University of Richmond School of Law
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| University of Richmond School of Law | |
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| Established: | 1870 |
| Type: | Private |
| Dean: | John G. Douglass (since April, 2008) |
| Faculty: | 37 full-time, 60 adjunct[1] |
| Students: | ~500[1] |
| Location: | Richmond, Virginia, USA |
| Campus: | Suburban |
| Website: | law.richmond.edu |
The University of Richmond School of Law (T.C. Williams School of Law), a school of the University of Richmond, is located in Richmond, Virginia. The Law School is fully accredited by the recognized standardizing agencies in the United States.
The University of Richmond School of Law is a member of the Association of American Law Schools; it is on the approved lists of the American Bar Association and the Virginia State Board of Bar Examiners; and its Juris Doctor degree is fully accredited by the Regents of the University of the State of New York.[2]
The University of Richmond campus can be found on 350 acres (1.4 km²) located about six miles (10 km) west of the center of the city of Richmond, Virginia.
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[edit] Past and Present
The school was founded in 1870 as a college within the University of Richmond. In 1890, the family of the late T.C. Williams, a university trustee, donated $25,000 as the nucleus of an endowment for the law school. In recognition of this gift, the school was named The T.C. Williams School of Law in 1920. In recent years, the school has adopted the name "University of Richmond School of Law" in order to promote a unified identity for the university.
In 1914, Richmond College (as the university was then known), including its law department, moved from its location downtown to the present campus. Returning servicemen from World War I created space problems for the college and the law department had to be relocated to the old Columbia Building at Grace and Lombardy streets. In 1920, the law department was reorganized as a separate School of Law within what was now the University of Richmond.[3]
The current Law School building, constructed in the Collegiate Gothic architectural style, was originally opened in 1954, and it was enlarged in 1972 and 1981. In 1991, the building was significantly expanded, renovated, and refurbished. The Law School building now provides modern and technologically equipped classrooms, seminar rooms, a law library, a moot courtroom, faculty and administrative offices, faculty and student lounges, and offices for most student organizations.
The Richmond School of Law was ranked 68th in the most recent ranking of law schools by U.S. News and World Report. The school has approximately 500 students. The school currently has a student to faculty ratio of 18:1.
Plans are underway for yet another addition to the law school, to be named in honor of the late Robert R. Merhige, Jr., a 1942 alumnus of Richmond Law. The Merhige Building addition will house new classrooms and seminar rooms, office space for new faculty and concentration programs, and communal study space for students.
[edit] City of Richmond
Richmond, the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a city of more than 200,000, with a metro population of more than one million. The Virginia General Assembly holds its annual sessions downtown at a capitol designed by Thomas Jefferson. The Supreme Court of Virginia, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit also hold regular terms here. In addition, the State Corporation Commission, the Industrial Commission, and many federal administrative agencies hold hearings in the city. Washington, D.C., home to the United States Supreme Court, is only a two-hour drive from Richmond. The school's proximity to the capitals of both Virginia and the United States give students "unsurpassed opportunities for observation of the legal process". [2]
[edit] Initiatives
Richmond Law has recently launched several new initiatives focusing on expanding areas of the law such as intellectual property, wrongful convictions and family law. The school is making a strong push to become a center for intellectual property law, as evidenced by the recent founding of the Intellectual Property Institute (IPI) and the offering of a joint degree program with Virginia Tech that will enable students to earn both a Bachelor of Science degree and a law degree in as little as six years’ time. Through the IPI, Richmond law students are able to obtain a certificate of concentration in Intellectual Property Law.
The Institute for Actual Innocence, founded in 2005, works to identify and exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Institute is an academic program that partners students with local attorneys and community leaders to seek post-conviction relief for wrongfully convicted prisoners in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Furthermore, the school is working to establish the The National Center for Family Law, which will serve the best interests of families and children through academic and service programs dedicated to enhancement of the quality of the American legal system in relation to family law.
[edit] Sampling of Student Organizations
- ABA Law Student Division
- American Constitution Society
- Black Law Students Association
- Children's Law Center
- Christian Legal Society
- Client Counseling and Negotiation
- Environmental Law Society
- Equality Alliance
- Federalist Society
- Health Law Forum
- Hispanic Community Legal Liaison Association
- International Law Students Association
- Juris Publici
- Latino Law Association
- Law Review
- Law Students for Choice
- Law Students for Life
- Moot Court Board
- Non-Traditional Law Student Association
- Phi Alpha Delta, Law Fraternity International
- Public Interest Law Association (PILA)
- Richmond Law & Technology Association
- Sports and Entertainment Law Society
- Street Law Program
- Student Bar Association
- Student Intellectual Property Law Association (SIPLA)
- Trial Advocacy Board
- Virginia Bar Association, Young Lawyer’s Division
- Women's Law Student Association (WLSA)
In addition, Richmond publishes four scholarly legal journals: the flagship University of Richmond Law Review, the Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, the Richmond Journal of Global Law and Business, and the Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest, as well as Juris Publici, the law school's student newspaper. Recently, Juris Publici launched its own blogto keep students and visitors updated on news and events at the school.
[edit] Notable faculty
- Ronald J. Bacigal - Specializes in Criminal Law and Procedure. He also serves as Reporter of Criminal Decisions for the Court of Appeals of Virginia. [1]
- Hon. Harry L. Carrico - Senior Justice, Supreme Court of Virginia; Visiting Professor of Law and Civic Engagement; Sixteenth Judicial Circuit Judge, 1956–1961
- Hon. Donald W. Lemons - Supreme Court of Virginia, Justice, 2000-present; Court of Appeals of Virginia, Judge,1998-2000; Circuit Court for the City of Richmond, Judge, 1995-98; John Marshall Professor of Judicial Studies [2]
- Robert Shepherd - Professor Emeritus of Law - Specializes in Family Law
- W. Clark Williams, Jr. - Associate Dean for Academic Affairs & Professor of Law; Executive Director, Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys; Reporter, Appellate Rules Advisory Committee, DeNovo Revision Advisory Comm., Supreme Court of Virginia
- W. Hamilton Bryson - Virginia procedure and legal history. He is the Blackstone Professor of Law.
- John G. Douglass - Dean of the Law School, 2008-present; Criminal Law & Procedure; Evidence; He also serves as Director of the lawyering skills program;Assistant United States Attorney, Chief of Criminal Section; Office of Independent Counsel for the Iran/Contra Investigation, 1987-90, Associate Counsel.
- W. Wade Berryhill - Professor Emeritus of Law - Environmental Law; Environmental Law & Policy; Land Use Planning; Ocean and Coastal Law; Real Estate Transactions; Real Property; Secured Creditors.
- Carl Tobias - Torts and Constitutional Law. Professor Tobias is a prolific scholar and has been quoted by numerous newspapers across the country. He serves as the Williams Professor of Law.
- Mary L. Heen - Taxation, Corporate and Federal Tax. Currently serves as general counsel to the American Association of University Professors.
- Kelly H. Bartges - Director of the Delinquency Clinic, teaches Children and the Law.
- John Paul Jones- Administrative Law, Admiralty Law, and Constitutional Law. Associate Editor of the Journal of Maritime Law and Commerce, creator of the Constitution Finder (a collection of the world’s constitutions), and member of the Virginia Code Commission's Administrative Law Advisory Committee. A former Naval Flight Officer, he is twice (1972, 1978) a graduate of TOPGUN,
- Peter N. Swisher - Family, Insurance, and Tort Law, expert witness in insurance cases, Co-Author, Virginia Tort And Personal Injury Law, 1994 and 2002 University of Richmond Distinguished Educator Award
- Henry L. Chambers - Professor Chambers has been a member of the American Law Institute since 2002. He also is an occasional reviewer for the Law and Society Review. During summers, he lectures on constitutional law principles in the We The People program, a civic education program administered by the Center for Civic Education.
- Timothy L. Coggins - Associate Dean for Library & Information Services and Professor of Law Articles Editor, North Carolina Central Law Journal
- Jonathan K. Stubbs - Hon. James T. Giles, U.S. District Court, Eastern District, Pennsylvania Clerk, 1980-81; M.T.S., Harvard University (1990); LL.M., Harvard University (1979); J.D., Yale University (1978); B.A., Oxford University (1976); B.A., Haverford College (1974)
- Paul M. Thompson - Office of the Attorney General, Commonwealth of Virginia Senior Assistant Attorney General, 2002–2004; United States Air Force Judge Advocate & Prosecutor, Kirtland A.F.B., Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1960; National Labor Relations Board, Washington, D.C.; Adjunct Professor of Law and Director of Special Projects
[edit] Notable alumni
- Watkins Abbitt - U.S. Representative, 1948-1973
- Ward Armstrong - Minority Leader, Virginia House of Delegates
- Jose M. Cabanillas - Executive officer of the USS Texas
- Walter S. Felton, Jr. - Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia
- Lawrence L. Koontz, Jr. - Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia
- G. Manoli Loupassi - Member, Virginia House of Delegates
- Robert R. Merhige, Jr. - former U.S. District Court Judge, Eastern District of Virginia
- Nathan H. Miller - former Virginia State Senator
- Willis D. Miller - former Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia
- Owen B. Pickett - U.S. Representative, 1987-2001
- Absalom Robertson - U.S. Senator, 1946-1966
- Frederick P. Stamp - Senior U.S. District Court Judge, Northern District of West Virginia
- Harvey E. Schlesinger - Senior U.S. District Judge, Middle District of Florida
- William K. Slate - president and CEO of the American Arbitration Association
- Harold Fleming Snead - former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia
[edit] Miscellaneous facts
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
In the fall of 1994, the University of Richmond Law School was the first law school in the country to require laptops as a requirement of matriculation.
The UR Law School was one of only eight law schools in the top 50 “tech-savvy” law schools to score in all four categories highlighted in a recent law school technology survey completed by National Jurist. Richmond Law ranked number 17 overall.
The Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, launched in 1995, is the world's first exclusively online law review.
The tuition for the 2007-08 year at Richmond is $30,010.
[edit] External links
- Richmond Law
- University of Richmond
- Richmond Law Review
- Richmond Journal of Law & Technology
- Richmond Journal of Global Law and Business
- Richmond Journal of Law in the Public Interest
[edit] References
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