Baylor Law School

Baylor Law School is the oldest law school in Texas.[3] Baylor Law School is affiliated with Baylor University and located in Waco, Texas. The school has been accredited by the American Bar Association since 1931, and has been a member of the Association of American Law Schools since 1938.[4] The program offers training in all facets of law, including theoretical analysis, practical application, legal writing, advocacy, professional responsibility, and negotiation and counseling skills. Baylor Law School has been nationally ranked a "top-tier" law school by various publications in recent years.[5][6]

Baylor University School of Law
Established1857 (original), 1920 (re-establishment)
School typePrivate
DeanBradley J.B. Toben
LocationWaco, Texas, U.S.
Enrollment448 [1]
Faculty31 (full-time)[1]
USNWR ranking50th (2021) [2]
Websitewww.baylor.edu/law

History
Baylor Law School at dusk.

Established in 1857, Baylor Law School was the first law school in Texas and the second law school west of the Mississippi River.[7] Law classes continued until 1883 when the school was discontinued. In 1920, the Board of Trustees reestablished the law school (called the Law Department at that time) under the direction of Dean Allen G. Flowers. The school was temporarily suspended from 1943–1946 as a result of World War II.

Bradley J.B. Toben has served as Dean of the Law School since 1991.[8] He is the longest serving dean in the nation among the 203 ABA accredited law schools.[9]

Academics
Baylor Law School on the banks of the Brazos River.

Baylor Law School operates on a quarter system; a student may begin classes in either February (spring quarter), May (summer quarter), or August (fall quarter).[10] The Law School also has four graduating classes per year (coinciding with the end of each quarter including the winter quarter). Each matriculate class has a separate application pool, and applicants are required to apply to the quarter in which they would like to begin (if a student wants to be considered for admission in different quarters a separate application package is required for each).

A typical academic year consists of three-quarters, with students choosing to take off the fourth quarter of the year to complete a clerkship or internship. However, students may elect to complete the program in only 27 months by attending every quarter. The school's curriculum is a practical one, focused more on the positive state of the law than a normative one.

In addition to the standard Juris Doctor degree, Baylor Law students can obtain a combined JD with either the Master of Business Administration (both traditional and with an emphasis in healthcare administration), the Master of Taxation, the Master of Public Policy and Administration, or the Master of Divinity degree.[11]

First-Year Program
  • First-year students are required to take 13 mandatory courses (41 credit hours) with no electives permitted.
  • The required courses are in:
    • Legal Analysis, Research, and Communication (LARC I, II, and III)
    • Civil Procedure
    • Contracts (I and II)
    • Criminal Law
    • Criminal Procedure
    • Legislation, Administrative Power and Procedure (LAPP)
    • Property (I and II)
    • Torts (I and II)
    • Constitutional Law: Structure and Power
    • Constitutional Law: Individual Liberties

Second-Year Program
  • The second-year program consists of a mix of mandatory and elective courses.
  • The four mandatory classes (which must be taken in the student's fourth and fifth quarters) are:
    • Basic Taxation Principles for Lawyers
    • Business Organizations I
    • Remedies
    • Trust and Estates
  • At this point students can choose to concentrate in one of fifteen specialized areas of law:
    • Administrative Practice
    • Business Litigation
    • Business Planning
    • Commercial Law
    • Criminal Practice
    • Estate Planning
    • Family Law Practice
    • Fiduciary Litigation
    • General Civil Litigation
    • Healthcare Law
    • Intellectual Property
    • Intellectual Property Litigation
    • Personal Injury Litigation
    • Public Interest Law
    • Real Estate and Natural Resources

Third-Year and Practice Court

The third-year program consists primarily of the School's Practice Court Program. Practice Court traces its roots to the original school, and was returned in 1922 shortly after the school was reinstituted. Though Practice Court is designed primarily for students who will practice law before trial courts; it is mandatory for all students.

The program was ranked by the Princeton Review as “arguably the best training ground in the nation for practical lawyering.” The program is regarded as “the Marine Corps Boot Camp of law schools.” The program is recognized as one of the most rigorous, most demanding—yet most rewarding— law school experiences for the honing of real-world lawyering and leadership skills anywhere in America.[12]

The program consists of four courses taught over two quarters:

  • Practice Court 1: Pre-Trial Practice & Procedure
  • Practice Court 2: Trial Evidence, Procedure & Practice
  • Practice Court 3: Trial and Post-Trial Practice, Procedure & Evidence
  • Professional Responsibility

The Practice Court program covers not only mock trials but all aspects of the law and procedure process from the filing of a suit to post-verdict motions.[13]

Law Review
Baylor Law Review
LanguageEnglish
Publication details
History1948–present
Frequency3/year
Standard abbreviations
BluebookBaylor L. Rev.
ISO 4Bayl. law rev.
Indexing
ISSN0005-7274
OCLC no.818986563
Links

The Baylor Law Review is the law school's official student-run law review.[14] The journal was founded in 1948[15] and is published three times per year (Fall, Winter and Spring).[16] Students may grade on to the Law Review at the end of their first year or later as upper-quarters, being selected through a write-on competition, or writing a note or comment for the journal that is selected for publication.[17]

Students looking for hands-on experience with actual client cases will discover both through Baylor Law's Legal Clinics. As part of the School's commitment to pro bono public service, students step outside the classroom and into the community, meeting and working with clients with real needs and real issues—most of who cannot afford a lawyer.[18]

Baylor Law currently has five legal clinics: Estate Planning, Immigration, Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship, Trial Advocacy, and the Veterans Clinic.[19]

Over the past few years, more than 1,500 central Texans have been served by Baylor Law students, faculty, and volunteer attorneys.[20]

Baylor Law's Director of Clinical Programs, Josh Borderud, was selected in early 2020 to receive the prestigious Sandra Day O’Connor Award for Professional Service from the American Inns of Court.[21] The Sandra Day O’Connor Award for Professional Service is awarded each year to honor an American Inn of Court member in practice for ten or fewer years for excellence in public interest or pro bono activities.[22]

Employment

According to Baylor's official 2019 ABA-required disclosures, 93.7% of the Class of 2019 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.[23] Baylor's Law School Transparency under-employment score is 3.9%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2019 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.[24]

Costs

The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Baylor for the 2020-21 academic year is $85,679.[25] The Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $310,638.[26]

Rankings
  • In its law specialties rankings, U.S. News & World Report ranked Baylor Law's Trial Advocacy program as the second best in the nation.[27]
  • Baylor Law School is ranked No. 50 in the magazine's 2021 edition of "America's Best Graduate Schools."[5]
  • Above the Law ranked Baylor Law School at No. 33 in 2016.[6]
  • The school also has the dubious distinction of being ranked as having the most competitive student body of every law school in the nation for several years by the Princeton Review.[28]
  • Baylor Law is ranked #29 nationally in terms of bar passage rate among first-time test takers (92.1%), and it outperforms by +17.6% the state of Texas’s overall bar passage rate of 74.5%.[29]
  • Baylor Law ranks #34 in terms of graduates employed ten months after graduation (85.4%) and #77 in terms of graduates employed at the time of graduation (51.5%).[30]
  • Baylor Law is tied for #53 in terms of the median starting salary among graduates working in private practice as law firm associates ($85,000).[31]
  • Baylor Law is tied for #24 in terms of median starting salary among graduates working in government jobs or judicial clerkships at the federal or state level ($61,105).

Notable alumni
Baylor University School of Law as seen from the front

References
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  8. "Brad Toben". Law School Faculty and Staff | Baylor University. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  9. "Brad Toben". Law School Faculty and Staff | Baylor University. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  10. "Quarter System". Law | Baylor University. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  11. "Quick Facts". Law | Baylor University. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  12. "Practice Court". Law | Baylor University. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
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  22. "News". Law | Baylor University. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
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