Program Overview
The New York University (NYU) School of Law’s campus sits in the heart of Washington Square in Greenwich Village, a historic and dynamic neighborhood in New York City. Consistently ranked among the ten best US law schools, NYU Law is one of the larger top-tier law schools, with a class size typically ranging from 400 to 450 students. Notable alumni include sportscaster Howard Cosell, former New York City mayor Ed Koch, Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, and John F. Kennedy, Jr.
NYU Law offers more than 300 courses taught by over 100 faculty members in 16 areas of study. Additionally, student organizations abound, with the number exceeding 80. The school’s focus on leadership and advances in legal education is evidenced by such recently launched initiatives as NYU Law Abroad and the Washington, DC–based Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic. These and many other NYU programs are designed to ensure that graduates are well trained in legal fundamentals but are also practice ready.
In addition, NYU Law has an unparalleled commitment to public service, offering the most comprehensive public service law school program in the United States. The school provides ample funding to qualified students who wish to pursue careers in the field, including the Public Interest Law Center’s Summer Funding Program, which guarantees funding for first- and second-year students who work in public service positions; the Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP), which pays qualified students’ debt burden in part or in full; and several public interest scholarship programs, including the Root-Tilden-Kern Program and the Furman Public Policy Scholarship Program.
NYU Law students have the option of living on-campus at either D’Agostino Hall or Hayden Hall, a pair of high-rise apartment buildings steps from the campus. The rooms are well serviced and well equipped, with front desk services, wireless internet, and utilities included, as well as common recreation rooms and study halls.
Curriculum
Consistent with its commitment to producing well-rounded lawyers that possess both theoretical and practical skills, NYU Law offers unique programming even to first-year students. In addition to required first-year courses such as “Contracts,” “Criminal Law,” “Procedure,” and “Torts,” the Lawyering Program teaches real-world skills for law practice today. In the program, students first develop critical research and writing skills and then move on to engage in simulated interviewing, counseling, case analysis, negotiation, and advocacy sessions. First-year electives allow NYU Law students to pursue a particular focus early in their legal education in such areas as Constitutional Law, Corporations, Intellectual Property, and International Law.
In addition to the more traditional coursework and programming offered in the second and third years of the JD experience, NYU Law offers a staggering array of interdisciplinary and global courses and programs. Interdisciplinary ideas and methodologies pervade the curriculum, as the faculty includes world leaders in philosophy, political science, political theory, and sociology, and nearly 40 centers and institutes as well as a dozen annual colloquia address important issues of the day. From a global perspective, NYU Law offers more than 60 courses, seminars, and colloquia in international, comparative, and foreign law—enabling students to develop expertise across areas that were traditionally studied separately, such as trade and environmental law, intellectual property and human rights, and global antitrust and international labor law. Also of note, the Hauser Global Law School Program brings faculty and fellows—along with more than 300 international students—to New York from around the world to teach, study, and collaborate.
NYU Law’s cutting-edge law and business curriculum teaches key corporate know-how and offers collaborative endeavors with business students in joint classes. A distinctive feature of the curriculum is the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Transactional and Law and Business courses, which bring experts into the classroom to analyze deals. In addition, the Jacobson Leadership Program in Law and Business creates unique opportunities for students seeking an innovative and nontraditional career path grounded in both legal and business fundamentals.
NYU Law offers more than ten different dual-degree programs, including two JD/LLMs, a JD/MBA, and several JD/MAs in Economics, Philosophy, Politics, French Studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. The school also maintains joint programs with Harvard University and Princeton University.
The school’s grading system maintains a maximum of 57% of the first-year class above a B average, with 0–2% of the class receiving an A+ average, 7–13% an A, 16–24% an A–, and 22–30% a B+.
Clinical and Experiential Learning
In NYU Law’s Lawyering Program, upper-level simulation courses and fieldwork clinics are carefully coordinated in a sequenced, dynamic learning construct developed by Professor Anthony G. Amsterdam, one of the most respected public interest lawyers and law professors in the country. The Lawyering Program enables upper-level clinic students to work with clients and communities on demanding cases, projects, and deals.
NYU Law’s Jacob D. Fuchsberg Clinical Law Center has long been renowned for the quality of its faculty, the variety of its offerings, and the innovative structure of its curriculum. With 13 full-time clinical faculty and 50 clinics, the school provides students with unparalleled experiences in client advocacy, public policy influence, and legal problem solving. Clinic faculty are all tenured or tenured-track professors, and the student-to-faculty ratio in clinical courses is relatively low (typically 8:1), ensuring an intensive learning experience. NYU Law’s clinics cover myriad practice areas, such as family law, civil rights, environmental law, and technology law. Clinic students learn specific skills suited to various practice arenas—such as litigation, policy analysis, and trial preparation—and then hone more advanced skills under faculty supervision through such exercises as appellate-brief writing and planning community education workshops.
NYU Law maintains more than a dozen formal and renowned externships in such fields as public service and policy, prosecution, government, and antitrust. The Equal Justice and Defender Externship transplants externs from New York to Montgomery, Alabama, where they work for the Equal Justice Initiative fighting mass incarceration and excessive punishment. The Local Prosecution externship places externs in the District Attorney’s office in either Manhattan or Brooklyn, while the Corporate General Counsel Externship enables students to work under general counsel at McKinsey & Company.
Statistics
Class Profile (Class of 2024)
Class Size: 484
Women: 57%
Students of Color: 41%
Median LSAT: 172
Median GPA: 3.86
Career Placement (Class of 2020)
- Law Firms: 26%
- Public Interest: 20.43%
- Government: 4.57%
- Judicial Clerkships: 4.35%
- Business and Industry: 2.39%