The University of Houston Law Center is the law school of the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1947, the Law Center is one of 12 colleges of the University of Houston, a state university. It is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. The law school's facilities are located on the university's 667-acre campus in southeast Houston.
The Law Center awards the Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees. The law school is among four law schools tied for 50th in the 2016 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings.
According to UHLC's 2013 ABA-required disclosures, 63.2% of the class of 2013 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.
The dean of the Law Center is Leonard M. Baynes.
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History
The University of Houston Law Center was founded in 1947 as the University of Houston College of Law, with an inaugural class consisting of 28 students and a single professor. The law school was housed in several locations on campus in its first few years--including temporary classrooms and the basement of the M.D. Anderson Library. The College of Law moved into its current facilities--located at the northeast corner of campus--shortly following its groundbreaking in 1969.
In 1969, the college was renamed the Bates College of Law for Col. William B. Bates, former member of the University of Houston System Board of Regents and College of Law founding committee. Since 1982, the College of Law has been commonly referred to as the University of Houston Law Center.
In 2005, the University of Houston Law Center opened its facilities to Loyola University New Orleans College of Law after it was severely damaged in Hurricane Katrina, hosting 320 of the Loyola's 800 students taught by 31 Loyola law professors, allowing the Loyola students' education to continue uninterrupted.
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Rankings
The law school is tied for 50th in the 2016 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. U.S. News also ranks the school in three specialties: second for health care law, seventh for intellectual property law, and sixth among part-time programs.
In 2010, the school ranked 34th for number of alumni included on the Super Lawyers list. The National Law Journal reported that the Law Center ranked 29th for the percentage of its graduates hired as first-year associates at the nation's 250 largest law firms in 2013. In 2013, the influential law blog "Above the Law" ranked the school 35th on its "Above the Law Top 50 Law Schools List."
Facts
As of fall 2014, the law school reported a total enrollment of 732 students, and employs a total of 273 full- and part-time faculty on staff.
For the class of 2016, the school received 2,208 applications, with 231 full-time and part-time students matriculating. The median undergraduate GPA among all students at the school is 3.47, and the median LSAT score was 159. The class of 2016 is 63.6 percent white and 43.9% female.
Of the 2013 graduating class, 62% work in law firms, 23% in business and industry, 8% in government, 3% in public interest, and 2% as judicial clerks. The average school bar examination passage rate for the July 2013 was 88.02%.
Annual tuition for the 2015-2016 full-time program is $29,784 for Texas residents and $43,044 for non-Texas residents. Annual tuition for the part-time program is $26,541 for Texas residents and $38,961 for non-Texas residents.
Academics
The J.D. program is 90 semester hours. Entering classes are generally divided into three full-time day sessions of some 60 students each and one part-time evening section of some 35 students for first-year courses.
The Law Center has eight special programs and institutes:
- Blakely Advocacy Institute
- Center for Children, Law & Policy
- Center for Consumer Law
- Criminal Justice Institute
- The Environment, Energy, & Natural Resource Center
- Health Law & Policy Institute
- Institute for Higher Education Law & Governance
- Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law
The Law Center offers several law clinics for upper-division students: the Civil Clinic, Civil Practice Clinic, Criminal Practice Clinic, Consumer Law Clinic, Domestic Violence Clinic, Immigration Clinic, Juvenile Defense Clinic, Mediation Clinic, and Transactional Clinic.
O'Quinn Law Library
The O'Quinn Law Library is the school's law library. The director of the library is Spencer Simons. The library has some 435,000 volumes. The library has three special collections:
- The Frankel Rare Books Collection is a closed-stack collection of rare and out of print books and documents as well as publications of the Law Center faculty.
- The Judge Brown Admiralty Collection is an admiralty and maritime law collection. Established mainly from an endowment by Houston admiralty lawyers, the collection is named in honor of Judge John Robert Brown, a Houston admiralty attorney who served on the Fifth Circuit. The entire collection was lost during Tropical Storm Allison, but was rebuilt through the Albertus book replacement project, completed in 2007.
- The Foreign & International Law Collection, which includes books and other documents on Mexican law.
Tropical Storm Allison flooded the library's lower level with eight feet of water in June 2001, destroying 174,000 books and the microfiche collection. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) gave $21.4 million to rebuild the library collection, which was 75 percent of the replacement cost. The collection has since been rebuilt.
Journals and publications
The Law Center publishes five law journals. The Houston Law Review, established in 1963, is the school's main law journal.
The four specialty journals are the Houston Business and Tax Law Journal (business law, tax law; founded in 2001), the Houston Journal of Health Law and Policy (health care law), the Houston Journal of International Law (international law), and the Journal of Consumer & Commercial Law (commercial law).
Employment
According to UHLC's official 2013 ABA-required disclosures, 63.2% of the Class of 2013 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation. UHLC's Law School Transparency under-employment score is 16.5%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2013 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.
Costs
The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at UHLC for the 2013-2014 academic year is $48,478 for a resident and $58,699 for a nonresident. The Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $197,267 for residents and $239,808 for nonresidents.
Notable alumni
- Fortunato Benavides, Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
- Jeff Brown, Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
- Nandita Berry, current Secretary of State of Texas and Houston lawyer
- Victor G. Carrillo, former member and chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission; member of the board of Magnum Hunter Resources Corporation
- Anne Clutterbuck, lawyer and politician
- David Cobb, social activist lawyer, U.S. Green Party candidate
- Marcia A. Crone, Judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
- William F. Downes, Federal Judge
- Eni Faleomavaega, non-voting Delegate to the United States House of Representatives from American Samoa's At-large congressional district.
- William J. Fleniken (Class of 1936), U.S. attorney and state district court judge in Shreveport, Louisiana
- Gene Green, U.S. representative
- Vanessa Gilmore, Judge
- Richard "Racehorse" Haynes, famous criminal defense attorney
- Randy Hendricks, attorney and sports agent
- Donald Holmquest, lawyer and former NASA astronaut
- I. D. McMaster, former District Judge for the 179th Criminal Court
- John O'Quinn, highest paid attorney in Texas and founding partner of The O'Quinn Law Firm
- Daylin Leach State Senator for Pennsylvania
- Gray H. Miller, Judge
- John Moores, entrepreneur and philanthropist, and the owner of the San Diego Padres
- David Newell, Judge
- Dora Olivo, former State Representative
- Larry Phillips, Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives since 2003 from Sherman
- Ted Poe, Congressman
- Joe Rubio, Jr., former District Attorney of Webb and Zapata counties in South Texas
- Michael H. Schneider, Sr., Judge
- Ruby Kless Sondock, first female Texas Supreme Court Justice
- Star Jones, Television personality, lawyer and author; former co-host, The View, former Assistant District Attorney in New York
- Olen Underwood, Judge
- Richard Waites, President/CEO of The Advocates, an international trial consulting firm
- Royce West, State Senator
- Randa Williams, billionaire
- John Whitmire, State Senator
- Samuel F. Wright, Washington DC-based attorney active in veterans issues; lobbied on behalf of the fraudulent U.S. Navy Veterans Association
- Juan F. Vasquez, Judge at United States Tax Court
- Philip D. Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission and Counselor of the United States Department of State
- Tony Buzbee, Houston trial attorney, and member of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents
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