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The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law (formerly University of Maryland School of Law) 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, ...
of the
University of Maryland, Baltimore The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is a public university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1807, it comprises some of the oldest professional schools of dentistry, law, medicine, pharmacy, social work and nursing in the United States ...
and is located in
Baltimore City, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
, U.S. Its location places Maryland Law in the Baltimore-Washington legal and business community. Founded in 1816, it is one of the oldest law schools in the United States. Maryland Law was ranked 47th by the U.S. News & World Report in its 2023 law school rankings. The law school is fully 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 acade ...
(ABA). It is 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 ...
and has a chapter of the
Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif is an honor society for United States law school graduates. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of advocates, the serjeants-at-law, whose courtroom attire included a coif—a white lawn or silk skullcap, w ...
honor society.


History

Maryland Law was founded in 1816 as the Maryland Law Institute. David Hoffman is credited with founding the institute and in 1817 he published his legal course Hoffman's Course of Legal Study. The school began regular instruction beginning in 1824, and it is the second-oldest law school in the United States, behind only
William & Mary Law School The William & Mary Law School, known historically as the Marshall-Wythe School of Law, is the professional graduate law school of the College of William & Mary. Located in Williamsburg, Virginia, the school is the oldest extant law school in th ...
. After the law school denied admission to black applicant Donald Gaines Murray on account of his race, in 1936 the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that the law school must admit him. In 2002, the law school moved into a facility in downtown Baltimore near the
Inner Harbor The Inner Harbor is a historic seaport, tourist attraction, and landmark of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It was described by the Urban Land Institute in 2009 as "the model for post-industrial waterfront redevelopment around the world". The ...
and Oriole Park at Camden Yards. In 2011, the law school received a donation from the W.P. Carey Foundation, the largest gift in the school's history. In response, the law school changed its name to the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.


Student body

Maryland Law has approximately 650 students enrolled in its
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 ...
(J.D.) program. The racial makeup of students in the J.D. program is approximately , with about 30% identifying as a minority race (and the remainder are unknown or did not specify). Around 72% of J.D. students are under 25 years old. There are more than 40 student organizations, four specialized legal centers, and five law journals. In 2019, Maryland Law enrolled 205 students into its first-year J.D. class, including 179 full-time students and 26 part-time students. The median LSAT score was 160, and the median undergraduate GPA was 3.66. The law school accepted approximately 36% of its applicants.


Rankings

The law school was ranked 36th by the U.S. News & World Report in 2008 and 50th of its law school rankings. The 2022 edition also ranked Maryland Law 8th in part-time programs, 7th in health care law, 16th in environmental law, 15th in dispute resolution, and 9th in clinical training.


Bar passage and employment outcomes

According to Maryland Law's official data reported to 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 acade ...
, approximately 77% of Maryland Law graduates who took the bar exam for the first time in 2019 passed. In addition, 94% of 2019 J.D. graduates were employed in some capacity ten months after graduation. These 2019 graduates became employed in a variety of contexts, including approximately 35% in judicial clerkships (4% federal clerkships and 31% state and local clerkships), 23% in government, 20% in private practice, 11% in business and industry, 5% in public interest, and 4% in education. For 2018 J.D. graduates who entered private practice within ten months of graduation, the median starting salary was $80,000.


Costs

During the 2019-2020 academic year, tuition and fees for full-time J.D. students were $32,808 for Maryland residents and $48,426 for out-of-state students. For part-time J.D. students, tuition and fees were $21,538 for Maryland residents and $31,704 for out-of-state students. The estimated total cost of attendance for J.D. students, which includes tuition and fees, living expenses, transportation expenses, book expenses, and health insurance, was $61,745 for full-time students who are Maryland residents, $79,277 for full-time out-of-state students, $45,123 for part-time students who are Maryland residents, and $56,972 for part-time out-of-state students. In addition, 77% of students received a scholarship or grant from Maryland Law, including 78% of full-time students and 74% of part-time students.


Academics


Curriculum


Core

The core curriculum at Maryland Law for J.D. students includes courses in civil procedure, constitutional law, torts, property, contracts, and criminal law, as well as a two-semester sequence of courses focusing on legal skills of analysis, research, writing, and oral argument. After completing these initial courses, students are required to complete additional coursework in constitutional law, ethics, and legal research, and satisfy experiential and writing requirements. This core curriculum forms the basis for more specialized study through more than 150 elective courses, seminars, independent studies, simulations, clinics, and externships. The LL.M. degree program is designed for students who have earned a prior law degree, either a J.D. degree from a law school in the United States or a law degree from a school in another country. Students must complete coursework in a specialty field and may choose to write a thesis. LL.M. students who did not earn a prior law degree in an American law school must take a course on introductory American law, but otherwise, no specific courses are required for LL.M. students.


Specialty programs

Maryland Law is home to several specialty programs that enable students to explore areas of interest through experiential learning and a specialized curriculum. The main specialty areas include: * Alternative Dispute Resolution * Business Law * Clinical Law * Cybersecurity and Crisis Management * Environmental Law * Health Care Law * Intellectual Property Law * International and Comparative Law * Public Health Law * Women, Leadership, and Equality Students can focus in other areas as well, such as criminal law, dispute resolution, family law/child advocacy, general practice, jurisprudence/legal history, labor/employment law, administrative law, property/real estate/decedent's estates law, public interest law/community development, and tax law.


Clinical law program

Through the Cardin Requirement, named after Maryland Law alumnus U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin, each full-time day student in the J.D. program must gain hands-on legal experience by representing actual clients who would otherwise lack access to justice. Most students fulfill the Cardin Requirement through the Clinical Law Program, which provides free legal services to Maryland's poorest citizens each year. More than 25 clinics focus on a broad range of practice areas, including civil and criminal litigation, advice and counseling, and transactional work. Civil practice areas include environmental law, health, housing and community development, juvenile law and children, AIDS, and immigration. Criminal student attorneys often represent defendants in misdemeanor cases in Maryland's district courts, as well as work in the School of Law's community justice efforts. In addition to in-house clinical work, students may gain experience in public and private nonprofit externships in the Baltimore-Washington region.


Initiatives

In addition to formal specialty programs, the law school sponsors a variety of academic and public service initiatives. These initiatives enhance the educational and scholarly mission of the law school and also serve the community. * Agriculture Law Education Initiative * Chacón Center for Immigrant Justice * Leadership, Ethics and Democracy (LEAD) Initiative: In spring 2008, the Fetzer Institute made a three-year $1.6 million funding commitment to the School of Law to help it respond to these challenges and create a Leadership, Ethics and Democracy program (LEAD). * Legislation, politics, and public policy: The University of Maryland School of Law offers students an educational experience in the areas of legislation, public policy and public interest practice. * Linking law and the arts: The University of Maryland School of Law, in conjunction with local arts organizations and as part of the "Linking Law and Arts" series, uses theater and art to help address complex legal, social, and public policy issues. As part of their commitment to blending law and the arts, students and professors at Maryland Law produced a short film in 2010 about the handling of war tribunals at Guantanamo Bay titled "The Response" starring
Aasif Mandvi Aasif Hakim Mandviwala (born March 5, 1966), known professionally as Aasif Mandvi (, ), is a British-American actor, comedian and author. He was a correspondent on ''The Daily Show'' from 2006 to 2017. Mandvi's other television work includes the ...
. UMD Carey Law is also one of fewer than 10 law schools in the United States to offer a course in Visual Legal Advocacy, teaching students how to and encouraging them to incorporate cinema into their advocacy work. *The Moser Ethics in Action Initiative The successor to the LEAD Initiative. *Erin Levitas Initiative for Sexual Assault Prevention


Dual-degree programs

The law school offers several dual-degree options:


Business

Maryland Law has a combined J.D./ through: * Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland College Park * Merrick School of Business at the University of Baltimore *
Carey Business School The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School (also Carey Business School or simply Carey) is the graduate business school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. It was established in 2007 and offers full- ...
at
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...


Public policy

There are several dual-degree options in the field of
public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public ...
: * J.D./ from the
University of Maryland School of Public Policy The Maryland School of Public Policy is one of 14 schools at the University of Maryland, College Park. The school is located inside the Capital Beltway and ranks 16th nationally for schools of public policy according to '' U.S. News & World Report ...
* J.D./ through the
University of Maryland Baltimore County The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, ...
School of Public Policy * J.D./M.C.P. (Master of Community Planning) through the University of Maryland Urban Studies and Planning Program


Health

* J.D./Master of Public Health from the
University of Maryland School of Medicine The University of Maryland School of Medicine (abbreviated UMSOM), located in Baltimore City, Maryland, U.S., is the medical school of the University of Maryland, Baltimore and is affiliated with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Med ...
* J.D./Master of Science in Toxicology Risk Assessment and Environmental Law from the University of Maryland School of Medicine * J.D./Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Maryland School of Nursing (J.D./M.S.) * JD/Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy


Law and society

* J.D./Master of Arts in Criminal Justice through the University of Maryland College Park * J.D./Master of Arts in Liberal Arts through St. John's College, Annapolis * J.D./Master of Social Work through the University of Maryland School of Social Work (J.D./M.S.W.)


Campus

Maryland Law, including the Thurgood Marshall Law Library, occupies a complex that supports the school's programs integrating classroom and experiential learning. The facility opened in 2002 and contains three courtrooms, including the Ceremonial Moot Courtroom, where state and federal trial and appellate courts regularly sit in session to hear cases. The Thurgood Marshall Law Library houses a collection of more than 495,000 volumes and equivalents accessible through the online catalog. A staff of 23, including 11 librarians, provides customized reference and consulting services to faculty and students. In addition to LexisNexis, Westlaw and Bloomberg Law, the library offers a legal and non-legal Web-based electronic databases. The library is named after Justice
Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African- ...
. Despite growing up in Baltimore, he was unable to attend Maryland Law because, in the 1930s, the school denied all African Americans admission. Marshall attended
Howard University School of Law Howard University School of Law (Howard Law or HUSL) is the law school of Howard University, a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is one of the oldest law schools in the country and the old ...
.


Publications

* Maryland Law Review * Journal of Health Care Law & Policy * Journal of Business & Technology Law * Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class * Journal of International Law


Notable alumni


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Maryland School Of Law
School of Law 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, ...
Law schools in Maryland Downtown Baltimore
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
Educational institutions established in 1816 1816 establishments in Maryland