The Paul M. Hebert Law Center is a law school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States, part of the Louisiana State University System and located on the main campus of Louisiana State University.
Because Louisiana is a civil law state, unlike its 49 common law sister states, the curriculum includes both civil law and common law courses, requiring 94 hours for graduation, the most in the United States. In the Fall of 2002, the LSU Law Center became the sole United States law school, and only one of two law schools in the Western Hemisphere, offering a course of study leading to the simultaneous conferring of a J.D. (Juris Doctor), which is the normal first degree in American law schools, and a B.C.L. (Bachelor of Civil Law), which recognizes the training its students receive in both the Common and the Civil Law. As of June 2008, the LSU Law Center will no longer confer the B.C.L., but will confer a Graduate Diploma in Civil Law instead. This is due to a conflict with the Southern Association of Colleges (SACS) over the requirements of a bachelor degree.
The Paul M. Hebert Law Center is an autonomous campus of, rather than a dependent college of, its larger university. This structure has been criticized for impeding the development of joint degree programs and indirectly lowering the university's rankings due to a lowering of aggregate aid to the university system. Its designation as a Law Center, rather than Law School, derives not only from its campus status but from the centralization on its campus of J.D. and post-J.D. programs, foreign and graduate programs, including European programs at the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 School of Law, Lyon, France, and University of Louvain Belgium, and the direction of the Louisiana Law Institute and the Louisiana Judicial College, among other initiatives.
The LSU Law Center has moved five spots upward in the 2013 U.S. News rankings of Law Schools, climbing to 79th in the closely watched list. The #79 ranking is the second highest in LSU Law history, bested only by the school’s ranking of #75 in 2010.
LSU Law entered the US News top 100 for the first time in 2004. As recently as 2008, the Law Center was ranked at # 91. The new ranking accentuates the Law Center’s positive movement in the rankings in recent years.
The LSU Law Moot Court Program has been ranked in the Top 50 nationally. Since the 2005-06 academic year, the Moot Court/Trial Advocacy Program has celebrated: 5 National Moot Court Championships; 7 National Second Place Finishes; 3 State Championships (LSBA Mock Trial); 15 Top 8 Finishes in National Quarter Finals; 15 Regional Championship or Finalist Awards; 18 Best Oralist/Best Individual Advocate Awards; and, 8 Best Brief/Best Motion Awards.
A recent study conducted by The National Jurist magazine identified LSU Law as the #1 school in the nation in terms of first-time bar passage ratios in a predictive statistical model based on LSAT scores
Read more about Paul M. Hebert Law Center: History, Demographics, Notable Alumni
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