University of Iowa College of Law

University of Iowa College of Law
Established 1865
Type Public
Dean Gail B. Agrawal
Academic staff
58
Students 390
Location Iowa City, Iowa, USA
Campus Boyd Law Building
Colors

Black and Gold

           
Mascot Hawkeyes
Website www.law.uiowa.edu

The University of Iowa College of Law is one of the eleven professional graduate schools at the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, Iowa. Founded in 1865, it is the oldest law school west of the Mississippi River.[1] Iowa is currently ranked the 22nd best law school in the United States according to the U.S. News and World Report Best Law School rankings.[2] It is tied for the 8th best public law school in the country and is the 3rd most affordable among the top 30.

Overview

The law school offers a rich curriculum covering the full spectrum of contemporary legal education, with an especially significant concentration of courses organized in 2 areas: (1) the International and Comparative Law Program (ICLP), and (2) the Innovation, Business & Law Program. The College has a strong program of clinical legal education and offers a small but well regarded LLM program in International and Comparative Law.

In conjunction with the change of deans in 2004, Iowa Law has embraced the opportunity to engage in substantial curriculum reform, especially pertaining to first year curriculum and LAWR instructors. The reform is intended to strengthen Iowa's historically strong commitment to the teaching of legal writing. The other principal change to the first year has been the adoption of a one-course elective in the second semester.

Iowa surpasses the ABA minimum standards for student contact with faculty. The law school has a high course requirement for graduation (84 credit hours), a long semester (14 weeks), and a long classroom period (60 minutes). The law school has traditionally required its full-time faculty to teach 12 credit hrs per year (usually 4 courses). The high course load for professors results in a large number of low-enrollment courses, and therefore more opportunities for faculty/student interaction in those classes. As a result, legal education at Iowa involves a higher level of contact with faculty than is available at many of Iowa's peer schools.

The law school has a distinguished faculty with a strong tradition of substantial and significant scholarship and self-governance as well as strong commitments to teaching and service. Most faculty take faculty committee work quite seriously.

Iowa's College of Law is said to have graduated the first female law student, Mary Beth Hickey, in 1873.[3] The second woman to graduate from Iowa Law was Mary Humphrey Haddok in 1875, who later became the first woman admitted to practice before the U.S. District and Circuit Courts.[4]

For the class entering in 2006, the law school enjoyed a rise of over 30 percent in its applicant pool, even though the national pool declined by almost 7%. With its long tradition of concern for diversity, school does vigorous recruitment to enhance diversity and uses a numbers plus admissions process as well, which does a careful read of all files, and does not rely merely on numerical indicators.

Iowa has the advantage of very low in-state tuition, making the average debt of a 2010 graduate $87,891.[5] University policies enable out of state students to get in state tuition if they become a research assistant to a professor. The law school has been able to more than double the non-loan based financial aid it can make available to students and now offers that aid to about half of the class.

When the Law Building was built in 1986, the project included a low-rise library, classrooms, auditoriums, moot courts and administrative facilities. The architect behind this project was Gunnar Birkets & Associates and the structural engineer was Leslie E. Robertson Associates The law library has the second largest collection of volumes and volume equivalents and the second or third largest number of unique individual cataloged volume and volume equivalent titles among all law school libraries.[6] It is technologically up to date, currently has the second largest number of different individually cataloged titles (third if only bound volumes are counted), and it has one of the most comprehensive collections of on-site legal materials in the country.

It contains over one million volumes and volume equivalents and is one of the largest and finest collections of print, microform, and electronic legal materials in the United States.[7] The collections of the Law Library cover all aspects of Anglo-American law. In addition the library has a very strong collection of foreign, international, and comparative law materials. The library also is fully computerized, both in its internal operations and in its public services, and provides hardwired and wireless access for library patrons to access an extensive range of computer research sources and library information.

The law school has sponsored, for more than 30 yrs, “Bridging the Gap,”[8] a minority pre-law conference held at the law school and participates in, and supports, CLEO and PLSI. The mission of the law school is to challenge students to set high standards for themselves and to strive for the best professional education they can obtain from the curriculum, the faculty, and the academic environment.

Facilities of special interest to law students include the $25 million law building that features state-of-the-art computer equipment, audiovisual technology, and 3 full scale courtrooms. All law school facilities are accessible to the physically disabled.

Students have access to federal, state, county, city and local agencies, courts, law firms, and legal aid organizations in the Iowa City area.

The Boyd Law Building has a central campus location on a bluff overlooking the Iowa River.

Degrees and areas of specialization

The College offers a JD program, the LLM in International and Comparative Law, as well as a Joint Degree program between the College of Law and other graduate and professional colleges.

Currently, the most popular joint degree objectives include JD/MA (Management), JD/MPH (Public Health), JD/MHA (Health Management & Policy), JD/MA or MS (Urban & Regional Planning), JD/MA (Journalism), and JD/PhD (Communication Studies).

Other graduate departments/colleges in which current law students are enrolled include Accounting, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Higher Education, History, Medicine, Philosophy, Political Science, Preventative Medicine and Environmental Health, Social Work, and Sociology.[9]

Law Journals

The Law School also features four academic journals, including the Iowa Law Review. The Iowa Law Review was founded in 1915 as the Iowa Law Bulletin, and has served as a scholarly legal journal, noting and analyzing developments in the law and suggesting future paths for the law to follow. The Iowa Law Review ranks high among the top "high impact" legal periodicals in the country, and its subscribers include legal practitioners and law libraries throughout the world.

Alumni

The College has approximately 10,000 alumni. While 40 percent of the alumni practice in the state of Iowa, other top states for the alumni include: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas, Wisconsin, and Virginia.

The alumni have an international presence with almost 200 alumni located outside the United States in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, and Vietnam.

Notable Faculty

Employment

According to the Iowa College of Law's official 2013 ABA-required disclosures, 76.3% of the Class of 2013 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.[48] Iowa's Law School Transparency under-employment score is 15.8%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2013 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.[49]

Costs

The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) for at Iowa for the 2014-2015 academic year is $23,760 for Iowa residents and $41,296 for non-resident students.[50]

References

  1. http://geoffreyhwood.com/w2ym/2014/1/8/drake-law-or-iowa-law-which-is-the-oldest-law-school-west-of-the-mississippi
  2. USNWR: Best Law School Rankings
  3. http://www.law.uiowa.edu/about/milestones.php
  4. http://www.law.uiowa.edu/about/milestones.php
  5. http://www.law.uiowa.edu/students/finaid/loans.php
  6. Law Library - The University of Iowa College of Law
  7. http://www.law.uiowa.edu/library/introduction.php
  8. http://www.law.uiowa.edu/prospective/pre-law/
  9. Joint Law and Graduate Degrees Program - Academic Programs - The University of Iowa College of Law
  10. "Law Journals: Submissions and Ranking". Washington and Lee University School of Law. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  11. "James H. Andreasen". http://admissions.uiowa.edu/. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  12. "Bruce Braley". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  13. "James H. Carter". http://admissions.uiowa.edu/. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  14. "Alexander Clark". The University of Iowa. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
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  17. "Lester J. Dickinson". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  18. "Phyllis Propp Fowle". " The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa. University of Iowa Press,. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
  19. "Rita B. Garman" (PDF). Illinois Supreme Court. Retrieved 6 February 2014.
  20. "Virgil M. Hancher". http://uipress.lib.uiowa.edu/. Retrieved 6 February 2014.
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  28. Nile Kinnick
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  34. "Arthur McGiverin". State Justice Institute. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
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  36. "Michael J. Melloy". Federal Judicial Center. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  37. "Carroll J. Reasoner". The University of Iowa,. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  38. "Tom Riley". .legis.iowa.gov. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  39. "Duke Slater". Pro-Football Reference.com. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  40. "Daniel F. Steck". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
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  42. "William C. Stuart". Federal Judicial Center. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  43. "Philip W. Tone". Federal Judicial Center. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  44. "Harold Vietor". Federal Judicial Center. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  45. "Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson". The University of Iowa. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  46. "George A. Wilson". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  47. "Charles R. Wolle". Federal Judicial Center. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  48. "2013 ABA Placement Summary" (PDF).
  49. "University of Iowa Profile".
  50. "University of Iowa - Financing Your Legal Education".