| University of Colorado Law School | |
| Motto | Let Your Light Shine |
|---|---|
| Established | 1892 |
| School type | Public |
| Parent endowment | $827.64 million[1] |
| Dean | Phil Weiser |
| Location | Boulder, Colorado, USA |
| Enrollment | 547[2] |
| Faculty | 77[2] |
| USNWR ranking | 47[3] |
| Bar pass rate | 95% (first time takers)[4] |
| Annual tuition | $28,915 in-state, $35,773 out-of-state[2] |
| Website | [1] |
| ABA profile | University of Colorado Law School |
The University of Colorado Law School is one of the professional graduate schools within the University of Colorado System. It is a public law school, with more than 500 students attending and working toward a Juris Doctor or Master of Law. The Wolf Law Building Located in Boulder, Colorado, and is sited on the south side of the University of Colorado at Boulder campus. The law school houses the William A. Wise Law Library, which is a regional archive for federal government materials and is open to the public. United States Supreme Court Justice Wiley Blount Rutledge graduated from the University of Colorado Law School in 1922.[5]
The University of Colorado Law School consistently ranks as a top law school in U.S. News & World Report rankings (currently ranked 47th[6]). It is renowned for its influence in the 12-state Rocky Mountain region and for the strength of its environmental law program.[7]
Established in 1892, the University of Colorado Law School is a charter member in the Association of American Law Schools and appeared in 1923 on American Bar Association's first ever publication of approved law schools. Although always located on the greater Boulder campus, the law school has occupied five buildings since its founding. For the first two years of its existence, the school was housed in the Kent building. From 1894 to 1909 the school occupied the Hale Law Building. For the next 50 years, until 1959, the school occupied the Guggenheim Law Building. From 1959 to 2005, the law school occupied the Fleming Law Building. In the fall of 2006, the law school once again moved and now sits in the Wolf Law Building.
By the late 1990s, Colorado Law had outgrown its building. In 1997 law students voted to tax themselves with a $1,000 per year tuition differential to help finance the building, but in 2001 the State of Colorado General Assembly rescinded its earmarked funds from the project.[8] Facing the risk of accreditation loss, law students worked with campus leaders and successfully passed a $400 per year fee on all Boulder students to fund capital construction on the Wolf Law Building and three other campus projects.[9] The Wolf Law Building was dedicated on September 8, 2006, by United States Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer. The dedication ceremony represented the end of a long and creative funding process for a public law school.
In addition to student funds, over $13 million in private gifts were donated to support the construction of the new law building. The Wolf family, in honor of Leon and Dora Wolf, were especially generous in their contribution to the new building that now bears the Wolf family name.
The 25th and 75th percentile LSAT scores for entering students are 160 and 165, respectively; the median LSAT is 164. The 25th and 75th percentile GPA for entering students are 3.41 and 3.79, with a median of 3.61.[7]
In October 2009, the journal Law Week Colorado stirred controversy when it reported that only 35% of the school's Class of 2009 had jobs at graduation.[10][11]
Officials from the school assailed the Law Week Colorado article. Former Assistant Dean of the Office of Career Development SuSaNi Harris called Law Week Colorado's report the product of a "miscalculation" and "misunderstanding" and claimed Law Week Colorado "confused 'employed' and 'unemployed.'"[11] Later, Associate Dean Dayna Matthew told Law Week Colorado that the numbers released were "premature" and asserted that the National Association of Legal Professionals (NALP) would release more favorable statistics in February 2010.[11] The reason, Matthew said, was that the NALP discounted graduates who did not report their employment status.[11]
For its part, Law Week Colorado stuck to its original statistics and noted that the University of Colorado had not provided any new statistics.[11]
In 2010, US News & World Report ranked the University of Colorado Law School 38th in the nation. In 2011, the school dropped to 47th, leading the online journal Above the Law to call the school "one of the biggest fallers among the top 50."[12]