Vanderbilt University Law School

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Vanderbilt University Law School
Established	1874
School type	Private
Endowment	$80 Million (US)
Parent Endowment	$3.4 Billion (US)
Dean	Chris Guthrie
Location	Nashville, TN, USA
Enrollment	601
Faculty	132
USNWR ranking	17
Bar pass rate	97.8%
Annual tuition	US$39,838
Website:	www.law.vanderbilt.edu

Vanderbilt University Law School (also known as Vanderbilt Law School) is a graduate school of Vanderbilt University. Established in 1874, it is one of the oldest law schools in the southern United States. Vanderbilt Law has consistently ranked among the top 20 law schools in the nation,^[1] and is currently ranked 17th in the 2009 edition of the U.S. News & World Report.

In addition to its U.S. News & World Report ranking, VULS was ranked 11th in the inaugural Vault Top Law School Guide.^[2] In 2009, The Princeton Review ranked Vanderbilt 7th for Best Classroom Experience, and 5th for Best Quality of Life.^[3] Most recently, Vanderbilt Law was ranked 15th in the 2008 National Law Journal job placement study,^[4] with slightly over 45% of the graduating class being hired by the NLJ Top 250 firms.^[5] The median starting salary for Vanderbilt Law graduates is $145,000.^[6]

The Law School places much emphasis in fostering a small, collegial environment; with only approximately 630 students enrolled, each entering class usually consists of slightly under 200 students. Given the law school's endowment of approximately $80 million, the small class size receives the 16th highest per-capita endowment among U.S. law schools.^[7]

The dean of the law school is Chris Guthrie, who assumed a five-year appointment as dean on July 1, 2009.^[8]

Contents 1 Culture 2 History 3 Admissions 4 Programs 5 Publications 6 Notable alumni 7 Notable faculty 7.1 Current 7.2 Former 8 External links 9 References 9.1 Publications

[edit] Culture

With total enrollment of approximately 630 Juris Doctor and L.L.M. candidates, usually no more than 195 students comprise each entering J.D. class, with 25 to 30 LL.M. students each year. The student-to-faculty ratio has correspondingly dropped in recent years, and is currently at 13:1.^[9]

The small class size has contributed to a congenial, non-competitive atmosphere.^{[citation needed]} VULS has more than 40 student organizations,^[10] which support many social events throughout the year. Students are also encouraged to form new organizations tailored to their personal interests, which has most recently produced Law Students for Social Justice (LSSJ), a new organization within the Social Justice Program that aims to facilitate an increasing number of students interested in pursuing public interest careers or hearing from legal practitioners on various ways to implement social justice values into their practice.

Regarding career options, Vanderbilt's small class size and diverse makeup of its students contribute to a dispersing graduating body, both in terms of industry and geography. While 71.8% of the most recent graduating class pursued law firm work, 13% found employment as judicial clerks, and 7% entered the public service industry. Geographically, Vanderbilt graduates pursue work in the Southern/Mid-Atlantic (38%) and Northeastern (30%) regions; slightly fewer graduates find work in the Western/Southwestern (14%) and Midwestern (13%) region, and 5% of the class find work abroad.^[11] 85% of graduates find jobs in major metropolitan areas, and 94% already had jobs by graduation.^[12]

This dispersal, along with its lack of a class rank system,^[13] has minimized competition among students for firm opportunities among different regions and different firms. Moreover, students may not compete with each other relative to other schools because of heavy firm recruiting: typically over 800 firms recruit second-year students annually, with 550 firms participating in the On-Campus Interview (or OCI) program.^[14] Notable firms include Skadden, White & Case, and Davis Polk.^[15]

The law school also offers a unique^{[citation needed]} 1L OCI program in the spring semester, which typically involves more regionally proximate firms based in the Southeast.

On many Friday mights throughout the school year, the law school sponsors an informal social gathering known as "Blackacre", named after the outdoor courtyard on campus where the gatherings are held.^[16] Blackacre typically features free food and beverages, including kegs of beer, and is sponsored by student organizations and law firms.

[edit] History

Vanderbilt Law School was established in 1874, and was the first professional school to open (Vanderbilt University itself did not start its undergraduate classes until 1875).^[17] The Law School's first class consisted of only seven students and eight professors, with a two-year course of study comprising the school's curriculum. William V. Sullivan was the school's first graduate and would eventually represent Mississippi in the United States Senate.

Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the law school remained reasonably small, and never exceeded 70 students. The curriculum continued as a two-year departmental program, and changed locations between downtown Nashville and the Vanderbilt campus. By 1941, it had expanded into the old chapel area of Kirkland Hall, but faced very limited enrollment during World War II. Classes were suspended in 1944, and the school remained largely stagnant until the end of the war.

Vanderbilt Law School was revived with a $1 million endowment in 1947 and experienced significant growth through the 1960s. Facing overcrowding, it was moved out of Kirkland Hall in 1962, and into the Law School Building on 21st Avenue, where it currently resides.

Since then, VULS has undergone a series of renovations and expansion, notably including a $24 million upgrade under then-dean Kent D. Syverud completed in 2002.

By 2000, VULS had established a Law & Business Program, new clinical programs, multiple law journals, and an LL.M. program for foreign lawyers. At this point, Vanderbilt had greatly solidified its regional prestige and was well on its way to aggressively developing a national reputation.^[18]

In 2005, Edward L. Rubin was appointed to replace Syverud as Dean of the Law School. During Dean Rubin's tenure, Vanderbilt Law School significantly developed its Litigation & Dispute and Resolution Program (resulting from a $2.9 million endowment donation), established or formalized programs in Regulatory Law, Constitutional Law, International Legal Studies, Law and Human Behavior, Environmental Law, and Social Justice, and increased its reputation in the field of Law and Economics by establishing a Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics based within the law school and headed by noted economis W. Kip Viscusi.

[edit] Admissions

Vanderbilt Law School is among the most highly selective in the country.^[19]

While the law school now receives well over 4,000 applications a year, fewer than 1,000 applicants receive offers, resulting in a matriculating class of under 200. In the 2009 application cycle, Vanderbilt received the largest number of applications in its history, experiencing a 10% increase over the previous year.^[20] Its acceptance rate is approximately 22%,^[21] and the entering class (of 2011) had median undergraduate GPA and LSAT scores of 3.72 and 168, respectively.^[22]

Fifty-six percent of the most recent entering class had graduated from college at least one year before arriving at Vanderbilt.^[23] Backgrounds of such students have included experience in such fields as business, the sciences, military service, education, technology, entertainment, and public policy. Of the most recently admitted class, 51% are women and 23% are minorities; the entering class also represents 112 different undergraduate institutions, spanning 38 different states and three foreign nations.

[edit] Programs

Vanderbilt's innovative^{[citation needed]} upper-level concentration programs allow students to earn a certificate in Law & Business, as well as concentrate their studies in such fields as international and constitutional law. In 2005, a new program, the Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program, headed by complex litigation scholar Richard Nagareda^[24]&, received a $2.9 million endowment through a cy pres settlement of a class action lawsuit. Vanderbilt also has programs in law and human behavior, constitutional law, regulatory law, and environmental law.

In the spring of 2006, the law school announced the creation of a new program to award a Ph.D. in Law & Economics—the first program of its kind in the nation^{[citation needed]}—directed by economists W. Kip Viscusi and Joni Hersch. The program admitted its first class in Fall 2007.

Vanderbilt Law School also offers a summer study program, Vanderbilt in Venice,^[25] which is open to students from all accredited law schools and offers courses in comparative and international law.

[edit] Publications

The Vanderbilt Law Review is ranked 18th among general-topic law reviews, based upon the number of times its articles are cited.^[26] Other journals are the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, founded in 1967, and the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, founded as the Journal of Entertainment Law and Practice in 1998. The recently created Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review, a new joint publication with the Environmental Law Institute, debuted in 2008. ELPAR is released each year as the August issue of the Environmental Law Reporter, one of the most widely circulated environmental law publications in the country.^[27]

[edit] Notable alumni

• Greg Abbott - Texas Attorney General
• Leonard Lance - United States Representative from New Jersey - Sworn in January 2009
• Bill Alexander- United States Representative from Arkansas (1969-1993)
• Martha Craig Daughtrey - Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Karl Dean - Mayor of Nashville
• Al Gore - Vice President of the United States; winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Gore attended Vanderbilt Law School, but left in 1976 during his 2L year without attaining a degree to run for his father's seat in Congress.
• Pauline LaFon Gore - Mother of former Vice President Al Gore. She met her future husband, Albert Gore, Sr., while working her way through Vanderbilt Law School, from which she graduated in 1936.
• Ric Keller - United States Representative from Florida
• Gilbert S. Merritt, Jr. - Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Aleta Trauger - Judge, U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville
• Bill Purcell - Former Mayor of Nashville; served two terms from 1999 to 2007.
• Ronald J. Rychlak - Noted author, attorney and professor of law at University of Mississippi
• Fred Thompson - Former Republican presidential candidate; former United States Senator (R-TN), and actor on the television drama Law & Order
• Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr. - Senior Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee

[edit] Notable faculty

[edit] Current

• Lisa Schultz Bressman, highly regarded scholar of administrative law.
• Suzanna Sherry, author of numerous books on constitutional interpretive theory and casebooks on Civil Procedure and Federal Jurisdiction.
• Justin Wilson, Adjunct Professor of Law and Comptroller of the State of Tennessee

[edit] Former

• Harold G. Maier, expert in Private International Law, International Civil Litigation (retired in 2006)
• James Clark McReynolds (1862-1946), United States Supreme Court Justice, served on the faculty before becoming part of President Theodore Roosevelt's Justice Department.

[edit] External links

• Vanderbilt University Law School homepage

[edit] References

[edit] Publications

• Vanderbilt Law Review
• Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law
• Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law

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