Georgetown University Law Center

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Georgetown University Law Center
Motto:	Law is but the means - Justice is the end[1]
Established:	1870
Type:	Private
Dean:	T. Alexander Aleinikoff
Students:	2,017
Location:	Washington D.C., USA
Campus:	Urban
Website:	http://www.law.georgetown.edu

Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is Georgetown University's law school, located in Washington, D.C. According to the 2009 edition of U.S. News & World Report, Georgetown Law is the #14 ranked law school in the nation overall, and is #1 in clinical programs, #4 in environmental law, #5 in trial advocacy, #8 in healthcare law, #4 in international law, and #3 in tax law. Law School 100, a ranking scheme that purports to use qualitative rather than quantitative criteria, ranks Georgetown Law 7th overall, tied with Cornell, Virginia and others. Consistent with its reputation as one of the most prestigious law schools in the nation, the Law Center's graduates are among the most highly sought after students by law firms and other employers across the nation. The second largest law school in the U.S., Georgetown often emphasizes that its location in close proximity to federal government agencies, courts, and the Supreme Court offer a significant advantage in the study of law. The current dean of Georgetown Law is T. Alexander Aleinikoff.

[edit] History

The school's original sign, preserved on the north quad of the present-day campus.

Opened as Georgetown Law School in 1870, it was the first law school run by a Jesuit institution within the U.S. Georgetown Law has been separate from the main Georgetown campus (in the neighborhood of Georgetown) since 1890, when it moved near what is now Chinatown. The Law Center campus is located on New Jersey Avenue, several blocks north of the Capitol, and a few blocks due west of Union Station.

[edit] Admissions

Georgetown Law is one of the most selective law schools in the country. It receives over 10,000 applications every year, more than any other law school in the U.S. Out of the nearly 11,000 applications received for the 2007-2008 academic year, about 21% were offered admission. Of those who were offered admission and enrolled, the average LSAT score was 170 and the average GPA was 3.67.

[edit] Campus

The column identifying the Law Center campus

The Law Center is located in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, D.C. It is bounded by 1st St. NW to the west, E St. NW to the south, and New Jersey Avenue to the northeast, forming a triangle.

The campus consists of five buildings. Bernard P. McDonough Hall (1971, expanded in 1997), houses classrooms and Law Center offices and was designed by Edward Durrell Stone. The Edward Bennett Williams Law Library building (1989) houses most of the school's library collection and is one of the largest law libraries in the U.S. The Eric E. Hotung International Law Center (2004) includes two floors of library space housing the international collection, and also contains classrooms, offices, and meeting rooms. The Bernard S. and Sarah M. Gewirz Student Center (1993), provides housing mostly for 1Ls. A four-level Sport and Fitness Center (2004) includes a pool, fitness facilities, and cafe, and connects the Hotung Building to the Gewirz Student Center.

[edit] Libraries

The Georgetown University Law Center campus, viewed across I-395 looking east. From left to right, the Edward Bennett Williams Law Library, McDonough Hall, and Gewirz Student Center.

The Georgetown Law Library supports the research and educational endeavors of the students and faculty of the Georgetown University Law Center. As one of the premier research facilities for the study of law, the Law Library houses the nation's fourth largest law library collection and offers accesses to thousands of online publications.

The mission of the library is to support fully the research and educational endeavors of the students and faculty of the Georgetown University Law Center, by collecting, organizing, preserving, and disseminating legal and law related information in any form, by providing effective service and instructional programs, and by utilizing electronic information systems to provide access to new information products and services.

The collection is split into two buildings. The Edward Bennett Williams Law Library (1989) is named after Washington, D.C. lawyer Edward Bennett Williams, an alumnus of the Law Center and founder of the prestigious litigation firm, Williams & Connolly. It houses the Law Center's United States law collection, the Law Center Archives, and the National Equal Justice Library. The Williams library building consists of five floors of collection and study space and provides office space for most of the Law Center's law journals on the Law Library's first level.

The John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library (2004) is named after John Wolff, a long-serving member of the adjunct faculty and supporter of the Law Center's international law programs. The library is located on two floors inside the Eric E. Hotung building. It houses the international, foreign, and comparative law collections of the Georgetown University Law Center. Wolff Library collects primary and secondary law materials from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, and South Africa. English translations of primary and secondary legal materials from other jurisdictions and compilations of foreign law on special topics are also included.

In addition to foreign law, the Wolff Library maintains an extensive collection of public and private international law, focusing on international trade, international environmental law, human rights, arbitration, tax and treaty law. The collection also includes documentation from many international organizations, including the International Court of Justice, the United Nations, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization.

[edit] Curriculum

McDonough Hall, the main classroom building, facing 2nd St. NW

Georgetown Law's J.D. program can be completed over three years of full-time day study or four years of part-time evening study. The school offers LL.M. programs in Taxation, Securities and Finance Regulation, and Global Health Law, as well as a general LL.M. curriculum for lawyers educated outside the United States. Georgetown launched a Master of Studies in Law (M.S.L.) degree program for professional journalists in the 2007-08 academic year.

Students are offered the choice of two tracks for their first year of study. "Curriculum A" is similar to the traditional law curriculum taught at many schools, including courses in contracts, constitutional law, torts, property, criminal procedure, civil procedure, and legal research and writing. "Curriculum B" is a more interdisciplinary, theoretical approach to legal study, but covers largely the same content in order to prepare students to take the same upper-level classes as their Curriculum A peers. The Curriculum B courses are Bargain, Exchange and Liability (contracts and torts), Democracy and Coercion (constitutional law and criminal procedure), Government Processes (administrative law), Legal Justice (jurisprudence), Legal Practice (legal research and writing), Legal Process and Society (civil procedure, criminal procedure, and ethics), and Property in Time (property). Students in both curricula participate in a week-long introduction to international law between the fall and spring semesters.

[edit] JD, JSD, LLM programs

[edit] Faculty

The Hotung International Law Center and the GULC fitness center, seen across the south quad.

Gewirz Student Center provides student housing for mostly first-year law students.

Notable current faculty include (the following is a non-exhaustive list):

• Charles F. Abernathy
• Randy Barnett
• Jeffrey Bauman, professor of corporate law and author of several casebooks on the subject
• Barry Carter, noted authority on international law
• Richard Chused
• David D. Cole
• Anthony E. Cook, professor of, and noted authority on, constitutional and civil rights law
• Richard Diamond, former partner at Steptoe & Johnson, former Supreme Court clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger.
• Viet D. Dinh, former Assistant Attorney General of the United States, chief architect of the USA PATRIOT Act, Supreme Court clerk for Sandra Day O'Connor.
• Martin D. Ginsburg, prominent tax attorney and husband of United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• Michael Gottesman
• Charles H. Gustafson
• Neal Katyal, lead counsel in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, former National Security Adviser, law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.
• Marty Lederman, former Attorney Advisor in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel
• Mari Matsuda
• Glen Nager, head of Jones Day's appellate practice, general counsel to the United States Golf Association (USGA), former Supreme Court clerk for Sandra Day O'Connor.
• Eleanor Holmes Norton, delegate to the United States House of Representatives
• Julie O'Sullivan, former assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, former Supreme Court clerk to Sandra Day O'Connor.
• John Podesta, former Clinton chief of staff
• Robert Pitofsky, former Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission
• Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, former attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice, former Supreme Court clerk for Justice Kennedy.
• Milton Regan, Jr., former law clerk to Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, while sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.
• Paul Rothstein, noted authority on evidence.
• Laurence H. Silberman, Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
• Ronald Pearlman, former Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The roster of current professors also includes many former Supreme Court clerks and other notable legal academics and professionals.

Former professors include:

• William Brennan, Supreme Court Associate Justice
• Father Robert Drinan, U.S. Congressman
• John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States
• Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Associate Justice
• Mark Tushnet, prominent critical legal studies proponent, constitutional law scholar, and author of many books.

[edit] Publications

Edward Bennett Williams Law Library, viewed from the campus north quad.

Georgetown University Law Center has ten student-run law journals and a weekly student-run newspaper, the Georgetown Law Weekly. The journals are:

• Georgetown Law Journal
• American Criminal Law Review
• Georgetown Immigration Law Journal
• Georgetown International Environmental Law Review
• Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law
• Georgetown Journal of International Law
• Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy
• Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics
• Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy
• The Tax Lawyer

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] Also attended

• Lyndon Johnson, President of the United States, took classes for a few months in 1934
• Donald Rumsfeld, Former Secretary of Defense, in 1957 then dropped out that same year

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Georgetown University Law Center official site