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The University of Chicago Law School, having recently celebrated its centennial in the 2002-2003 school year, has established itself as a high profile part of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood of Chicago. Although an older university by the same name existed prior to its founding, the modern University of Chicago credits its founding to the oil magnate John D....
.

It is ranked 7th overall in the US News & World Report graduate school , with its student body ranking 5th in the nation.






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The University of Chicago Law School, having recently celebrated its centennial in the 2002-2003 school year, has established itself as a high profile part of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood of Chicago. Although an older university by the same name existed prior to its founding, the modern University of Chicago credits its founding to the oil magnate John D....
.

It is ranked 7th overall in the US News & World Report graduate school , with its student body ranking 5th in the nation. Additionally, Chicago's faculty has the highest per capita article citation rate of any American law school. Chicago ranks second on a ranking of the "Top 15 Schools From Which the Most 'Prestigious' Law Firms Hire New Lawyers"; second for "Faculty Quality"; third for "Supreme Court Clerkship Placement"; and fifth for "Student Quality". The Law School is also notable for having the third highest gross and second highest per capita placement of alumni as U.S. Supreme Court clerkships , with roughly 15-25% of each graduating class going on to clerkships at the federal or state level. Private career prospects are equally bright for graduates, placing highly into elite firms. The school awards the Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor is a first professional degree graduate degree and professional doctorate in law degree. The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century as a degree similar to the old European doctor of law degree and the legal studies counterpart to the M.D....
 (J.D.) degree, as well as the L.L.M., J.S.D and D.Comp.L (solely to foreign trained lawyers).

The Law School is well-known for its advancement of the application of social science to the law. A significant movement in jurisprudence began at the law school when Aaron Director
Aaron Director

Aaron Director , a celebrated professor at the University of Chicago Law School, played a central role in the development of the Chicago school ....
 initiated the first modern systemic investigation between the intersection of law and economics
Law and economics

Law and Economics, or economic analysis of law, is an approach to legal theory that applies methods of economics to law. It includes the use of economic concepts to explain the effects of laws, to assess which legal rules are economic efficiency, and to predict which legal rules will be Promulgation....
, an area in which the law school's faculty figure prominently.

In addition, the law school is known for the fact that President Barack Obama
Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the List of Presidents of the United States and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office....
 served on its faculty for twelve years, teaching constitutional law. He was first classified as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.

Publications


The University of Chicago Law Review
University of Chicago Law Review

The University of Chicago Law Review is a Law review published by the University of Chicago Law School, and was founded in 1933. From 1942 through 1945 the Review was published by the faculty, due to World War II....
 is one of the school's flagship student-run journals. The Chicago Journal of International Law
Chicago Journal of International Law

The Chicago Journal of International Law is a semiannual, student-edited law review publishing by the University of Chicago Law School. CJIL contains articles covering issues of international law and policy....
 and the University of Chicago Legal Forum are the Law School's other well-known student-run journals. Students interested in membership on any of these journals participate in a writing competition at the end of the first year. The Law Review selects 19 students for membership based on first year GPA ("grade on"), and 10 students for the quality of their writing competition submission ("write on"). The other two student-run journals select members on the basis of writing competition submissions alone (without regard to GPA). All three student-run journals also allow second and third year students to "write on" by submitting a piece of legal scholarship worthy of publication.

The Supreme Court Review, published by the law school and overseen by faculty since the 1960s, remains the most cited legal journal internationally with respect to commentary on the nation's highest court. The faculty also oversees publication of the Journal of Law and Economics and the Journal of Legal Studies.

Legal Clinics

The Law School boasts three highly-regarded legal clinics: the Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, the Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project, and the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship. Second and third year students at the Law School are afforded the opportunity to work within these clinics

Courses that are linked to these clinical programs include: Appellate Advocacy, the Civil Rights Police Accountability Project, the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Project, the Employment Discrimination Project, the Housing Initiative, Mental Health Advocacy (within the Mandel Clinic), Immigrant Children's Advocacy, and Entrepreneurship (associated with the Institute for Justice).

Student Organizations


The Law School is home to one of the three founding chapters of the Federalist Society
Federalist Society

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called simply the Federalist Society, is an organization of conservatives and libertarians seeking reform of the current Law of the United States in accordance with an Originalism....
. It is also home to a large chapter of the progressive American Constitution Society for Law and Policy
American Constitution Society for Law and Policy

The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy is a legal organization which has as its mission the promotion of the vitality of the U.S....
.

Grading


Chicagolaw
The Law School employs a unique grading system with a range from 155 to 186. These numerical grades convert to the more familiar alphabetical scale as follows: 155-159 = F, 160-167 = D, 168-173 = C, 174-179 = B, 180-186 = A. For classes of more than 50 students, the median grade is 177, and the number of As should approximately equal the number of Cs.

A student graduates "with honors" if a final average of 179 is attained, "with high honors" if a final average of 180.5 is attained, and "with highest honors" if a final average of 182 is attained. The last of these achievements is rare; typically only one student every few years will attain the requisite 182 average. Additionally, the Law School awards two class-rank based honors at graduation. The top 10% are honored as "Order of the Coif
Order of the Coif

The Order of the Coif is an honor society for United States law school graduates. A student at an American law school who earns a Juris Doctor degree and graduates in the top 10 percent of his or her class is eligible for membership if the student's law school has a chapter of the Order....
," and the top 5% are honored as "Kirkland Scholars" (a designation created in 2006 by a $7 million donation from the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis).

The grading scale was previously 55-86, but the school prefixed their grades with a "1" in 2003 to avoid confusion with traditional grading scales.

Prominent faculty

  • Douglas Baird
  • Emily Buss
  • Adam Cox
  • Ronald Coase
    Ronald Coase

    Ronald Harry Coase is a United Kingdom economist and the Clifton R. Musser Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago Law School....
  • Brainerd Currie
    Brainerd Currie

    Brainerd Currie was a law professor noted for his work in conflict of laws and his creation of the concept of the Characterisation_#Exclusion_of_the_foreign_law....
  • David P. Currie
    David P. Currie

    David P. Currie was the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, noted for his histories of the United States Constitution in United States Congress and the United States Supreme Court, his casebooks on federal courts and conflict of laws in the United States, and his award-winning teaching at th...
     (deceased)
  • Judge Frank H. Easterbrook
    Frank H. Easterbrook

    Frank Hoover Easterbrook is Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He has been Chief Judge since November 2006, and has been a judge on the court since 1985....
     (alumnus)
  • Richard Epstein
    Richard Epstein

    Richard Allen Epstein is the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, the Faculty Director for Curriculum, and the Director, Law and Economics Program at the University of Chicago Law School....
  • Daniel Fischel
  • Grant Gilmore
    Grant Gilmore

    Grant Gilmore was an American law professor who taught at Yale Law School, University of Chicago Law School, Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, and Vermont Law School....
     (deceased)
  • Judge Douglas Ginsburg (alumnus)
  • Bernard Harcourt
    Bernard Harcourt

    Bernard E. Harcourt is a critical theorist and empirical researcher who writes in the area of crime and punishment. He is the Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and the author most recently of ....
  • Richard H. Helmholz
    Richard H. Helmholz

    Richard H. Helmholz is the Ruth Wyatt Rosenson Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He received his Bachelor of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1965 and also earned an A.B....
  • Dennis J. Hutchinson
    Dennis J. Hutchinson

    Dennis J. Hutchinson is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School, and Master of the undergraduate College's New Collegiate Division where he directs the Law, Letters, and Society program....
  • Harry Kalven
    Harry Kalven

    Harry Kalven, Jr., was one of the preeminent legal scholars of the 20th Century. Kalven was the Harry A. Bigelow Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School....
     (deceased)
  • Dallin H. Oaks
    Dallin H. Oaks

    Dallin Harris Oaks is an American attorney, jurist and religious leader. Since 1984, he has been a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ....
     (former faculty member)
  • William Landes
    William Landes

    William M. Landes is an economist who has written widely about the economic analysis of law. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which cited him for his pioneering work in the field....
  • Brian Leiter
    Brian Leiter

    Brian Leiter is an United States philosopher and legal scholar who is currently John Wilson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, and Director of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values....
  • Lawrence Lessig
    Lawrence Lessig

    Lawrence Lessig is an United States Academia and political activist. He is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and will soon re-join the faculty at Harvard Law School....
     (former faculty member)
  • Saul Levmore
    Saul Levmore

    Saul Levmore is a legal scholar, William B. Graham Professor of Law, and Dean of the University of Chicago Law School. He joined the faculty of the law school in 1998 and became Dean in 2001....
  • Catharine MacKinnon
    Catharine MacKinnon

    Catharine Alice MacKinnon is an United States feminism, scholar, lawyer, teacher and activist....
     (former faculty member)
  • Judge Michael W. McConnell
    Michael W. McConnell

    Michael W. McConnell is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and a constitutional law scholar....
     (former faculty member and alumnus)
  • Bernard D. Meltzer (former faculty member)
  • Judge Abner Mikva
  • Martha Nussbaum
    Martha Nussbaum

    Martha Nussbaum is an United States philosophy with a particular interest in Greek philosophy and Roman philosophy, political philosophy and ethics....
  • Former U.S. Senator
    United States Senate

    The United States Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism United States Congress, the lower house being the United States House of Representatives....
     and current President of the United States
    President of the United States

    The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition....
     Barack Obama
    Barack Obama

    Barack Hussein Obama II is the List of Presidents of the United States and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office....
     (on leave of absence) (1992 to 2004)
  • Judge Richard A. Posner
  • Eric Posner
    Eric Posner

    Eric A. Posner is a Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He is the son of the prominent United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Richard Posner....
  • Gerald N. Rosenberg
    Gerald N. Rosenberg

    Gerald N. Rosenberg is a University of Chicago political science and law professor, and the author of the 1991 controversial book The Hollow Hope ....
  • Justice Antonin Scalia
    Antonin Scalia

    is an United States jurist and the second most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of the Supreme Court of the United States, appointed by Republican Party President Ronald Reagan....
     (former faculty member)
  • Justice John Paul Stevens
    John Paul Stevens

    John Paul Stevens is the senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He joined the Supreme Court of the United States in 1975 and is the oldest member of the Court....
     (former lecturer)
  • Geoffrey R. Stone
    Geoffrey R. Stone

    Geoffrey R. Stone is an American law professor. He is currently the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School....
     (alumnus)
  • David Strauss
  • Cass Sunstein
    Cass Sunstein

    Cass R. Sunstein is an United States law scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics....
     (Currently Harry Kalven
    Harry Kalven

    Harry Kalven, Jr., was one of the preeminent legal scholars of the 20th Century. Kalven was the Harry A. Bigelow Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School....
     Visiting Professor)
  • Judge Diane Pamela Wood
    Diane Pamela Wood

    Diane Pamela Wood is a United States federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago School of Law....


Notable alumni

  • Shimon Agranat
    Shimon Agranat

    Shimon Agranat was the President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1965 until 1976....
    : President of the Israeli Supreme Court 1965-1976
  • John Ashcroft
    John Ashcroft

    John David Ashcroft is an American politician who was the 79th United States Attorney General. He served during the first term of President of the United States George W....
    : Former U.S. Senator, Governor of Missouri, and Attorney General of the United States
  • Alfred C. Aman, Jr.
    Alfred C. Aman, Jr.

    Alfred C. Aman, Jr. is a well-known professor of law, author and the Dean of Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts.Aman graduated from the University of Rochester in 1967 and the University of Chicago in 1970, where he was executive editor of University of Chicago Law Review....
    : Dean of Suffolk University Law School
    Suffolk University Law School

    Suffolk University Law School is a private law school in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The fourth oldest law school in New England in continuous existence , Suffolk was founded in 1906 by Gleason Archer, Sr....
     and Indiana University School of Law
    Indiana University School of Law

    Indiana University School of Law is referring to either*Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington, or*Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis...
  • Laird Bell
    Laird Bell

    Laird Bell was a distinguished attorney and Democrat who founded a leading Chicago law firm and endowed several charitable institutions. Baird was an extraordinarily active contributor in a variety of social and not-for-profit causes....
  • Robert Bork
    Robert Bork

    Robert Heron Bork is a conservative United States legal scholar who advocates the judicial philosophy of originalism. Bork formerly served as United States Solicitor General, acting United States Attorney General, and judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit....
    : Former Solicitor General of the United States, acting Attorney General of the United States, and Judge on the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court
  • Carol Moseley Braun
    Carol Moseley Braun

    Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun is an United States politician and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999....
    : U.S. Senator from Illinois; first (and only) African-American female U.S. Senator; sought 2004 Democratic Party presidential nomination
  • Elizabeth Cheney
    Elizabeth Cheney

    Elizabeth Cheney Perry , is an United States Lawyer. She is the elder of two daughters of former Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney and former Second Lady of the United States Lynne Cheney....
    : head of the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) and daughter of Vice President Richard Cheney
  • Marvin Chirelstein
    Marvin Chirelstein

    Marvin Chirelstein is a law professor who has been teaching at Columbia Law School for nearly 30 years. He teaches a contracts course to 1Ls as well as tax and corporate finance courses....
    : Professor at Columbia Law School
    Columbia Law School

    Columbia Law School, located in New York City, is one of the professional schools of Columbia University, a member of the Ivy League. David Schizer is the dean....
  • Norton Clapp
    Norton Clapp

    Matthew Norton Clapp was a Weyerhaeuser chairman who was among the private investors who built and owned the Seattle Space Needle.Clapp was active in various philanthropies including the Boy Scouts of America and was to donate 10,098 acres including the summit of Baldy Mountain for use at Philmont Scout Ranch....
    : Former president and chairman of Weyerhaeuser, former president of Boy Scouts of America
  • Ramsey Clark
    Ramsey Clark

    William Ramsey Clark is a lawyer and former United States Attorney General. He worked for the United States Department of Justice, which included service as the 66th United States Attorney General under President Lyndon B....
    : Former Attorney General of the United States
  • James Comey: Former Acting Attorney General of the United States, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, and former United States Attorney (for the Southern District of New York)
  • James I. Dolliver
    James I. Dolliver

    James Isaac Dolliver served six terms as a Republican United States House of Representatives from Iowa's 6th congressional district, beginning in 1944....
    : Former U.S. Representative
  • Jerome Frank: Former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
  • James Hormel
    James Hormel

    James Catherwood Hormel is a philanthropist and grandson of George A. Hormel, founder of Hormel Foods Corporation . He lives with his partner, Michael P....
    : First openly gay United States Ambassador (to Luxembourg)
  • Harold Ickes
    Harold Ickes

    Harold Ickes may refer to:*Harold L. Ickes , U.S. Secretary of the Interior in Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration*Harold M. Ickes , son of the Interior Secretary, deputy White House official in Clinton's administration...
  • Douglas H. Ginsburg
    Douglas H. Ginsburg

    Douglas Howard Ginsburg is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was appointed to this court in October 1986 by President Ronald Reagan....
    : Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court
  • Mary Ann Glendon
    Mary Ann Glendon

    Mary Ann Glendon Juris Doctor, LL.M., is the United States Ambassadors to the Holy See and the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School....
    : Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University; US Ambassador to the Holy See
  • Jan Crawford Greenburg
    Jan Crawford Greenburg

    Jan Crawford Greenburg is a senior legal correspondent for ABC News, covering law and politics for its news programs -- World News Tonight, Nightline , Good Morning America, and This Week with George Stephanopoulos....
    : ABC News legal correspondent (well known for Supreme Court coverage)
  • David Aaron Kessler
    David Aaron Kessler

    David Aaron Kessler is an American pediatrician, lawyer, author, and Administration . He was the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from November 8, 1990 to February 28, 1997....
    : Former FDA Commissioner, former Dean of the Yale School of Medicine, and current Dean of the University of California, San Francisco Medical School
  • Amy Klobuchar
    Amy Klobuchar

    Amy Jean Klobuchar is the senior United States Senator from Minnesota. She is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party ....
    : U.S. Senator from Minnesota
  • Alexander Krasnoshchyokov
    Alexander Krasnoshchyokov

    Alexander Mikhailovich Krasnoshchyokov was a Soviet politician and the first Chairman of the Government of the Far Eastern Republic.In most western works of reference his name is spelt Krasnoschekov or Krasnoschekoff....
    , the Head of the Far Eastern Republic
    Far Eastern Republic

    The Far Eastern Republic , sometimes called the Chita Republic, was a nominally independent state established at Blagoveshchensk, covering the former Russian Far East and Siberia east of Lake Baikal on April 6, 1920....
     (1920 to 1921)
  • Rex E. Lee
    Rex E. Lee

    Rex Edwin Lee from St. Johns, Arizona, Arizona was a United States Constitution lawyer, a law clerk for former Supreme Court of the United States Justice Byron White, and the United States Solicitor General under the Presidency of Ronald Reagan....
    : Former Solicitor General of the United States and President of Brigham Young University
  • Edward H. Levi
    Edward H. Levi

    Edward Hirsch Levi was an American academic leader, scholar, and statesman who served as United States Attorney General....
    : Former Attorney General
    Attorney General

    In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may in addition have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions....
     of the United States
  • Harvey Levin
    Harvey Levin

    Harvey Robert Levin is an United States television producer, lawyer, legal analyst, and a celebrity reporter.Levin received an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago....
    : Popular purveyor of celebrity gossip and legal commentary
  • Michael W. McConnell
    Michael W. McConnell

    Michael W. McConnell is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and a constitutional law scholar....
    : Judge on the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
  • Patsy Mink
    Patsy Mink

    Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink was an Politics of the United States from the U.S. state of Hawaii. Mink was a Japanese American and member of the Democratic Party ; she also was the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs....
    : Former U.S. Representative
  • Abner J. Mikva
    Abner J. Mikva

    Abner Joseph Mikva is a Democratic Party former United States House of Representatives, federal judge and law professor from Chicago....
    : Former U.S. Congressman from Illinois and Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
  • Andrew Patner, Chicago Radio Personality (WFMT)
  • Sir Geoffrey Palmer: 33rd Prime Minister of New Zealand
  • Nicholas J. Pritzker
    Nicholas J. Pritzker

    Nicholas J. Pritzker is Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Hyatt Development Corporation. He is a member of the Pritzker family, which owns the Hyatt hotel group....
    : Chairman of the Board
    Chairman of the Board

    The Chairman of the Board is a seat of office in an organisation, especially of corporations.Chairman of the Board may also refer to:*Chairman of the Board , a 1998 film...
     and CEO of the Hyatt Development Corporation
  • Thomas Pritzker
    Thomas Pritzker

    Thomas Pritzker is a member of the wealthy Pritzker family, and runs The Pritzker Organization with his cousins....
    : Chairman and CEO of Global Hyatt Corporation
  • Lee H. Rosenthal
    Lee H. Rosenthal

    Lee H. Rosenthal is a judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division....
    : Judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas
  • David M. Rubenstein, Founder, The Carlyle Group
  • Kyle Sampson
    Kyle Sampson

    D. Kyle Sampson was the Chief of Staff and Counselor of United States United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He resigned on March 12 2007, amid the controversy surrounding the 2006 Dismissal of U.S....
  • Adam Silver
    Adam Silver

    Adam Silver is the Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer of the National Basketball Association. He has held this post since July 2006....
    : NBA
    National Basketball Association

    The National Basketball Association is North America's premier professional men's basketball league, composed of thirty teams: twenty-nine in the United States and one in Canada....
     Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer
    Chief operating officer

    A chief operating officer or chief operations officer is a corporate officer responsible for managing the day-to-day activities of the corporation and for operations management ....
  • Barbara Snyder: President of Case Western Reserve University
  • Jim Talent
    Jim Talent

    James Matthes "Jim" Talent is an United States politician and former United States Senate from Missouri. He is a United States Republican Party and resided in the St....
    : Former U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator from Missouri
  • David S. Tatel
    David S. Tatel

    David S. Tatel was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President of the United States Bill Clinton in October 1994....
    : Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
  • Studs Terkel
    Studs Terkel

    Louis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985, and is best remembered for his oral history of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago....
     Notable Chicago Radio Personality, Journalist and Author


External links