Loyola Law School - Academics

Academics

U.S. News & World Report ranked Loyola Law School 51st in its "America's Best Graduate Schools 2013" feature, which ranked the school 7th for trial advocacy and 10th for tax law.

Loyola ranks higher on alternative guides such as The Princeton Review in addition to the Cooley rankings (also known as the Brennan rankings). The Cooley Rankings ranked Loyola Law School 26th in the nation in 2010.

For speciality rankings:

• According to The Princeton Review's 2010 "Best 172 Law Schools", Loyola is ranked:
  • 3rd in the nation for "Best Classroom Experience"
  • 6th for "Best Environment for Minority Students"
  • 7th for "Best Professors"
• Loyola's part-time evening program is ranked 18th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report
• Loyola is ranked 10th in the nation for Tax Law, and its fairly new Taxation LL.M. program ranks 8th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report
• Loyola's trial advocacy program is ranked 7th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report
• Lawdragon, which ranks and evaluates lawyers and judges, named Loyola #17 in its list of the 25 Leading Law Schools
• Listed as an "A" (#8) in the January 2011 "Best Public Interest Law Schools" ratings by The National Jurist: The Magazine for Law Students.
• Listed as an "A-" in the March 2011 "Diversity Honor Roll" by The National Jurist: The Magazine for Law Students

Distinct from most law schools, which typically reside in one or two centralized buildings, Loyola has a separate law school campus. The campus, sitting on a full city block just west of downtown Los Angeles, is made up of an open central plaza surrounded by several contemporary buildings designed by Frank Gehry. Its recently renovated library is one of the largest private law libraries in the western U.S., with a collection of nearly 560,000 volumes.

Including its day and evening J.D. programs, Loyola has the largest and most diverse student enrollment of any California law school. It was the first California law school with a pro bono graduation requirement, under which students perform 40 hours of pro bono work. After Hurricane Katrina, Loyola was also one of a handful of schools to open its doors to students of law schools in New Orleans who were forced to relocate for a period of time after the hurricane.

Degrees offered include the Juris Doctor (JD); Juris Doctor/Master of Business Administration (JD/MBA); Masters of Law in Taxation (LLM); Masters of Law in American Law & International Legal Practice (International LLM)

It has been an American Bar Association (ABA) approved law school since 1935. It is a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS).

Loyola is a member of the Order of the Coif, a national law school honorary society founded for the purposes of encouraging legal scholarship and advancing the ethical standards of the legal profession.