The University at Buffalo School of Law (also known as State University of New York at Buffalo Law School, or SUNY Buffalo Law School) is a graduate professional school at the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...

. Founded in 1887 and affiliate with Niagara University until 1891, it is the State University of New York (SUNY) system's only law school. '' U.S. News & World Report'' ranks the University at Buffalo School of Law 94th (tied) in the nation for 2022. The University at Buffalo School of Law is No. 1 in Thomson Reuter's "Super Lawyers" ranking of law graduates practicing in Upstate New York, which includes 54 of the 62 counties in New York State. This is in addition to the UB Law School's 2010 national ranking, where it placed 48th out of the 180 law schools in the country that produced Super Lawyers, a measure which examines "twelve indicators of professional achievement". Also, Malcolm Gladwell, in the ''New Yorker'' Magazine, devised a formula that ranks UB within the top 50 whereas Reuters ranks UB Law as 48th overall in the nation. According to the University at Buffalo School of Law's 2018 ABA-required disclosures, 69.2% of the Class of 2018 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.

Background

The University at Buffalo School of Law has a favorable student-faculty ratio of 5.5:1. Currently, more than 75 percent of its upper division courses comprise fewer than 40 students. In addition, many of the 81 faculty members hold advanced degrees in the social sciences and other disciplines in conjunction with their law degrees. The first-year program includes traditional legal courses in

civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be commenced; what kin ...

torts A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishabl ...

, contracts,

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...

, criminal law,

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in fe ...

, and

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

. In the second and third years students choose from a dozen curricular concentrations that allow for in-depth study. Each student has the opportunity to craft a custom-made curriculum, beyond the selected concentrations to build a personalized sequence of courses and experiences. Under the Law School's Legal Analysis, Writing and Research (LAWR) program, all students complete a 10-credit, three-semester LAWR curriculum, with two semesters in their first year and a third semester during their second or third years. All three semesters are taught by full-time LAWR faculty. Throughout the LAWR program, students learn legal analysis and writing through immersion in the practice of writing, and through cycles of trial and error, feedback, and reflection. Because the courses are taught in small sections with an excellent instructor-to-student ratio, students are inspired to think critically and approach legal questions in a newly disciplined way. Most students are part of the Juris Doctor (J.D.) program. Interdisciplinary

dual degree A double degree program, sometimes called a dual degree, combined degree, conjoint degree, joint degree or double graduation program, involves a student's working for two university degrees in parallel—either at the same institution or at diffe ...

programs permit J.D. students to seek other graduate degrees along with their J.D., including

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

or doctoral degrees from the School of Management, School of Social Work, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Public Health and Health Professions, or School of Architecture and Planning. UB Law also has the only post-professional

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 ...

(LL.M.) program in criminal law in the United States, and a general LL.M. program designed exclusively for

international student International students, or foreign students, are students who undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying. In 2019, there were over 6 million internati ...

s. The Neil D. Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce is a joint program of UB Law with UB's business school. Named after

Neil David Levin Neil David Levin (September 16, 1954 – September 11, 2001) was an American businessman and political figure who was executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from April 2001 until his death during the September 11 att ...

, the

executive director Executive director is commonly the title of the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization, government agency or international organization. The title is widely used in North American and European not-for-profit organizations, though ...

of the

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorize ...

who was killed in the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, the Levin Institute conducts an annual spring semester program in New York City for about 20 students, divided into five teams to work on projects sponsored by law firms and

financial institution Financial institutions, sometimes called banking institutions, are business entities that provide services as intermediaries for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial inst ...

s. For example, in 2006 the teams were sponsored by

CLSA CLSA Ltd. (formerly known as Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia) is a capital markets and investment group focused on alternative investment, asset management, corporate finance and capital markets, securities and wealth management for corporate an ...

Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP (known as Fried Frank), is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. The firm also has offices in Washington, D.C., London, Frankfurt, and Brussels, and has more than 500 attorneys w ...

, UBS, Credit Suisse, and

M&T Bank M&T Bank Corporation (Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company) is an American bank holding company headquartered in Buffalo, New York. It operates 1680 branches in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts ...

. The general law journal is the '' Buffalo Law Review'', a student-run publication managed by 3L J.D. candidates. Founded in 1951, the Law Review currently publishes five issues per year (January, April, May, July and December), featuring full length articles by practitioners, professors and students in all areas of law. Each issue contains approximately four such articles and one student-authored comment. Two other specialist journals are also based at the Law School: ''Buffalo Environmental Law Journal'' and ''Buffalo Human Rights Law Review.'' The student newspaper, ''The Opinion'', has been in publication since November 29, 1949. UB's Clinical Legal Education program operate the school's

legal clinic A legal clinic (also law clinic or law school clinic) is a legal aid or law school program providing services to various clients and often hands-on-legal experience to law school students. Clinics are usually directed by clinical professors. L ...

s, which involve client service, impact litigation, transactional practice, and

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 p ...

development. Students participate in clinics throughout the school year and are given classroom credit for their work. The ten clinics are the Animal Law Clinic, Civil Rights and Transparency Clinic, Community Justice Clinic, Environmental Advocacy Clinic, Entrepreneurship Clinic, Family Violence and Women's Rights Clinic, Health Justice Clinic, Mediation Clinic, Puerto Rico Recovery Assistance Legal Clinic, and the U.S.-Mexico Border Clinic. The Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy is an institute that supports the interdisciplinary study of law, legal institutions, and social policy. Over 200 UB faculty members from various academic departments as well as graduate students participate in Baldy Center research and teaching activities. The Center maintains cooperative ties to other interdisciplinary research centers and co-sponsors a regional network of sociolegal scholars in New York and Canada. The Baldy Center hosts distinguished scholars from around the world as visitors, consultants, and conference participants. The

Charles B. Sears Charles Brown Sears (October 16, 1870 Brooklyn, Kings County, New York – December 17, 1950 Buffalo, Erie County, New York) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. Life He graduated from Adelphia Academy in Brooklyn in 1888, and A ...

Law Library is UB's

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 ...

. It is named for Charles Brown Sears and occupies six floors in the center of the Law School. The Law Library contains 300,000 bound volumes and over 221,000 volumes in

microform Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. ...

. Included within the Federal, New York, and State Core Collections are basic legal research tools: court reporters and digests, session laws and codes, rules and regulations, attorney general reports, jurisdictional encyclopedias and citators. The Law Library's special collection includes the Howard R. Berman Collection,

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

Books of Marilyn L. Haas, John Lord O'Brian Papers, Law Library Archives, Law School Archives, Morris L. Cohen Rare Book Collection, Onondaga Nation Land Claims Records,

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

Land Claims Records, Tibetan Legal Manuscripts, and Watergate Collection. The University at Buffalo School of Law is located on the university's North Campus in O'Brian Hall, which was named after notable alumnus John Lord O'Brian.

Admissions

The class of 2021 had a median

LSAT The Law School Admission Test (LSAT; ) is a standardized test administered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) for prospective law school candidates. It is designed to assess reading comprehension as well as logical and verbal rea ...

of 154. The median

GPA Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters (usually A through F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), as a percentage, or as a numbe ...

was 3.49. Out of 859 applications, 402 were accepted for a 46.8% acceptance rate, with 137 enrolled. 11% were from out of state.

Employment

According to the University at Buffalo School of Law's official 2018 ABA-required disclosures, 69.2% of the Class of 2018 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation. The University at Buffalo School of Law'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 17.8%, 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

Tuition and fees for the 2019-20 academic year will be $25,410 for in-state residents with a $2,069 comprehensive fee and a $393 "academic excellence fee." Total for New York State residents is $46,746 with an additional $4,090 for out-of-state residents. 80% of the student body received grants and scholarships. The school does not award scholarships that may be reduced or eliminated based on law school academic performance other than failure to maintain good academic standing.

Notable people

Notable faculty

Thomas Buergenthal Thomas Buergenthal (born 11 May 1934, in Ľubochňa, Czechoslovakia, today Slovakia) is a renowned international lawyer, scholar, law school dean, and former judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). He resigned his ICJ post as of 6 S ...

– judge,

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...

– professor 1962–1975 * William R. Greiner – former President of

, 1991–2004; former professor, provost, and dean of the University at Buffalo Law School *

Jacob D. Hyman Jacob D. Hyman (December 11, 1909 – April 8, 2007) was a dean of the University at Buffalo (UB) Law School. Known to his friends as "Jack" and to former students as "Dean Hyman," the Boston native earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard College ...

– former dean * Muhammad Kenyatta - visiting professor, 1988-1992 *

David Riesman David Riesman (September 22, 1909 – May 10, 2002) was an American sociologist, educator, and best-selling commentator on American society. Career Born to a wealthy German Jewish family, he attended Harvard College, where he graduated in 1931 ...

– sociologist, author of ''

The Lonely Crowd ''The Lonely Crowd'' is a 1950 sociological analysis by David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney. Together with '' White Collar: The American Middle Classes'' (1951), written by Riesman's friend and colleague, C. Wright Mills, it is consider ...

'', professor 1937–1941 *

Clyde Summers Clyde Wilson Summers (November 21, 1918 – October 30, 2010) was an American lawyer and educator who is best known for his work in advocating more democratic procedures in trade union, labor unions. He helped write the Labor Management Reporting ...

(1918-2010) - labor lawyer and law professor at the

University of Pennsylvania Law School The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Law or Penn Carey Law) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most selective and oldes ...

Notable alumni

Wallace Thayer Wallace Thayer (October 18, 1866 – November 5, 1944) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. Life He was born on October 18, 1866, in Buffalo, New York to Edwin Thayer, a Lawyer from Buffalo, New York and brother of William Walla ...

New York State Assemblyman (1914) * Michael A. Battle (1984) – director,

Executive Office for United States Attorneys The Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) is the office within the Department of Justice that provides executive and administrative support for the 93 United States Attorneys located throughout the 50 states, District of Columbia, Gu ...

(2005–2007); United States Attorney for the Western District of New York (2002–2005) * Harry Bronson – New York State Assemblyman * Ronald Castorina Jr. - Former New York State Assemblyman (2016-2018); Former Commissioner NYC Board of Elections (2013-2015) *

Sara Horowitz Sara Horowitz (born January 13, 1963) is a founder of the Freelancers Union and a proponent of mutualism. She has been working for unions since age 18, when she held a summer internship at the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. She h ...

– Founder of

Freelancers Union Freelancers Union is a nonprofit organization based in New York City that provides advocacy, programming and curated insurance benefits for freelancers through partnerships. The organization dessiminates information through monthly meetings. Rafa ...

and Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York * Eugene M. Fahey - Associate judge of

New York State Court of Appeals The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the Unified Court System of the State of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six Associate Judges who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by ...

* Julio M. Fuentes (1975) – United States Circuit Judge,

United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts: * District of Delaware * District of New Jersey * East ...

(

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Paul L. Friedman (1968) – United States District Judge,

United States District Court for the District of Columbia The United States District Court for the District of Columbia (in case citations, D.D.C.) is a federal district court in the District of Columbia. It also occasionally handles (jointly with the United States District Court for the District ...

* Cynthia M. Rufe (1977) – United States District Judge,

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (in case citations, E.D. Pa.) is one of the original 13 federal judiciary districts created by the Judiciary Act of 1789. It originally sat in Independence Hall in Phil ...

Benjamin Kallos Benjamin J. Kallos (born February 5, 1981) is an American attorney and politician who represented the 5th district of the New York City Council from 2014 to 2021, and now serves in the Executive Office of the President in the United States Digit ...

– lawyer and politician * Nicole Lee, Executive Director of

TransAfrica TransAfrica (formerly ''TransAfrica Forum'') is an advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. that seeks to influence the foreign policy of the United States concerning African and Caribbean countries and all African diaspora groups. They are a re ...

. * Henry J. Nowak –

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

(1975–1993) * John Lord O'Brian - United States Attorney for the Western District of New York (1909-1914), Special U.S. Assistant Attorney General, War Emergency Division (1917-1919), U.S. Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division (1929-1933), General Counsel of the

War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Su ...

(1941-1944) * Denise O'Donnell – Former United States Attorney for the Western District of New York,

New York State Attorney General The attorney general of New York is the chief legal officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the Department of Law of the state government. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government o ...

Candidate, and Senior Adviser to New York Governor

David Paterson David Alexander Paterson (born May 20, 1954) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 55th governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer and serving out nearly three years of Spitzer's term from March 2008 to December 2010. ...

and Eliot Spitzer. * Eugene F. Pigott Jr. - associate judge, New York Court of Appeals (2006-2016) * William J. Hochul Jr. (1984) – United States Attorney for the Western District of New York (2010–2016) * Jack Quinn III – Former New York State Assembly Member (2004–2010) *

Hugh B. Scott Hugh B. Scott (1949 – February 19, 2021) was a magistrate judge of United States District Court for the Western District of New York. He was appointed on June 1, 1995, and he retired on July 1, 2015. Scott was the first African American to bec ...

– Magistrate Judge,

United States District Court for the Western District of New York The United States District Court for the Western District of New York (in case citations, W.D.N.Y.) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the western parts of Upstate New York. Appeals are taken to the Second Circuit (exce ...

; first African-American federal prosecutor * Virginia A. Seitz – prominent attorney, former law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan Jr.,

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Michael A. Telesca Michael Anthony Telesca (November 25, 1929 – March 5, 2020) was a United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York from 1982 to 2020 and its Chief Judge from 1989 ...

– United States District Judge,

Dennis Vacco Dennis C. Vacco (born August 16, 1952) is an American lawyer and Republican Party politician. He graduated with a B.A. from Colgate University in 1974, a J.D. from the University at Buffalo Law School in 1978, and was admitted to the New York S ...

–

(1994–1998) * Dale Volker –

New York State Senator The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan compo ...

* Raymond Walter – New York State Assemblyman * Jeffrey White – Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of California *Joseph S. Forma – Judge, New York Supreme Court

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:SUNY Buffalo Law School Buffalo Law School Educational institutions established in 1887 1887 establishments in New York (state)