University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law (formerly University of Maryland School of Law) is the law school of the University of Maryland, Baltimore and is located in Baltimore City, Maryland, U.S. Its location places Maryland Law in the Baltimore-Washington legal and business community. Founded in 1816, it is one of the oldest law schools in the United States.
Maryland Law was ranked 47th by the U.S. News &amp; World Report in its 2023 law school rankings. The law school is fully accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA). It is a member of the Association of American Law Schools and has a chapter of the Order of the Coif honor society.
History.
Maryland Law was founded in 1816 as the Maryland Law Institute. David Hoffman is credited with founding the institute and in 1817 he published his legal course Hoffman's Course of Legal Study. The school began regular instruction beginning in 1824, and it is the second-oldest law school in the United States, behind only William &amp; Mary Law School. After the law school denied admission to black applicant Donald Gaines Murray on account of his race, in 1936 the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that the law school must admit him.
In 2002, the law school moved into a facility in downtown Baltimore near the Inner Harbor and Oriole Park at Camden Yards. In 2011, the law school received a donation from the W.P. Carey Foundation, the largest gift in the school's history. In response, the law school changed its name to the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
Student body.
Maryland Law has approximately 650 students enrolled in its Juris Doctor (J.D.) program. The racial makeup of students in the J.D. program is approximately , with about 30% identifying as a minority race (and the remainder are unknown or did not specify). Around 72% of J.D. students are under 25 years old. There are more than 40 student organizations, four specialized legal centers, and five law journals.
In 2019, Maryland Law enrolled 205 students into its first-year J.D. class, including 179 full-time students and 26 part-time students. The median LSAT score was 160, and the median undergraduate GPA was 3.66. The law school accepted approximately 36% of its applicants.
Rankings.
The law school was ranked 36th by the U.S. News &amp; World Report in 2008 and 47th of its law school rankings. The 2023 edition also ranked Maryland Law 6th in part-time programs, 6th in health care law, 13th in environmental law, 12th in dispute resolution, and 8th in clinical training.
Bar passage and employment outcomes.
According to Maryland Law's official data reported to the American Bar Association, approximately 77% of Maryland Law graduates who took the bar exam for the first time in 2019 passed. In addition, 94% of 2019 J.D. graduates were employed in some capacity ten months after graduation. These 2019 graduates became employed in a variety of contexts, including approximately 35% in judicial clerkships (4% federal clerkships and 31% state and local clerkships), 23% in government, 20% in private practice, 11% in business and industry, 5% in public interest, and 4% in education. For 2018 J.D. graduates who entered private practice within ten months of graduation, the median starting salary was $80,000.
Costs.
During the 2019-2020 academic year, tuition and fees for full-time J.D. students were $32,808 for Maryland residents and $48,426 for out-of-state students. For part-time J.D. students, tuition and fees were $21,538 for Maryland residents and $31,704 for out-of-state students. The estimated total cost of attendance for J.D. students, which includes tuition and fees, living expenses, transportation expenses, book expenses, and health insurance, was $61,745 for full-time students who are Maryland residents, $79,277 for full-time out-of-state students, $45,123 for part-time students who are Maryland residents, and $56,972 for part-time out-of-state students. In addition, 77% of students received a scholarship or grant from Maryland Law, including 78% of full-time students and 74% of part-time students.
Academics.
Curriculum.
Core.
The core curriculum at Maryland Law for J.D. students includes courses in civil procedure, constitutional law, torts, property, contracts, and criminal law, as well as a two-semester sequence of courses focusing on legal skills of analysis, research, writing, and oral argument. After completing these initial courses, students are required to complete additional coursework in constitutional law, ethics, and legal research, and satisfy experiential and writing requirements. This core curriculum forms the basis for more specialized study through more than 150 elective courses, seminars, independent studies, simulations, clinics, and externships.
The LL.M. degree program is designed for students who have earned a prior law degree, either a J.D. degree from a law school in the United States or a law degree from a school in another country. Students must complete coursework in a specialty field and may choose to write a thesis. LL.M. students who did not earn a prior law degree in an American law school must take a course on introductory American law, but otherwise, no specific courses are required for LL.M. students.
Specialty programs.
Maryland Law is home to several specialty programs that enable students to explore areas of interest through experiential learning and a specialized curriculum. The main specialty areas include:
Students can focus in other areas as well, such as criminal law, dispute resolution, family law/child advocacy, general practice, jurisprudence/legal history, labor/employment law, administrative law, property/real estate/decedent's estates law, public interest law/community development, and tax law.
Clinical law program.
Through the Cardin Requirement, named after Maryland Law alumnus U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin, each full-time day student in the J.D. program must gain hands-on legal experience by representing actual clients who would otherwise lack access to justice. Most students fulfill the Cardin Requirement through the Clinical Law Program, which provides free legal services to Maryland's poorest citizens each year.
More than 25 clinics focus on a broad range of practice areas, including civil and criminal litigation, advice and counseling, and transactional work. Civil practice areas include environmental law, health, housing and community development, juvenile law and children, AIDS, and immigration. Criminal student attorneys often represent defendants in misdemeanor cases in Maryland's district courts, as well as work in the School of Law's community justice efforts. In addition to in-house clinical work, students may gain experience in public and private nonprofit externships in the Baltimore-Washington region.
Initiatives.
In addition to formal specialty programs, the law school sponsors a variety of academic and public service initiatives. These initiatives enhance the educational and scholarly mission of the law school and also serve the community.
Dual-degree programs.
The law school offers several dual-degree options:
Business.
Maryland Law has a combined J.D./ through:
Public policy.
There are several dual-degree options in the field of public policy:
Campus.
Maryland Law, including the Thurgood Marshall Law Library, occupies a complex that supports the school's programs integrating classroom and experiential learning. The facility opened in 2002 and contains three courtrooms, including the Ceremonial Moot Courtroom, where state and federal trial and appellate courts regularly sit in session to hear cases.
The Thurgood Marshall Law Library houses a collection of more than 495,000 volumes and equivalents accessible through the online catalog. A staff of 23, including 11 librarians, provides customized reference and consulting services to faculty and students. In addition to LexisNexis, Westlaw and Bloomberg Law, the library offers a legal and non-legal Web-based electronic databases.
The library is named after Justice Thurgood Marshall. Despite growing up in Baltimore, he was unable to attend Maryland Law because, in the 1930s, the school denied all African Americans admission. Marshall attended Howard University School of Law.