Northeastern University School of Law (NUSL) is the

law school A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. Founded as an evening program to meet the needs of its local community, NUSL is nationally recognized for its

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

legal education and

public interest law Public interest law refers to legal practices undertaken to help poor, marginalized, or under-represented people, or to effect change in social policies in the public interest, on 'not for profit' terms ( ''pro bono publico''), often in the fields ...

programs.

History

First graduating class of Northeastern University School of Law

Northeastern University School of Law was founded by the Boston

Young Men's Christian Association YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

(YMCA) in 1898 as the first evening law program in the city. At the time, only two law schools were in the Boston area and the time-honored practice of reading law in the office of an established lawyer was losing its effectiveness. An advisory committee, consisting of James Barr Ames, dean of the

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

; Samuel Bennett, dean of the

Boston University School of Law Boston University School of Law (Boston Law or BU Law) is the law school of Boston University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top law schools in the United States and considered an eli ...

; and Massachusetts Judge James R. Dunbar, was formed to assist with the formation of the evening law program. The program was incorporated as an

LL.B. Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

-granting law school, the Evening School of Law of Boston YMCA, in 1904. Additional campuses of YMCA Law School were opened in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...

by 1917, in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

by 1919, and

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

by 1921. The Worcester and Providence branches were closed by 1942, but the Springfield branch eventually became the

Western New England University School of Law Western New England University School of Law is a private, ABA-accredited law school in Western Massachusetts. Established in 1919, the law school has approximately 8,000 alumni who live and work across the United States and internationally. West ...

. In its early days, the school "saw itself as the working man's alternative to the elite schools" and "boasted of being 'An Evening Law School with Day School Standards,'" using the

case method The case method is a teaching approach that uses decision-forcing cases to put students in the role of people who were faced with difficult decisions at some point in the past. It developed during the course of the twentieth-century from its origin ...

of teaching, according to legal historian Robert Stevens. The school was renamed Northeastern University School of Law in 1922 and began admitting women that year. NUSL was accredited by the University of the State of New York in 1943 and became a member of 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) non ...

in 1945. It was accredited by the

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 acad ...

in 1969. In April 1953, Northeastern President

Carl Ell Carl Stephens Ell (November 14, 1887 – April 17, 1981) was the second president of Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts from 1940 to 1959. He was born in Staunton, Indiana on November 14, 1887, son of Jacob and Alice (Stephens) El ...

announced that the law school would close. He cited the number of other law schools that had sprung up elsewhere in the city. Meanwhile, enrollment at Northeastern law school had plummeted, from 1,328 students in 1937-38 to 196 students in that year. The school's building and library on Mt. Vernon Street in Beacon Hill was eventually sold. Alumni - who composed one-fourth of Massachusetts's Superior Court judges as well as many District Court judges - worked to reestablish the law school in 1966, based upon the university's signature cooperative, or co-op, education model. Thomas J. O'Toole, a Harvard Law graduate, was selected as the school's dean in 1967. In 1970, Gryzmish Hall on Huntington Avenue was dedicated, which would later become part the Asa S. Knowles Center for Law. Despite the school's working-class origins, rigorous new admissions policies resulted in a small student body of 125 students who nearly all came from financially well-off families and upper-echelon undergraduate colleges. Still, half of those admitted as first-year students were women. Over the ensuing decades, students worked in co-ops as varied as Native American land claims in rural Maine; assisting migrant farm laborers in east Texas; at the Moscow, Russia office of Baker & McKenzie; the

United Nations High Commission for Refugees The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integratio ...

in New Delhi; and countless legal services offices. In 1968, O'Toole, explaining the school's dedication to public interest law, told a ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' reporter that "law schools are still teaching lawyers as if they were all going out to be corporation lawyers on Wall Street...(but) the big demand for lawyers today is in the field of public affairs in government, and in dealing with basic human problems, and no law school today seems to be training lawyers for those jobs."

Campus

The NUSL complex is located on Boston's

Huntington Avenue Huntington Avenue is a secondary thoroughfare in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, beginning at Copley Square, and continuing west through the Back Bay, Fenway, Longwood, and Mission Hill neighborhoods. Huntington Avenue is signed as Route 9 ...

and includes three adjacent buildings: Knowles Center, which houses offices and the Law Library; Cargill Hall, home to most faculty and some administrative offices as well as small seminar rooms and lecture halls; and Dockser Hall, which includes a moot courtroom, classrooms, seminar rooms, offices and lounge areas and space for the law school's clinical program.

Academics

NUSL offers a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

(JD) program for full-time, on-campus students as well as a FlexJD program for part-time students online and on-campus that began in the fall of 2021. The law school also offers on-campus and online

Master of Laws A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is an advanced postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in a related subject. In mos ...

(LLM) programs for lawyers seeking to expand their legal knowledge. In addition, the school offers programs for non-lawyers, including a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

(MS) in Media Advocacy and online programs leading to graduate certificates in health law, intellectual property law, business law and human resources law, plus a data privacy fundamentals program. NUSL integrates full-time employment into its traditional JD curriculum, allowing students to graduate in three years - the same amount of time as peers at other law schools. Following the first year of study, students alternate between classroom and co-op professional experience until they graduate with three, full-time employment experiences. Instead of grades, students receive written evaluations from their professors and co-op employers. Northeastern has been named as one of the top public interest law schools in the nation. Many students participate in the school's clinics and institutes, such as the

Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project The Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project is an initiative by the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts, to document every racially motivated killing in the American South between 1930 and 1970. The project aims to serve ...

. In addition, all students are required to complete a year-long social justice project during their first year. Northeastern is #1 for "Practical Training," according to ''The National Jurist''. The Princeton Review's "The Best 172 Law Schools" ranks Northeastern #2 among all the law schools for both providing the "best environment" for minority students and for having the "most liberal" students.

Costs

Tuition for a full-time Northeastern student is $56,940 per year. The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees and living expenses) at Northeastern law school for the 2021–2022 academic year is $82,736.

Student organizations and journals

Northeastern University School of Law has many student-run organizations and activities, including affinity groups and shared interest groups such as Entertainment and Sports Law Society (ESLS), Human Rights Caucus (HRC) and

Phi Alpha Delta Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity, International ( or P.A.D.) is the largest professional law fraternity in the United States. Founded in 1902, P.A.D. has since grown to 717 established pre-law, law, and alumni chapters and over 330,000 initiated m ...

International, a co-ed fraternity. NUSL is home to two scholarly legal journals.

''Northeastern University Law Review''

The Northeastern University Law Review is a

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 pro ...

founded in 2008 that publishes a broad array of legal scholarship primarily from law professors, judges, attorneys and law students. Staffed and edited by law students, it is published twice a year. Staff members are selected largely based on their writing abilities, tests and first-year grades. The law review also publishes content through its online publications: ''Extra Legal'' and the ''Online Forum.''

''Journal of Legal Education''

NUSL is co-editor of the ''Journal of Legal Education'', a quarterly publication of the

. The Journal publishes articles on legal theory, legal scholarship and legal education, among other topics. It claims a readership of more than 10,000 law instructors.

Research centers, institutes and clinical programs

* Center for Health Policy and Law * Center for Law, Information and Creativity (CLIC) * Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration (CPIAC) *

* Community Business Clinic * Criminal Justice Task Force * Domestic Violence Institute * Health in Justice Action Lab * Immigrant Justice Clinic * Initiative for Energy Justice * IP CO-LAB * NuLawLab * Poverty Law and Practice Clinic * Prisoners' Rights Clinic * Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy * Program on the Corporation, Law and Global Society * Public Health Advocacy Institute * Public Health Legal Clinic

Notable alumni

* Charlotte Hunter Arley, lawyer in Reno, Nevada Petticoats Trial *

Janet Bond Arterton Janet MacArthur Bond Arterton (born February 8, 1944) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. Education and career Arterton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She recei ...

, Judge,

United States District Court for the District of Connecticut The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (in case citations, D. Conn.) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Connecticut. The court has offices in Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven. Appeals ...

Mary Bonauto Mary L. Bonauto (born June 8, 1961) is an American lawyer and civil rights advocate who has worked to eradicate discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and has been referred to by US Representative Barney Frank as "our Th ...

, Civil Rights Project Director, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders; lead counsel in

Goodridge v. Department of Public Health ''Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health'', 798 N.E.2d 941 ( Mass. 2003), is a landmark Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case in which the Court held that the Massachusetts Constitution requires the state to legally recognize same-sex marriage ...

; MacArthur "Genius" * Margot Botsford, Justice,

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the court of last resort, highest court in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the di ...

(retired) *

Timothy Mark Burgess Timothy Mark Burgess (born August 11, 1956) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Alaska. He served as the District of Alaska's U.S. Attorney from 2001 to 2005. Education and career Bu ...

, Judge,

United States District Court for the District of Alaska The United States District Court for the District of Alaska (in case citations, D. Alaska) is a federal court in the Ninth Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appealed to the F ...

* Marie-Therese Connolly,

Elder Rights Elder rights are the rights of older adults (usually those in the seventh decade of life or older, although this definition is disputed), who in various countries are not recognized as a constitutionally protected class, yet face discrimination ...

Lawyer, MacArthur "Genius" * William "Mo" Cowan, US Senator (retired); Vice President, Litigation and Legal Policy
General Electric
* Harold Donohue, (deceased) Member, US House of Representatives *

Martín Espada Martín Espada (born 1957) is a Puerto Rican-American poet, and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches poetry. Puerto Rico has frequently been featured as a theme in his poems. Life and career Espada was born ...

, poet, recipient o
2018 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
*

Dana Fabe Dana Anderson Fabe (born March 29, 1951) is an American lawyer, retired judge, and mediator. She served as a justice of the Alaska Supreme Court from 1996 to 2016, including three terms (2000–2003, 2006–2009, and 2012–2015) as the court's ...

, Justice,

Alaska Supreme Court The Alaska Supreme Court is the state supreme court for the U.S. state of Alaska. Its decisions are binding on all other Alaska state courts, and the only court its decisions may be appealed to is the Supreme Court of the United States. The Alas ...

(retired) * Thomas A. Flaherty, (deceased) Member, US House of Representatives *

Peter Franchot Peter Van Rensselaer Franchot (born November 25, 1947) is an American politician who is the 33rd Comptroller of Maryland. A member of the Democratic Party, Franchot served for 20 years in the Maryland House of Delegates representing Takoma Park ...

, Comptroller of Maryland * Kumiki Gibson, Former Chief Counsel to Vice President Al Gore *

Maggie Hassan Margaret Coldwell Hassan (; née Wood; born February 27, 1958) is an American politician and attorney serving as the junior United States senator from New Hampshire. A Democrat, Hassan was elected to the Senate in 2016 while serving as the 81st ...

, United States Senator for

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

Maura Healey Maura Tracy Healey (born February 8, 1971) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the Massachusetts Attorney General since January 2015. She is the governor-elect of Massachusetts, having won the 2022 Massachusetts gubernatorial electi ...

, Attorney General, Commonwealth of Massachusetts *

Courtney Hunt Courtney Hunt (born 1964) is an American director and screenwriter. Her debut feature film, ''Frozen River'', won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Early life and education Hunt was raised in Memphis and Nashville, Tenness ...

Best Picture This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

-nominated

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

in 2009 for

Frozen River ''Frozen River'' is a 2008 American crime drama film written and directed by Courtney Hunt. The screenplay focuses on two working-class women who smuggle illegal immigrants from Canada to the United States. The film received two Oscar nomination ...

Candace S. Kovacic-Fleischer Candace Kovacic-Fleischer is an American legal scholar who is a professor emerita at American University Washington College of Law. She has taught there since 1981. Biography Kovacic-Fleischer grew up in Kensington, Maryland and attended Walter ...

, gender equality expert, Professor emerita,

Washington College of Law The American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL or WCL) is the law school of American University, a Private university, private research university in Washington, D.C. It is located on the western side of Tenley Circle in the Tenleyto ...

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

* Landya McCafferty, US District Court Judge for the District of New Hampshire *

Rishi Reddi Rishi Reddi is an American author. She is a L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award laureate. Biography Rishi Reddi was born in Hyderabad, India. She grew up in the United Kingdom and the United States. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College, wher ...

, short story writer, ''Best American Short Stories'' * Emily Gray Rice, Former US Attorney for

* Rashida Richardson, director of policy research at the

AI Now Institute The AI Now Institute at NYU (AI Now) is an American research institute studying the social implications of artificial intelligence. AI Now was founded by Kate Crawford and Meredith Whittaker in 2017 after a symposium hosted by the White House und ...

* Delissa A. Ridgway, Judge,

US Court of International Trade The United States Court of International Trade (case citations: Int'l Trade or Intl. Trade) is a U.S. federal court that adjudicates civil actions arising out of U.S. customs and international trade laws. Seated in New York City, it exercise ...

* Victoria A. Roberts, Judge,

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (in case citations, E.D. Mich.) is the United States district court, federal district court with jurisdiction over of the eastern half of the Lower Peninsula of the State o ...

Rachael Rollins Rachael Splaine Rollins (born March 3, 1971) is an American lawyer and politician who is the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Rollins was formerly Suffolk County District Attorney in Massachusetts, which includes the m ...

, District Attorney, Suffolk County *

Chase Strangio Chase Strangio (; born October 29, 1982) is an American lawyer and transgender rights activist. He is the Deputy Director for Transgender Justice and staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Early life and education Strang ...

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

Staff Attorney, LGBT & HIV Project, and

transgender rights A transgender person is someone whose gender identity is inconsistent or not culturally associated with the sex they were assigned at birth and also with the gender role that is associated with that sex. They may have, or may intend to establi ...

activist *

Urvashi Vaid Urvashi ( sa, उर्वशी, Urvaśī}) is the most prominent apsara (celestial nymph) in Hindu mythology, considered to be the most beautiful of all the apsaras, and an expert dancer. She is mentioned in both ''Vedic'' and ''Puranic'' scr ...

, Author, ''Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics'' (2012) and ''Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Lesbian and Gay Liberation'' (1996); CEO
The Vaid Group
*

Leslie Winner Leslie J. Winner is a North Carolina attorney and former executive director of the Winston-Salem-based Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. At the time of her selection to succeed Thomas W. Ross at the foundation, Winner was general counsel and vice pre ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

Former State Senator * Leocadia Zak, President,

Agnes Scott College Agnes Scott College is a private women's liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia. The college enrolls approximately 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The college is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and is considered one of the ...

References

External links

Northeastern University School of Law
{{authority control Northeastern University Law schools in Massachusetts Educational institutions established in 1898 1898 establishments in Massachusetts