The University of Cincinnati College of Law (UC Law or Cincinnati Law) has the distinction of being Ohio’s first law school and the fourth oldest law school in the United States. The College of Law (or Cincinnati Law) is the law school of the University of Cincinnati, a public research university in Cincinnati and the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati with an annual enrollment of over 50,000 students.
The University of Cincinnati College of Law was founded in 1833 as the Cincinnati Law School. It is the fourth oldest continuously operating law school in the United States — after Harvard, the University of Virginia, and Yale — and the first in the nation's interior. In 1900, it was a charter member of the Association of American Law Schools.[2] Then-dean (and future 27th President of the United States) William Howard Taft (1880) merged it with the University of Cincinnati in 1896. Its notable alumni include two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Willis Van Devanter and Taft, who was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after his presidency. Additionally, Jimmy Nippert, the namesake of the university's Nippert Stadium, was a student at UC Law at the time of his death in 1923.[3]
Until August 2022, the College of Law was located at the corner of Clifton Avenue and Calhoun Street in the Heights neighborhood of Cincinnati. Since August 2022, the College of Law has been located in a new building on the corner of Martin Luther King Drive W and Campus Green Dr. The new premises were named the 11th best law school campus in the country by preLaw Magazine.[4]
Degrees Offered
The Juris Doctor (JD) degree is offered, along with four joint degree programs, including a JD/MBA with the Lindner College of Business, a JD/MA Womens Gender & Sexuality Studies (first in the nation) with UC’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a JD/Master of Community Planning with the School of Planning in the prestigious College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, and a JD/MA or JD/PhD with the School of Public and International Affairs.
Cincinnati Law also offers an LLM (Master of Laws) in the US Legal System for international attorneys. Graduate certificates in US Law are also available.
U.S. News & World Report, listed University of Cincinnati College of Law as the No.78th law school out of 196 in Best Law Schools. in the nation in 2024.[5]
UC Law is home to several journals including the Human Rights Quarterly, University of Cincinnati Law Review, the Immigration and Nationality Law Review, and The Freedom Center Journal (FCJ), a joint publication between the law school and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
*Acting
**Interim
According to University of Cincinnati's 2022 ABA-required disclosures, 80% of the Class of 2022 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.[8]
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