The Notre Dame Law School, or NDLS, is the professional graduate law program of its parent institution, the University of Notre Dame. Established in 1869, NDLS is the oldest Roman Catholic law school in the United States and is ranked 20th among the nation's "Top 100 Law Schools" by U.S. News & World Report and 16th by Business Insider's Best Law Schools in America. It is ranked 8th in graduates attaining federal judicial clerkships and 17th in graduates attaining Supreme Court clerkships (tied with Cornell Law School and the University of Minnesota Law School).
According to Notre Dame's 2015 ABA-required disclosures, 76.0% of the Class of 2015 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment ten months after graduation.
It offers the only American Bar Associationâ€"approved, year-long, study-abroad program, which is based in London.
History
Beginnings
The Notre Dame Law School opened in February 1869 and was the first Catholic institution of its kind. Despite its humble beginning, right from the start the Law School required law students to have completed previous education in a thorough course in the liberal arts. This was not common at the time, when Law School applicants only had to be 18. The first faculty consisted of only four professors, with the most prominent being Lucius Tong and Timothy Howard. The first class graduated in 1871 and consisted of three students.
"Colonel" Hoynes era
One of the most important names in the history of the school was "Colonel" William Hoynes. He was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1847 and emigrated with his parents at age seven. He fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war, he was a student at Notre Dame from 1867 to 1872, and later went to Brunswick, New Jersey where he was editor of the Daily Times. Hoynes later attended the University of Michigan Law School and obtained his LL.B . In 1882, Rev. Walsh, then the president of the University, invited Hoynes to take control of the Law School, which was in demise. Hoynes accepted Rev. Walsh's offer in 1883, and taught classes in the Main Administration Building (University of Notre Dame) and in Sorin Hall where a large room permitted him to set up a "Moot Court". The course of study was extended from two to three years. Hoynes was assisted in various subjects by John Ewing and Lucius Hubbard of South Bend. Under his tenure, enrollment in the law school began to rise immediately.
Hoynes Hall, named in honor of Dean William Hoynes, was built in 1920 for the exclusive use of the law students who had been using Sorin Hall. In 1925 John Whitman was appointed by Dean Thomas Konop as the first law librarian, and the collection grew to 7,000 volumes.
20th century
On October 7, 1930, the Law School was transferred to the new building located on Notre Dame Avenue. The beautiful Gothic building, which still stands today, has a large reading room. The second librarian, Lora Lashbrook, and the third, Marie Lawrence, grew the library's collection to 20,000 volumes by 1952, and 55,000 volumes in 1960. The increase in size of both the library collection and the number of students greatly reduced the available space, but this was balanced by the expansion of the law school funded by a donation by S. S. Kresge, the namesake of the Kresge Law Library. In 1986 a further expansion added the East Reading Room and created the reference librarian offices. In 1990 alumnus John F. Sandner donated funding for the acquisition of the entire 120,000 volume collection of the Chicago Bar Association Library.
First Woman to graduate from Notre Dame Law School In 1970, Graciela Olivarez was the first woman to graduate from Notre Dame Law School. The next class to graduate women would be 1973.
21st-century advances
New resources for scholarship
In 2004, the Kresge Law Library became one of the few academic law libraries to own more than 600,000 volumes. This was accomplished mainly under the tenure of the fifth law librarian, Roger Jacobs, who also served as head librarian of the Library of the United States Supreme Court. Between 2007 and 2008, a new building, the Eck Hall of Law, was constructed to provide the Law School with an additional 85,000 square feet of classroom and office space. In 2010 Robert Biolchini, alumnus and entrepreneur from Tulsa, Oklahoma, funded the renovation of the Kresge Law Library, located in the renamed Biolchini Hall of Law. The renovated Biolchini Hall is 106,500 square feet, has two 50-seat classrooms, a seminar room, 29 group study rooms, and holds 300,000 book volumes and more than 300,000 volumes in microfilm. The total cost of renovations and expansions was approximately 58 million dollars.
Faculty hiring momentum
In recent years, the expanding Notre Dame Law faculty has attracted a number of accomplished scholars from other top law schools. In 2009, University of Virginia Law School Professor Stephen Smith left a tenured position to join the Notre Dame Law faculty.. In 2012, Professor Barry Cushman, the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of History at the University of Virginia, joined the NDLS faculty. In 2017, it was announced that private law theorist Paul Miller from McGill University would join the Notre Dame faculty. During the same period, long-time Notre Dame professors have been invited for visiting faculty positions at Harvard, University of Michigan and the University of Chicago law schools.
Expanded urban presence in DC and Chicago
In 2013, new space was secured for the Notre Dame Law in Chicago program, which allows ND Law students to pursue their studies from an urban campus in downtown Chicago ("in the Loop"). In 2015, in partnership with Kirkland & Ellis, the law school debuted its Notre Dame Law in DC program, which allows students to spend a semester studying in Washington, DC.
Admissions and rankings
Admission to NDLS is highly selective. For the class entering in the fall of 2016, the median LSAT score was 164 and the median undergraduate GPA was 3.71.
Notre Dame Law School is ranked 20th among the nation's "Top 100 Law Schools" by U.S. News & World Report. In addition, NDLS is ranked 20th in Above the Law's "Top 50 Law School Rankings" in 2016. The law School is a top 10 runner up for Elite Litigation boutique hiring.
Degrees
The Law School grants the professional Juris Doctor, Master of Laws and Doctor of Juridical Science degrees. The Master of Laws program can be pursued either at the main campus in South Bend or at the Law School's London Law Centre in the United Kingdom. The law school also offers a Master of Science in Patent Law, Certificate in Patent Prosecution, and LL.M. in International Human Rights Law.
Job and clerkship placement
The class of 2014 reported employment in 29 states and the District of Columbia. In the class of 2015, 136 out of 179 graduates (76.0%) secured full-time, long-term employment requiring passage of the bar exam within ten months of graduation. The top 3 most popular destinations for graduates in the class of 2016 were Illinois (43), New York (11), and California (9). Furthermore, 32.4% of graduates in the class of 2015 found employment in large law firms (100+ attorneys) and 8.4% pursued federal clerkships. Notre Dame has been recognized as a feeder school for federal clerks and in recent years has placed a higher percentage of its graduates as federal clerks than other top law schools, such as the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Columbia Law School.
Costs
The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Notre Dame Law School for the 2015-2016 academic year is $72,322.
Facilities
Notre Dame Law School is located in the heart of Notre Dame's campus. Eck and Biochini Halls, two buildings connected by a suspended walkway, house the Law School. The conjoined buildings were designed by famous architect Charles Donagh Maginnis and the buildings serve as a prominent example of collegiate Gothic architecture. The Kresge Law Library is located in Biochini Hall, while most of the classrooms are in Eck Hall. Funding for the law library was provided by businessman S.S. Kresge, the founder of what is now Sears Holding Corporation. The Law School also hosts a legal aid clinic in South Bend.
Notable alumni
Despite having smaller graduating classes than most of America's top law schools, Notre Dame's alumni roster includes a range of distinguished jurists, advocates, politicians, and business leaders.
Notable faculty
Notable current faculty include:
- G. Robert Blakey - author of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) (also an alumnus)
- John Finnis - Australian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of law (also Professor of Law at University College, Oxford)
- Nicole Stelle Garnett - legal scholar specializing in the areas of property, land use, urban development, local government law, and education
- Richard W. Garnett - First Amendment and criminal law scholar
- Jimmy Gurulé - former Under Secretary for Enforcement, United States Department of the Treasury and former Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice
- William K. Kelley - former White House Deputy Counsel
- Mary Ellen O'Connell - international law scholar
- Charles E. Rice - legal scholar specializing in Natural Law Theory
- Kenneth Francis Ripple - Senior Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Notable former faculty include:
- Anton-Hermann Chroust - German-American legal historian
- John H. Garvey - also professor at the University of Michigan Law School and Dean of the Boston College Law School
- M. Cathleen Kaveny - scholar of law and theology at Boston College
- Douglas Kmiec - U.S. Ambassador (ret.), United States Department of State, confirmed 2009; Assistant (U.S.) Attorney General of the United States, Office of Legal Counsel United States Department of Justice, confirmed 1988, White House Fellow and Special Assistant to the Secretary United States Department of Housing & Urban Development; Dean and St. Thomas More Professor of Law, Catholic University of America
- Thomas F. Konop - former U.S. Representative from Wisconsin
- Juan E. Méndez - human rights advocate known for work on behalf of political prisoners
- Carol Ann Mooney - President of Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana
- John T. Noonan, Jr. - Senior United States federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- Thomas L. Shaffer - property law scholar
- Patrick J. Schiltz - United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota
- Larry Soderquist - securities law scholar
- Harris Wofford - former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and civil rights activist
- Dudley G. Wooten - former U.S. Representative from Texas.
Law journals
Notre Dame Law School publishes five student-run journals:
- Notre Dame Law Review
- Journal of College and University Law
- Journal of Legislation
- Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy
- Notre Dame Journal of International and Comparative Law
References
External links
- Official website