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 dean of Lewis & Clark Law School is Jennifer J. Johnson, Erskine Wood Sr. endowed Professor of Law, a
securities law scholar and
arbitration expert, as well as a member of the
American Law Institute.[6]
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.[7]
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.[8]
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.[9]Harold G. Wren was Dean of the law school from 1969 to 1972.
Today the college has over 100 faculty and staff.[10] Faculty members regularly appear as experts in legal proceedings, publish legal texts and contribute primary research findings to legal scholarship around the country.[11]
Law library
The Paul L. Boley Law Library is the largest
law library in Oregon[12] and the second-largest in the
Pacific Northwest[12] with a collection of over 505,000 volumes as of 2014. Boley is also home to clinical space and program offices.[13]
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.[14] 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.[14] In 2012 CALS launched the first post-JD master of laws (LLM) in Animal Law.[15]
The school has the top ranked animal law program in the United States.[16]
Rankings
The 2021 U.S. News & World Report ranked the school at 88 as a Tier 1 institution.[17] Individual programs continue to receive high marks: Lewis & Clark Law School's Animal Law Program is ranked 1st in the United States[16] and as of 2021, it ranked 1st of environmental law programs, according to U.S. News & World Report's rating system.[18]
Meanwhile, the Lewis & Clark Part-Time Program was ranked 14th in the country as of 2021.[19]
Law centers and institutes
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
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.
[21]
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.[24]
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.[25]
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.[7] 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.[26]
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).[27]