges and Schools of Boston College
College of Arts & Sciences | Graduate School | Carroll School of Management
Connell School of Nursing | Graduate School of Social Work | Law School
Lynch School of Education | Divinity School | Woods College of Advancing Studies
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