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Suffolk University Law School

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Suffolk University Law School
Suff
Motto“Honestas et Diligentia"
TypePrivate
Established1906
DeanBernard Keenan
Academic staff
150[1]
Students1,644[1]
Location
Boston
,
Massachusetts
,
USA
Websitewww.law.suffolk.edu
Sargent Hall, the main law school building, is across from Boston Common and Granary Burying Ground

Suffolk University Law School is a private law school in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The fourth oldest law school in New England in continuous existence (after Harvard, Yale, and Boston University), Suffolk was founded in 1906 by Gleason Archer, Sr. to provide a legal education for those who traditionally lacked the opportunity to study law because of socio-economic or racial discrimination.

The law school currently has both day and evening (part-time) divisions. The school is located in the newly built Sargent Hall on Tremont Street in downtown Boston. There are over 200 upper level electives offered at the law school, and the school is consistently ranked one of the most technologically advanced schools in the nation.[3][4] Suffolk regularly publishes five law reviews, to which students, faculty, and other scholars contribute. The school is featured annually in the Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Report rankings. Suffolk has attracted notable scholars and prominent speakers ranging from John F. Kennedy to William Rehnquist to Antonin Scalia to Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Suffolk University alumni are found in high level judicial, political, and private positions throughout the United States. With over 25,000 alumni, Suffolk is the fourth largest law school in the United States, and only Harvard and Georgetown have a larger enrollment amongst eastern law schools.[5]

History

U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, laying the cornerstone for Suffolk's "new" building in 1920.

One of the oldest law schools in New England, Suffolk was founded in 1906 by lawyer Gleason Leonard Archer as the "Suffolk School of Law." The school was named after its location in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Archer's goal was to provide immigrants, minorities, and the working class with the opportunity to study law. In 1907, Archer moved the school from Roxbury to downtown Boston. His first student passed the bar in 1908. By 1930, Archer developed Suffolk into one of the largest law schools in the country, and the law school received full accredition from the American Bar Association (ABA).[6] Originally an all-male school with New England School of Law serving as a "sister" school, Suffolk became co-educational in 1937.[6] In 1999 Suffolk Law School opened its new building on 120 Tremont Street across from Boston Common.

Curriculum and Attendance Statistics

Suffolk's old building in the early twentieth century, featuring a neon sign on the roof

Suffolk Law School has a 3-year day program and a 4-year evening program offering a broad selection of courses. The law school maintains a traditional first-year juris doctor curriculum which includes the year-long courses of Civil Procedure, Contracts, Property, Torts, and Legal Writing, in addition to the semester-long Constitutional Law and Criminal Law courses. A course in Professional Responsibility is required, and each student must also fulfill legal writing and legal skills requirements prior to graduation. Until 2008 Fiduciary Relations, a class concentrating on the law of Agency and Trusts, was required. Upon completion of the required curriculum, students at Suffolk choose from over 200 upper-level courses, many of which focus on learning practical skills, including several legal clinics.[7] Students may also receive credit for diverse internships and clerkships, including those at various courts in the Boston area. Academic concentrations are available in Civil Litigation, Financial Services, Health/Biomedical, and Intellectual Property.[8]

In addition to the J.D., Suffolk offers an advanced LL.M. in Global Law and Technology. Suffolk University Law School also offers joint degrees with Suffolk's Sawyer Business School (J.D./M.B.A., J.D./M.S.F., J.D./M.P.A.), and the Suffolk University College of Arts and Sciences (J.D./M.S.C.J., J.D./M.S.I.E.).[9]

The average faculty to student ratio at Suffolk is 16.5 students per faculty member.[10] Tuition for the 2009-2010 academic year is $39,550 for the day division and $29,664 for the evening division.[11]

Admissions and Career Statistics

In 2009, the median GPA for incoming Suffolk Law students was 3.3, and the median LSAT score was 157.[12] The admission rate in 2007 was 49.8%.[13] A breakdown of the various degree programs reveals that for certain programs the selectivity can dramatically increase, such as the LL.M. program.[14]

Suffolk had a first time bar passage rate of 94.3% in 2008; third of nine ABA accredited law schools in Massachusetts[15]

The median full-time starting salaries for Suffolk graduates who had secured employment was $77,000 in the private sector, and $45,000 in the public sector.[16][17]

Academic rankings and honors

Entryway of Sargent Hall.

Suffolk is ranked annually in several lists of top law schools in the United States, including the U.S. News and Princeton Review, and other rankings. The school has been ranked in the third or fourth tier overall in the past two years.[18] In 2009, U.S. News ranked Suffolk 13th overall in the United States for its evening program.[19] In 2009 U.S. News ranked Suffolk 20th in the United States for its legal clinics, 13th for its Alternative Dispute Resolution Program, and 15th for its Legal Writing above Harvard and BU in 2010.[7] The 2009 edition of Judging the Law Schools ranked Suffolk 35th overall in the United States ahead of Cornell Law School based upon ABA data.[20] In the 2004 edition of The Best 117 Law Schools, Princeton Review ranked Suffolk 5th in the United States in "most competitive students."[21] In 2008 National Jurist ranked Suffolk in the top sixty law schools in the country for public interest law.[22]

Research centers & institutes

In addition to the basic curriculum, moot court, legal clinics, law review publications, and numerous extracurricular opportunities, Suffolk Law School maintains several other programs available to law students. Working with Harvard University, Suffolk runs the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Service offering fellowship opportunities for law students. Suffolk also operates the Macaronis Institute, which is led by Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice John Greaney, offering practical opportunities in trial and appellate practice. The law school also offers programs abroad, including: the Semester in Sweden Program with Lund University, a university where Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg conducted research for her book on Swedish Law in the 1960s.[23]

Libraries and Archive

One of the law library's reading rooms.

In 1999, after construction on a new law school building was completed, the John Joseph Moakley Library moved to its new home in Sargent Hall. The library contains over 375,000 volumes covering common law and statutes from all major areas of American law in each of the 50 states and with primary legal materials from the U.S. federal government, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the European Union.[24] The library also features a substantial treatise and periodical collection and houses the John Joseph Moakley Archive and Institute http://www.joemoakley.org. Some of the collections in the Archive include the Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers (a collection of the late U.S. Representative's papers which he gifted to the school in 2001), the Gleason L. Archer Personal Papers (founder of the Law School and University), the Harry Hom Dow Papers (a 1929 Law School graduate), the Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection and the Records of Suffolk University [25]. Suffolk also records and broadcasts oral arguments for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and has archives of those proceedings available in the library and online.[26]

Law Review and Journal publications

Law Review office suite at Suffolk

Suffolk University Law School maintains five student-run publications. The Suffolk University Law Review, founded in 1967, is the oldest continuously published scholarly publication at the law school.[27] The Moot Court Honor Board, which runs many of the school's successful mock trial competitions, produces the Suffolk Journal of Trial & Appellate Advocacy, which publishes scholarly work written by leading academics, judges, practitioners, and students covering varied trial and appellate practice issues in the United States. Suffolk's Journal of High Technology Law focuses on providing research articles on issues of copyright, trademark and patent law. The Suffolk Transnational Law Review, founded in 1976, is one of approximately 30 law reviews in the United States that focus on international legal issues and the second oldest in existence (after the Harvard International Law Journal). Suffolk recently recognized a fifth journal, the Journal of Health and Biomedical Law, which focuses on cutting-edge legal developments in the field of health law.[28] In addition to the journals, Suffolk publishes Dicta, the law school student newspaper since 1972.[29]

Suffolk Law School in literature, film and culture

Notable alumni

Marty Meehan, Class of 1983, Chancellor of UMASS, Lowell, former U.S. Congressman
Joe Moakley, Class of 1956, former U.S. Congressman

Notable faculty and trustees

Alasdair Roberts, with Ben Clements, Chief Legal Counsel, Mass. Office of the Governor, and other participants at a March 2009 Rappaport Center roundtable on ethics and lobbying reform.

Honorary degree recipients and speakers

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Suffolk University Law School Official ABA Data
  2. ^ http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/rankings/page+7
  3. ^ US News Ranking Information
  4. ^ Suffolk Law Information
  5. ^ U.S. News Statistics PDF 2006
  6. ^ a b Suffolk University Centennial Celebration. Accessed June 21, 2008.
  7. ^ a b Suffolk News Release, accessed June 15, 2008
  8. ^ Suffolk Academic Concentration, accessed June 21, 2008
  9. ^ Suffolk Law Joint JD programs, accessed June 15, 2008
  10. ^ U.S. News 2007 Annual Rankings
  11. ^ http://www.law.suffolk.edu/offices/finaid/budget.cfm
  12. ^ http://www.law.suffolk.edu/admissions/documents/LawSchoolFactSheet.pdf
  13. ^ http://www.ilrg.com/rankings/law/index.php/4/asc/Accept
  14. ^ Princeton Review Ranking Information
  15. ^ http://www.law.suffolk.edu/offices/alumni/magazine/SL09/LawBriefs_BarPass.cfm
  16. ^ http://www.ilrg.com/rankings/law/view.php/93
  17. ^ Princeton Review Salary Princeton Review. Retrieved on 3.1.2010
  18. ^ Law Schools List
  19. ^ Wall Street Journal (accessed April 24, 2009)
  20. ^ 2009 edition of Judging the Law Schools
  21. ^ The Best 117 Law SchoolsBy Eric Owens, Princeton Review (Firm) 2005, pg. 55
  22. ^ Suffolk Law Public Interest Award from National Jurist (accessed November 24, 2008)
  23. ^ Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Linda Bayer. Chelsea House Publishers, 2000, pg. 46.
  24. ^ Suffolk Law School Library information
  25. ^ http://www.suffolk.edu/archive/collections.html
  26. ^ Suffolk SJC Oral Argument Archives online
  27. ^ Suffolk Law Review
  28. ^ Honor Boards at Suffolk Law School
  29. ^ Suffolk Law Timeline, 2006
  30. ^ http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2006/10/law_school_came.html
  31. ^ http://www.tv.com/boston-legal/breast-in-show/episode/580523/summary.html
  32. ^ The Late George Apley: A Novel by John P. Marquand. Reprint, Back Bay, 2004, pg. 25.
  33. ^ Suffolk Law Website, accessed June 15, 2008

See also

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