Case Western Reserve University School Of Law
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Case Western Reserve University School of Law is the
law school A law school (also known as a law centre/center, college of law, or faculty of law) is an institution, professional school, or department of a college or university specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for b ...
of
Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...
in
Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...
. It was one of the first schools accredited by the
American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary association, voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students in the United States; national in scope, it is not specific to any single jurisdiction. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated acti ...
. 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 175 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- ...
(AALS). It was initially named for Franklin Thomas Backus, a justice of the
Ohio Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of Ohio is the highest court in the U.S. state of Ohio, with final authority over interpretations of Ohio law and the Ohio Constitution. The court has seven members, a chief justice and six associate justices, ...
, whose widow donated $50,000 to found the school in 1892. According to Case Western Reserve's official 2018 ABA-required disclosures, 65.9% of the Class of 2018 obtained full-time, long-term, bar passage-required employment nine months after graduation, excluding solo-practitioners, ranking 114th out of 200 ABA-approved law schools.


Academics

The student-faculty ratio is 6.8:1. In August 2013, by a near-unanimous vote, the faculty adopted a new curriculum to reflect changes in the legal profession. The model is designed to blend practice, theory, and professionalism in all three years of law school. Students begin working with clients in the first year of law school. Writing and skills-oriented courses track course content to the school's substantive-law courses to blend theory and practice. Students also learn transactional drafting, financial literacy, and statutory and regulatory analysis during their first year. During the second year of law school, students specialize and continue to build on the skills they learned during their first year. The law school's concentrations include health care law, international law, national security law, and law, technology, and the arts. Beginning in 2016, a capstone semester became a hallmark of the third year. All students practice law full-time by working on cases through the Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic Center at the law school or through an externship. Students may do externships in the U.S. or abroad. A select number of students may competitively apply to spend their third year in Europe, completing a foreign LLM degree in addition to their Case JD, at no additional cost. Students learn leadership through courses developed by faculty at Case Western's Weatherhead School of Management, and students graduate with e-portfolios of their work to share with employers.


Admissions

For the class entering in 2022, the school accepted 39.18% of applicants and, from those accepted, 29.08% enrolled, with enrolled students having an average 160
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 and logical reasoning. The test is ...
score and 3.66 average undergraduate
GPA Grading in education is the application of standardized measurements to evaluate different levels of student achievement in a course. Grades can be expressed as letters (usually A to F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), percentages, or as num ...
.


Academic centers

* Frederick K. Cox International Law Center * Center for Law, Technology and the Arts * The Law-Medicine Center * Center for Business Law and Regulation * Canada-US Law Institute * Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law


Journals

* ''Case Western Reserve Law Review'' * ''Canada-US Law Journal'' * ''Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine'' * ''Case Western Reserve Journal of Law, Technology & the Internet'' * '' Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law''


Costs

The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Case Western Reserve for the 2022-2023 academic year was $85,792. Case Western Reserve's tuition and fees on average increase 3.03% annually. The Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $320,718, while 47.8% of students received an annual discount greater than or equal to $40,000.


Employment

According to Case Western Reserve's official 2018 ABA-required disclosures, 65.9% of the Class of 2018 obtained full-time, long-term, bar passage-required employment nine months after graduation, excluding solo-practitioners. The school ranked 114th out of 200 ABA-approved law schools in terms of the percentage of 2018 graduates with non-school-funded, full-time, long-term, bar passage required jobs nine months after graduation. For 2021, Case Western Reserve'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 was 15%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2021 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation. 93.4% of the Class of 2021 was employed in some capacity including non-professional, part-time, and short-term employment, while 0.7% were pursuing graduate degrees, and 5.9% were unemployed nine months after graduation. The most graduates, 23.5%, were employed in public service.
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
was the primary employment destination for 2021 Case Western Reserve graduates, with 46.1% of employed graduates working in the state. The next two most popular locations for Case Western graduates to accept employment were nine graduates in Washington, D.C., and nine in New York. In addition, two graduates from the class of 2021 accepted positions abroad.


Rankings

The school was ranked tied for No.107 out of 197 schools by '' U.S. News & World Report'' in its 2025 law school rankings. In addition to its JD curriculum, the law school offers LLM and SJD degrees to foreign-trained lawyers. It also offers an Executive Master of Arts in Financial Integrity and a Masters in Patent Practice.


Notable faculty

* Jonathan H. Adler – contributing editor to ''
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'' and a regular contributor to '' The Volokh Conspiracy'' *
Peter Junger Peter D. Junger (1933 – November 2006) was a computer law professor and Internet activist, most famous for having fought against the U.S. government's regulations of and export controls on encryption software. The case, ''Junger v. Daley'' (6t ...
computer law Information technology law (IT law), also known as information, communication and technology law (ICT law) or cyberlaw, concerns the juridical regulation of information technology, its possibilities and the consequences of its use, including comp ...
professor and Internet activist; professor at the law school 1970–2001 * Henry T. King Jr. – a U.S.
prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in Civil law (legal system), civil law. The prosecution is the ...
at the
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in 1946–47. From the mid-1980s until his death in 2009 he was a professor at the law school. David M. Crane described King as "the
George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...
of modern
international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...
". * Charles Korsmo – former
child actor The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting on stage, television, or in film, movies. An adult who began their acting career as a child may also be called a child actor, or a "former child actor". Closely associa ...
turned
lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...
and
law professor A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a legal practition ...
. * Michael Scharf – A recognized international expert on
international criminal law International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetrat ...
and author of ''Enemy of the State: The Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein''; co-dean of the law school; director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center


Notable alumni

Among Case Western alumni are prominent
elected officials An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either their own or that of the ...
, particularly from the State of Ohio. Examples of such include former
Ohio State Treasurer The treasurer of the U.S. state of Ohio is responsible for collecting and safeguarding taxes and fees, as well as managing state investments. The Treasury was located in the Ohio Statehouse from 1861 to 1974, when it was moved to the Rhodes Stat ...
Josh Mandel Joshua Aaron Mandel (born September 27, 1977) is an American politician who served as the 48th treasurer of Ohio from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the Ohio State Representative for the 17th district from 2 ...
, former
Ohio Attorneys General Ohio ( ) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the west, and Michigan to the northwest. O ...
Marc Dann,
Lee Fisher Lee Irwin Fisher (born August 7, 1951) is an American attorney, politician, and academic. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 64th lieutenant governor of Ohio under governor Ted Strickland from 2007 until 2011. Fisher previously ...
, and
Jim Petro James M. Petro (born October 25, 1948) is an American lawyer and politician of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party who served as the Ohio Attorney General, Attorney General of Ohio. Previously, Petro also served as Ohio State ...
, and former U.S. Representatives Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Ron Klein. Members of the bench who are Case Western alumni include Kathleen M. O'Malley a former member of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (in case citations, Fed. Cir. or C.A.F.C.) is one of the 13 United States courts of appeals. It has special appellate jurisdiction over certain categories of cases in the U.S. federa ...
, and John J. McConnell, Jr. of the
United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island The United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island (in case citations, D.R.I.) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Rhode Island. The District Court was created in 1790 when Rhode Island ratified the ...
. Both were appointed by
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
. Associate Justice John Hessin Clarke of the
United States 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 turn on question ...
(1916–1922) was educated when the school was known as Western Reserve College. Associate Justice Jeffrey Hjelm of the
Maine Supreme Judicial Court The Maine Supreme Judicial Court is the highest court in the state of Maine's judicial system. It is composed of seven justices, who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Maine Senate. Between 1820 and 1839, justices served lifetime ...
is also an alumnus. Another prominent alumnus is William Daroff – chief executive officer at the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP; commonly Presidents' Conference) is the umbrella organization for the American Jewish community. Comprising 53 national Jewish organizations across the political spectrum, ...
and former member of the
U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad The U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad is an independent agency of the Government of the United States of America. It was established by . The law directs the Commission to identify and report on cemeteries, monument ...
. Other Case alumni are involved in the fields of government, business, academia, and the judiciary.


In popular culture

* In 2010, the show '' The Deep End'' on
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
features a main character, Addy Fisher, who graduated from CWRU School of Law.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Case Western Reserve University School Of Law Law schools in Ohio Case Western Reserve University Universities and colleges established in 1892 1892 establishments in Pennsylvania