| Saint Louis University School of Law SLU LAW |
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| Parent school | Saint Louis University |
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| Established | 1843 |
| School type | Private, Roman Catholic - Jesuit |
| Parent endowment | $880.3 Million |
| Dean | Annette Clark, M.D., J.D. |
| Location | Midtown, St. Louis, Missouri, United States |
| Enrollment | 945 |
| Faculty | 84 |
| USNWR ranking | 104 in "Best Law Schools" |
| Bar pass rate | 95.2% |
| Annual tuition | $35,730 (full-time) $26,070 (part-time) |
| Website | http://law.slu.edu/ |
| ABA profile | ABA Profile |
Saint Louis University School of Law [1], also known as SLU LAW, is a private American law school located in St. Louis, Missouri. It is one of the professional graduate schools of Saint Louis University. Opened in 1843, it is the first law school west of the Mississippi River. The school has been ABA approved since 1924 and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Housed in Morrissey Hall, the law school has the highest enrollment of law students in Missouri. It offers both full- and part-time programs. The school is also home to the Omer Poos Law Library, which is one of the largest law libraries in the state of Missouri.[2] Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas studied for his bar exam at the Omer Poos Law Library.
It was the first ABA law school in St. Louis to accept African-American students. In 1908, the law school accepted its first female law students.[1]
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Most students are enrolled in the full-time J.D. program. SLU LAW has the only part-time J.D. program in St. Louis. The school also offers dual-degree programs and an LL.M in Health Law and an LL.M Program in American Law for Foreign Lawyers.
During their first year, full-time students are required to take 15 hours per semester to complete the core courses (torts, contracts, civil procedure, property, constitutional law I, criminal law, and legal research and writing). After the first year, full-time upper-division students are required to take a seminar, a humanities course, a professional skills course and Legal Profession. Students select from more than 150 hours of upper-division course electives to complete the required 91 credit hours.
There is an evening program with classes three to four nights a week; students in this program can earn their Juris Doctor degree in four to five years.
Since its establishment before 1990, the Center for Health Law Studies is consistently listed first in health law by U.S. News & World Report. St. Louis, home to Barnes Hospital carries out medical and biotechnology research. The Center has eleven full-time faculty members who publish work in law, medicine and ethical journals.
The Center offers a broad range of health law courses taught by full-time faculty, including foundational and specialized health law courses each semester.
The Center for International and Comparative Law promotes international legal scholarship within the law school. Faculty members teach pragmatic and theory based courses, such as public international law, international trade, multinational corporate responsibility, international tax, comparative law, immigration law, comparative criminal law, gender rights and international human rights. Speakers and practitioners are also invited to the school to discuss and teach. Students are eligible to earn a certificate from the Center, as well as study abroad in Madrid, Berlin, Orléans, Paris, Bochum, and Cork. The Center also has a Jessup Moot Court Team, which advanced on to the semi-final rounds of the Southwest Super Regionals in 2009 in Houston, Texas, and subsequently won third place for best brief overall.
The Center’s extensive curriculum offers a broad range of courses addressing the rights and responsibilities of employers and employees, including the prohibition of discrimination; establishment of collective bargaining relationships in the private and public sector; regulation of employee benefits, health and safety in the workplace; and arbitration and mediation of labor and employment disputes. To obtain a certificate in employment law, students complete 11 hours of approved coursework in the employment field and write a paper of publishable quality on an employment law topic in addition to receiving a J.D. degree. All students in the Certificate program take the basic law labor course. The Center enhances the students’ exposure to critical issues in labor and employment law by presenting conferences that explore current significant topics in the field. Every year, the student-sponsored Employment Law Association and the Center offer a variety of extra-curricular programs for students that address new legal developments, career opportunities and employment law practice.
Through the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Law & Advocacy (CISLA), established in 2011, current and future lawyers will attain a broad range of skills to use in further advancing change, advocacy and legal theory. The Center brings together two distinct areas of legal education – scholarly research and experiential practice – under the umbrella of interdisciplinary studies. Through collaboration with scholars, professors, the judiciary, lawyers and professionals in complementary areas of study and research including psychology, anthropology, economics and communications, students will gain new perspectives that will allow them to become stronger advocates for their clients. The Center will sponsor lectures, symposia, research initiatives and other educational events that showcase advocacy across different disciplines.
SLU LAW professors and students annually provide more than 39,000 hours of free legal service, totaling an estimated $3.9 million, to the community through the School of Law's Legal Clinics and public service programs. The Legal Clinics offer SLU LAW upper division students invaluable practical experience while providing valuable legal services to the community. Students are able to appear in court on cases under Missouri's Student Practice Rule. A full-time faculty member supervises the in-house students.
The school offers "concentrations" in business transaction law, civil litigation skills, criminal litigation skills, intellectual property law, taxation, and urban development, land use and environment law. Each of these concentrations has different requirements, and the course of study is much more specific and focused than the certificates.
The school offers "certificates" in Employment Law, Health Law, and International & Comparative Law. SLU Law offers certificates in three concentrations for students wishing to supplement their law degree with a special area of emphasis.
First-year students take four final examinations each semester, one for each class other than legal research and writing. All other students self-schedule their exams. Generally the exam period is two weeks long; graduating students are required to complete exams in a shorter time. Students may choose between typing their exams on laptop computers or handwriting them. As at most other law schools, exams are graded on a curve determined by the section.
The 75th to 25th percentile of undergraduate GPA for the fall 2011 entering class was 3.58-3.13. The 75th to 25th percentile of LSAT score was 158-151.
The law school is housed in three buildings. Morrissey Hall houses the bulk of the law school, including the law library, four large lecture halls, faculty offices, and some administrative space. Queen's Daughters Hall is a historic building and houses the rest of the administrative offices and meeting rooms. The law school also has a separate clinic building located on Spring Street, one block from the main building. The clinic was renovated and enlarged in 2008.
SLU LAW also recently unveiled plans for a new building. The law school is currently attempting to raise the estimated $30–35 million necessary, with the original estimation of groundbreaking in 2010. Plans for the new building were postponed indefinitely after the financial crisis of 2007–2010. [3]
In the 2012 U.S. News & World Report rankings, Saint Louis University School of Law was ranked 104 in “The Top Schools” list. The part-time program is ranked 28 of 80 part-time programs. In the new category “When Lawyers Do the Grading,” the School of Law is ranked 67 by recruiters and hiring partners at highly rated firms. SLU's Center for Health Law Studies maintained its No. 1 position as the best health law program in the country for the 8th consecutive year.
The school has three student-edited academic law journals:
The Saint Louis Brief [7] is a publication about the law school that is distributed to alumni and supporters.
Students also publish the 1843 Reporter, an independent student newspaper administered and funded without assistance from the school. It publishes bi-monthly and seeks to foster a sense of community and on-campus dialogue, as well as provide an outlet for students wishing to publish in a non-journal forum.
SLU law school has nearly 30 student organizations [8]. The organizations' funding is distributed in part by the law school's student government, the Student Bar Association (SBA)[9]. Organizations include:
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