| University of Virginia School of Law | |
| Parent: | University of Virginia |
| Type: | Public law school |
| Endowment: | $831 million (2023)[1] |
| Parent Endowment: | $13.6 billion (2023)[2] |
| Country: | United States |
| Ranking: | 4th (tie) (2024)[3] |
| Aba Profile: | ABA Profile |
| Dean: | Leslie Kendrick |
The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 as part of his UNESCO World Heritage "academical village", each class in the three-year J.D. programme contains approximately 300 students. The school also offers LL.M., and S.J.D. degrees in law and hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers.
Notable distinguished alumni include members of the U.S. Supreme Court, several of the Kennedy brothers, including Robert F. Kennedy, numerous members of both houses of U.S. Congress, and judges on federal courts throughout the United States. The school has over 20,000 alumni in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and 64 foreign countries.[4]
See main article: History of the University of Virginia.
For the class entering in the fall of 2023, 305 out of 5,610 J.D. applicants matriculated. The 25th and 75th LSAT percentiles for the 2023 entering class were 167 and 172, respectively, with a median of 171. The 25th and 75th undergraduate GPA percentiles were 3.72 and 3.99, respectively, with a median of 3.94. The Class of 2026 consists of students from 40 states and the District of Columbia and from 144 undergraduate institutions. The age range was 20 to 34, with the average age of 24. 53.1% of the class was female, 46.6% male, and 36.1% identified themselves as people of color. 74% of the class had postgraduate experience.[5] The LL.M. Program admits around 40-50 students each year.[6] It provides an American legal education to lawyers who have obtained their first law degree in their home countries; LL.M. candidates take classes alongside J.D. students, allowing participants to fully engage in the community and plan their own coursework [7] The S.J.D. Program has about 8 candidates, and it is intended primarily for aspiring legal academics.[8] [9]
The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) for first-year law students at UVA Law for the 2024–2025 academic year is $105,334 for Virginia residents and $108,348 for nonresidents.[10] Law School Transparency has estimated that the debt-financed cost of attendance for three years, based on data from the 2019–2020 academic year, is $304,672 for residents; the estimated cost for non-residents is $314,961.[11]
UVA Law receives no funding from the state; instead, the school depends upon the generosity of private donors (bolstered by its over 50% alumni giving rate), its substantial endowment (US $ 555 million[12]), the 5th largest among all law schools, and student tuition payments. In 1995–1997, UVA Law used entirely donated funds to renovate and expand its buildings on the university's North Grounds to include the former facilities of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, which built a new campus several hundred yards away.
The Arthur J. Morris Law Library holds more than 820,000 volumes, including substantial collections of federal, state, and international documents, manuscripts, archives, and online research databases.[13]
UVA Law maintains an extensive roster of student organizations, including chapters of the Federalist Society, the American Constitution Society and the St. Thomas More Society. The Virginia Law Weekly, UVA Law's student-run weekly newspaper, has been published since 1948. The paper has been cited in several court cases, including in the dissenting opinion of Justice Powell in the U.S. Supreme Court case Patterson v. New York.[14] In addition to its news content, the VLW also contains student-submitted content, which often includes humorous and creative pieces. The Law Weekly has won the American Bar Association's previous three "Best Newspaper Awards", in 2006, 2007, and 2008.[15]
Each spring, over one hundred students write, direct and perform in The Libel Show, a comedy and musical theater production that was first organized in 1904. Its performers roast law school professors, student stereotypes and life in Charlottesville throughout each of its three nightly showings. Professors write and sing their response to the students' jokes at the penultimate performance.
The school hosts an annual softball tournament to raise money for ReadyKids, an organization that provides care and counseling for at-risk families in Central Virginia, and the Public Interest Law Association, which provides public service internships for law students. 51 different law schools send teams to compete in men's and co-rec brackets. In 2017, $25,000 was raised.[16]
UVA Law hosts 10 academic journals, including the Virginia Law Review, one of the most cited law journals in the country.[17]
UVA Law's curricular programs include the programs in Law & Business and Law and Public Service, as well as programs in international law, legal and constitutional history, criminal law, human rights, race and law, environmental and land use law, immigration law, intellectual property, public policy and regulation, health law, law and humanities, and animal law. UVA Law also has programs that help students build skills, such as the legal writing program, courses in professional ethics, trial advocacy and public speaking, and other practical-skills courses. The Princeton Review ranked UVA Law as first in "Best Quality of Life" and "Best Professors" among the nation's law schools, second in "Best Classroom Experience", fifth in "Toughest to Get Into", and sixth in "Career Prospects".[18] The 2016 QS World University Rankings for law schools ranks UVA Law in the range of 51–100 worldwide and as the 13th-best law school in U.S.[19]
Among the more than 250 courses and seminars offered each year, UVA Law has 23 clinics:[20]
Students may participate in eight international exchange programs. In addition, UVA Law offers rising third-year students the opportunity to obtain a dual degree from Sciences Po in Paris. Students who successfully complete this program earn a French law diploma (entitling them to sit for the French bar exam) and a J.D. degree from Virginia. Students also may spend one semester abroad through the student-initiated study abroad program or as an external studies project. Each year one-credit courses are offered in Paris and Tel Aviv through the January Term.[21]
UVA Law includes several internationally known special programs and centers directed by faculty members.[22]
In 2020, UVA Law was ranked No. 1 in Best Classroom Experience, Best Professors, and Best Quality of Life according to The Princeton Review. In 2024, U.S. News & World Report ranked UVA Law as fourth in the nation. In the 2019 Above the Law rankings, which focuses on employment outcomes, UVA Law ranked first in the nation.[23] A study published in 2011 in the Journal of Legal Education ranked UVA Law fourth in the number of partners in the National Law Journals top 100 firms.[24]
According to UVA Law's official ABA-required disclosures, 95.4% of the Class of 2022 obtained non-school funded full-time, long-term, JD-required employment ten months after graduation.[25] A 2019 analysis conducted by Law.com placed Virginia in second for employment outcomes, behind Columbia, with 92.64% of graduates obtaining employment within ten months.[26]
UVA Law is fourth in the number of partners in the National Law Journal's top 100 firms,[27] and a survey by the NLJ found that UVA Law ranked third in the number of associates promoted to partner among the NLJ's top 250 firms in 2015.[28] Additionally, UVA Law is second only to Harvard in the number of alumni serving as chief legal counsel at Fortune 500 companies.[29] Alumni from UVA Law are also employed at 100 of the American Lawyer top 100 law firms (as of May 2016).[29] In a 2010 study by Stanford Graduate School of Business professors, Virginia ranked fifth in the number of lawyers at the top 300 U.S. law firms.[30]
From 2005 to 2018, UVA Law had the fourth-highest placement of law clerks on the United States Supreme Court, surpassed only by Yale, Harvard and Stanford.[29] In 2016 UVA Law alumni set a school record for obtaining the most appellate court clerkships in a term.[31]
See main article: List of University of Virginia School of Law alumni. UVA Law maintains a list of prominent alumni and has graduated many influential figures in government, business, the judiciary, academia, journalism, and the law, including Woodrow Wilson, Robert F. Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, Lowell Weicker, John Warner, David K.E. Bruce, Louis Auchincloss, DeMaurice Smith, Robert Mueller, Janet Napolitano and others. The school's alumni giving rate of more than 50 percent for the past 11 years is among the highest of the nation's law schools.
Many of UVA Law's faculty are prominent scholars and academics, including Anne Coughlin, professor of criminal law, John F. Duffy, who teaches intellectual property, and Risa L. Goluboff, who is a professor of legal history and constitutional law.
Current faculty: