The Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College (also known as Lewis & Clark Law School), is an

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...

-approved private law school in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

. The law school received ABA approval in 1970 and joined the

Association of American Law Schools The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), formed in 1900, is a non-profit organization of 176 law schools in the United States. An additional 19 schools pay a fee to receive services but are not members. AALS incorporated as a 501(c)(3) n ...

(AALS) in 1973. Lewis & Clark Law School offers the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree, including a range of scholastic concentrations and legal certificate programs, as well as a Master of Laws (LLM) degree in environmental, natural resources, and energy law and an LLM degree in animal law. Each class in the three-year J.D. program has approximately 180 students. The dean of Lewis & Clark Law School is Jennifer J. Johnson, Erskine Wood Sr. endowed Professor of Law, a

securities law Securities regulation in the United States is the field of U.S. law that covers transactions and other dealings with securities. The term is usually understood to include both federal and state-level regulation by governmental regulatory agencies ...

scholar and arbitration expert, as well as a member of the American Law Institute. Lewis & Clark law students can complete their degrees on full-time or part-time schedules, take courses during the day or evening, and focus in a number of legal specialties. The institution has a general

law review A law review or law journal is a scholarly journal or publication that focuses on legal issues. A law review is a type of legal periodical. Law reviews are a source of research, imbedded with analyzed and referenced legal topics; they also pr ...

and a range of specialty programs, including environmental law, public interest law, and the lawyering program. According to Lewis & Clark's official 2018 ABA-required disclosures, 75.8% of the Class of 2018 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required or JD-preferred employment nine months after graduation.

Campus grounds

The law school grounds are adjacent to a forested natural area, replete with 14-miles of biking and jogging trails in Tryon Creek State Park. The Law School is 4-miles from downtown, in the Southern hills of Portland, west of the

Willamette River The Willamette River ( ) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward b ...

, at the base of the

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

campus of

Lewis & Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & C ...

. The Lewis & Clark College undergraduate,

graduate school Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and stru ...

, and law campus grounds collectively occupy 137 acres (554,000 m²), centered on the M. Lloyd Frank Estate on Palatine Hill in the Collins View neighborhood of Southwest Portland.

History

Lewis & Clark Law School's origins began with the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

establishing a

Department of Law A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

in Portland in 1885. After the

Oregon State Legislature The Oregon Legislative Assembly is the state legislature for the U.S. state of Oregon. The Legislative Assembly is bicameral, consisting of an upper and lower house: the Senate, whose 30 members are elected to serve four-year terms; and the H ...

moved the program to Eugene, Oregon in 1915, several law faculty members resisted the move, and formed the Northwestern College of Law. In 1965, the faculty and overseers of Northwestern College of Law joined with the president and trustees of Lewis & Clark College to

incorporate Incorporation may refer to: * Incorporation (business), the creation of a corporation * Incorporation of a place, creation of municipal corporation such as a city or county * Incorporation (academic), awarding a degree based on the student having ...

the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College. Harold G. Wren was Dean of the law school from 1969-72. Today the college has over 100 faculty and staff. Faculty members regularly appear as experts in legal proceedings, publish legal texts and contribute primary research findings to legal scholarship around the country.

Law library

Lewis & Clark Law School Research Center

The Paul L. Boley Law Library is the largest

law library A law library is a special library used by law students, lawyers, judges and their law clerks, historians and other scholars of legal history in order to research the law. Law libraries are also used by people who draft or advocate for new la ...

in Oregonhttps://officialguide.lsac.org/Release/SchoolsABAData/SchoolPage/SchoolPage_PDFs/LSAC_LawSchoolDescription/LSAC4384.pdf/ and the second-largest in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

with a collection of over 505,000 volumes as of 2014. Boley is also home to clinical space and program offices.

Animal Law Program

Lewis & Clark Law School is a pioneer in the field of animal law, it offered some of the first animal law courses in the world and in 1992 students founded the first Animal Law Conference in the U.S. The Center for Animal Studies (CALS) was founded at the school in 2008, becoming the first formal animal law program in the world and eventually giving rise to the first Animal Law Clinic. In 2012 CALS launched the first post-JD master of laws (LLM) in Animal Law. The school has the top ranked animal law program in the United States.

Rankings

The 2021 ''U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the school at 88 as a Tier 1 institution. Individual programs continue to receive high marks: Lewis & Clark Law School's Animal Law Program is ranked 1st in the United States and as of 2021, it ranked 1st of environmental law programs, according to '' U.S. News & World Reports rating system. Meanwhile, the Lewis & Clark Part-Time Program was ranked 14th in the country as of 2021. Lewis & Clark Law School Amphitheater

Wood Hall Reading Room at Lewis & Clark Law School

Law centers and institutes

Lewis and Clark Law School Portland Oregon

*Center for Animal Law Studies *Earthrise Law Center *Green Energy Institute *National Crime Victim Law Institute *Natural Resources Law Institute *Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC) *Western Resources Legal Center (WRLC) *International Environmental Law Project (IELP)

Journals

Lewis & Clark Law School supports three student-edited scholarly journals: *'' Environmental Law Review'' *''

Animal Law Review ''Animal Law'' is a law review covering animal law published by students at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. Publishing its first volume in 1994, it was the first law review to focus on animal law issues and is the best known journal i ...

'' *''Lewis & Clark Law Review''

Practical skills

National moot court competitions

Lewis & Clark law students benefit from the campus serving as a destination for several national moot courts. In 2013, Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts launched Lewis & Clark's Environmental Moot Court Competition, presiding as a guest judge. The campus also serves as the permanent host of the National Native American Law Students Association (NALSA) Moot Court Competition and the

International Law Students Association International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * International (Kevin Michael album), ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * International (New Order album), ' ...

(ILSA) Pacific Regional

Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, also known as the Jessup Moot or The Jessup, is the oldest and largest international moot competition in the world, attracting participants from almost 700 law schools in more than 90 ...

. Additionally, the ILSA Student Initiated Lecture Series at Lewis & Clark has been internationally recognized for academic excellence.

Semester abroad opportunities

In addition, the law school has developed a number of exclusive global summer externship placements. There are options in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

for students interested in business, litigation, transactional,

public interest The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. Overview Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefor ...

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

, and environmental practice through placement with firms and

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

s in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

, and

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. The law school has also secured exclusive placements in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, for students interested in international law firm experience. Past placements include firms in both

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

and

Shanghai, China Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

Employment

According to Lewis & Clark's official 2018 ABA-required disclosures, 75.8% of the Class of 2018 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required or JD-preferred employment nine months after graduation. Lewis & Clark's

Law School Transparency Law School Transparency (LST) is a nonprofit consumer advocacy and education organization concerning the legal profession in the United States. LST was founded by Vanderbilt Law School graduates Kyle McEntee and Patrick Lynch. LST describes its ...

under-employment score is 20.8%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2018 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.

Costs

The average cost of attendance at Lewis & Clark Law School for the 2016-17 school year includes tuition ($43,240 full-time, $32,426 part-time); fees ($50 public interest fee); health insurance ($2,402 if not already covered); and average cost of living expenses ($18,761).

Notable alumni

Brad Avakian Brad Peter Avakian (born February 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as a Democrat in the Oregon House, the Oregon Senate, and as the state's nonpartisan elected Labor Commissioner. He was appointed Labor Commissioner by Governor Ted ...

(1990): Commissioner of the

Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) is an agency in the executive branch of the government of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is headed by the Commissioner of Labor and Industries, a nonpartisan, statewide elective office. The term of ...

* Richard C. Baldwin (1975): Oregon Supreme Court Justice * Alexander G. Barry (1915): Politician *

Cliff Bentz Cliff Stewart Bentz (born January 12, 1952) is an American lawyer, rancher, and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Oregon's 2nd congressional district. A member of the Republican Party, he is the ranking member on the House Natura ...

(1979): Oregon State Representative * Craig Berkman: Politician *

Earl Blumenauer Earl Francis Blumenauer ( ; born August 16, 1948) is an American lawyer, author, and politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 1996. The district includes most of Portland east of the Willamette River. A member of the Democrat ...

(1976): U.S. Representative * Anna Brown (1980): U.S. District Judge for the District of Oregon *

Kate Brown Katherine Brown (born June 21, 1960) is an American politician and attorney serving as the 38th governor of Oregon since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she served three terms as the state representative from the 13th district of the ...

(1985):

Governor of Oregon The governor of Oregon is the head of government of Oregon and serves as the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The title of governor was also applied to the office of Oregon's chief executive during the provisional and U.S. ter ...

* Dean Bryson (1934): Oregon Supreme Court Justice * Beatrice Morrow Cannady (1922): Portland civil rights activist, newspaper editor * Robin Kundis Craig (1996): Environmental law scholar * Charles Crookham (1951): Oregon Attorney General * Mercedes Deiz (1959): First black woman to practice law in Oregon, Circuit Court Judge * Sim Gill: District Attorney for Salt Lake County, Utah *

John Hubert Hall John Hubert Hall (February 7, 1899 – November 14, 1970) was an American Republican politician from the US state of Oregon. He was Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives in 1947, second in line to the governorship, when the governor, ...

(1926): Governor of Oregon *

Heidi Heitkamp Mary Kathryn "Heidi" Heitkamp ( ; born October 30, 1955) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from North Dakota from 2013 to 2019. A member of the North Dakota Democratic–Nonpartisan League Party, she was the first wom ...

(1980): former U.S. Senator and former

North Dakota Attorney General The North Dakota Attorney General is the chief legal officer of the North Dakota state government. The Attorney General's office represents the state government in court cases and issues opinions of points of law upon request. Drew Wrigley was app ...

* Ralph Holman (1937): Oregon Supreme Court Justice * Betsy Johnson (1977): Oregon State Senator * Donald C. Johnson (1974): U.S. Ambassador to Cape Verde and

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

* Robert E. Jones (1953): U.S. District Judge for the District of Oregon * Nick Kahl (2009): Oregon State Representative * Garr King (1963): U.S. District Judge for the District of Oregon * Jack Landau (1980): Oregon Supreme Court Justice * Ronald A. Marks (1979): Former senior

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

official *

Michael J. McShane Michael J. McShane (born 1961) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. He previously served as a state court judge on the Oregon Multnomah County Ci ...

(1988): U.S. District Judge for the District of Oregon * Jake Metcalfe (1990): Politician * Clay Meyers: Oregon Secretary of State *

Owen M. Panner Owen Murphy Panner (July 28, 1924 – December 19, 2018) was an American attorney and jurist from Oregon who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. Early life Panner was born in ...

: Politician * Wayne M. Perry (1975): Businessman, International Commissioner of the

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded ...

, minority owner of the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...

* Betty Roberts (1966): first female Oregon Supreme Court Justice * Peter Robinson (1978):

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals f ...

lawyer * Phil Schiliro (1981): assistant to the President and Director of Legislative Affairs for President

Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

* Mildred Schwab (1939): one of the first women to study law *

Leonard Shoen Leonard Samuel Shoen (February 29, 1916 – October 4, 1999) was an American entrepreneur who founded the U-Haul truck and trailer organization in Ridgefield, Washington. After growing up in the farm belt during the Great Depression, he envision ...

(1955):

U-Haul U-Haul is an American moving truck, trailer, and self-storage rental company, based in Phoenix, Arizona, that has been in operation since 1945. The company was founded by Leonard Shoen in Ridgefield, Washington, who began it in the garage ...

Company Founder * Mary Jane Spurlin: Oregon's first female judge * Lou Savage (1974): Legal Reform Advocate *

Gail Shibley Gail R. Shibley (born c. 1958) is an American politician who was the first openly gay person to serve in the Oregon State Legislature. She was appointed to the Oregon House of Representatives in January 1991, to fill a vacancy caused by Phil K ...

(2009): Politician * Bernard Zaleha (1987): Sierra Club National Board of Directors(2003-2009) and National Vice President (2004-2006)

References

External links

Lewis & Clark Law School
(official website) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis and Clark Law School 1915 establishments in Oregon Educational institutions established in 1915 Environmental law schools Law schools in Oregon Lewis & Clark College Natural resources law