Lewis & Clark Law School offers the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree, including a range of scholastic concentrations and legal certificate programs, as well as Master of Laws (LLM) and Master of Studies in Law (MSL) degrees in environmental, natural resources, and energy law, and LLM and MSL degrees in animal law.
Each class in the three-year J.D. program has approximately 180 students. The former dean of Lewis & Clark Law School is Jennifer Johnson, Erskine Wood Sr. Professor of Law, a securities law scholar and arbitration expert, as well as a member of the American Law Institute.[7] Dean Johnson will be stepping down from her role in August 2024, to be replaced by former President of Albany Law School Alicia Ouellette.[8] John Parry, the Edward Brunet Professor of Law, will serve as interim dean prior to Alicia Oullette taking up her post.[9]
Lewis & Clark law students can complete their degrees on full-time or part-time schedules, take courses during the day or evening, and focus in a number of legal specialties. The institution has a general law review and a range of specialty programs, including environmental law, public interest law, and the lawyering program. According to Lewis & Clark's official 2018 ABA-required disclosures, 75.8% of the Class of 2018 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required or JD-preferred employment nine months after graduation.[10]
Campus grounds
The law school grounds are adjacent to a forested natural area, replete with 14-miles of biking and jogging trails in Tryon Creek State Park. The Law School is 4-miles from downtown, in the Southern hills of Portland, west of the Willamette River, at the base of the undergraduate campus of Lewis & Clark College.[11]
The Lewis & Clark College undergraduate, graduate school, and law campus grounds collectively occupy 137 acres (554,000 m2), centered on the M. Lloyd Frank Estate on Palatine Hill in the Collins View neighborhood of Southwest Portland.[citation needed]
In 1965, the faculty and overseers of Northwestern College of Law joined with the president and trustees of Lewis & Clark College to incorporate the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College.[12]Harold Wren was Dean of the law school from 1969 to 1972.
Today the college has over 100 faculty and staff.[13] Faculty members regularly appear as experts in legal proceedings, publish legal texts and contribute primary research findings to legal scholarship around the country.[14]
Law library
Legal research center
The Paul L. Boley Law Library is the largest law library in Oregon[15] and the second-largest in the Pacific Northwest[15] with a collection of over 505,000 volumes as of 2014. Boley is also home to clinical space and program offices.[16]
Animal Law Program
Lewis & Clark Law School is a pioneer in the field of animal law, it offered some of the first animal law courses in the world and in 1992 students founded the first Animal Law Conference in the U.S.[17] The Center for Animal Studies (CALS) was founded at the school in 2008, becoming the first formal animal law program in the world and eventually giving rise to the first Animal Law Clinic.[17] In 2012 CALS launched the first post-JD master of laws (LLM) in Animal Law.[18]
The school has the top ranked animal law program in the United States.[19]
Rankings
The 2021 U.S. News & World Report ranked the school at 88 as a Tier 1 institution.[20] Individual programs continue to receive high marks: Lewis & Clark Law School's Animal Law Program is ranked 1st in the United States[19] and as of 2021, it ranked 1st of environmental law programs, according to U.S. News & World Report's rating system.[21]
Meanwhile, the Lewis & Clark Part-Time Program was ranked 14th in the country as of 2021.[22]
LC outdoor amphitheaterBoley Law library houses a quiet reading room (pictured) and is currently the largest law library in the state of Oregon.[23]
Law centers and institutes
Lewis & Clark Law School McCarty Complex
Center for Animal Law Studies
Earthrise Law Center
Green Energy Institute
National Crime Victim Law Institute
Natural Resources Law Institute
Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC)
Western Resources Legal Center (WRLC)
International Environmental Law Project (IELP)
Journals
Masthead of the Lewis & Clark Law Review
Lewis & Clark Law School supports three student-edited scholarly journals:
Lewis & Clark law students benefit from the campus serving as a destination for several national moot courts. In 2013, Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts launched Lewis & Clark's Environmental Moot Court Competition, presiding as a guest judge.
[24]
In addition, the law school has developed a number of exclusive global summer externship placements. There are options in India for students interested in business, litigation, transactional, public interest, human rights, and environmental practice through placement with firms and NGOs in Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.[27]
The law school has also secured exclusive placements in Asia, for students interested in international law firm experience. Past placements include firms in both Beijing and Shanghai, China.[28]
Employment
According to Lewis & Clark's official 2018 ABA-required disclosures, 75.8% of the Class of 2018 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required or JD-preferred employment nine months after graduation.[10] Lewis & Clark's Law School Transparency under-employment score is 20.8%, 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.[29]
Costs
The average cost of attendance at Lewis & Clark Law School for the 2016–17 school year includes tuition ($43,240 full-time, $32,426 part-time); fees ($50 public interest fee); health insurance ($2,402 if not already covered); and average cost of living expenses ($18,761).[30]
