Rutgers Law School
Rutgers Law School is the law school of Rutgers University, with classrooms in Newark and Camden, New Jersey. It is the largest public law school and the 10th largest law school, overall, in the United States. Each class in the three-year J.D. program enrolls approximately 350 law students. Although Rutgers University dates from 1766, its law school was founded in Newark in 1908. Today, Rutgers offers the J.D. and a foreign-lawyer J.D., as well as joint-degree programs that combine a J.D. with a graduate degree from another Rutgers graduate program.
Rutgers Law School
Sol iustitiae et occidentem illustra. "Sun of justice, shine also on the West."
1908
Newark and Camden, New Jersey, United States
1,121 (873 full-time, 237 part-time)
308
103rd (tie) (2024)[2]
74.6%
According to Rutgers Law School's 2016 ABA-required disclosures, 93.7% of the Class of 2016 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required or JD-advantage employment nine months after graduation, excluding solo practitioners.[3]
Admissions[edit]
In 2018, Rutgers had a 48% acceptance rate, with 2,535 applications for admission and 1,237 offers. The for the 2018 admitted students, the LSAT 75% - 25% was 158-153 and the UGPA 75% - 25% was 3.61 - 3.08. Rutgers' admissions process offers applicants a choice between competing for admission based primarily on traditional measures such as LSAT scores and college GPAs, or, alternatively, on the basis of an applicant's life experience, with a lesser (though still significant) emphasis placed on traditional factors. Factors that may be considered in the Rutgers admissions process include, but are not limited to, work experience, personal accomplishments, and other aspects of the applicant's personal background.[7]
Rutgers' admissions process is particularly significant when contrasted with the efforts of some law schools to maximize the undergraduate GPA and LSAT scores of their incoming classes, while increasing the number of part-time students whose GPA and LSAT scores are not counted toward rankings, in order to improve their standing in popular law school ranking publications.[8]
Academics[edit]
The J.D. program at Rutgers requires a total of 84 credits to graduate. The 1L curriculum requires traditional courses in Torts, Contracts, Property, Criminal Law, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, and Legal Analysis, Writing and Research Skills.
All required courses are graded on a standard 2.95 - 3.1 GPA curve. 1Ls are grouped in small sections of roughly 30 people, who take all of the same required classes together. Though two or three sections are generally combined for required courses, each student has a 'small section' class where their section of 30 or fewer people is taught a required subject by a tenured faculty member. Students may choose to attend classes on either a full-time or part-time basis.[9]
The law school has nine student journals:
The Business Law Review and International Law and Human Rights Journal were accredited in December 2019.
Rankings[edit]
According to the U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings for 2024, the law school is ranked tied for 109th overall, with its part-time program ranking 28th overall out of 70 schools.[11] The U.S. News rankings are based on successful placement of graduates, faculty resources, academic achievements of entering students, and opinions by law schools, lawyers and judges on overall program quality;[12] however, U.S. News, per its data for 2019, has separately ranked the law school 9th in the country where full-time graduates who borrowed for law school and entered the private sector had the highest salary-to-debt ratio.[13]
The National Law Journal ranked the law school 47th on its 2015 list of the Top 50 Go-To Law Schools. It was the only law school in New Jersey to appear on that list, which reported that 10.1% of the law school's 2014 graduates were hired directly by one of the country's top 250 law firms.[14]
The law school ranks 41st in the nation in the 2019 Above the Law Rankings, which weighs graduate employment, quality of graduate jobs, education cost, alumni feedback, student debt, and the number of alumni serving as federal judges.[15]
Finally, the law school is ranked 30th according to Business Insider's 2014 'Top Law Schools in America' list.[16]
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
(faculty 1963 to 1972) (deceased)
Lynne Stewart, criminal defense attorney convicted and disbarred for providing material support to terrorists (deceased)
Nicholas Katzenbach, US Secretary of State 1966-69 and US Attorney General 1965-66
(faculty 1950-51) (deceased)
