UQ Law School

The UQ Law School is the law school of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Founded in 1936, the school is the sixth-oldest law school in Australia and the oldest and most prestigious in Queensland. The school is currently the most-cited law school in Australia. Its alumni include six Australian High Court Justices including two Chief Justices of Australia.
The entering undergraduate class typically consists of about 200 LLB students per year (the smallest cohort of students among Go8 universities), and admission is highly competitive, with minimum selection thresholds ranging around ATAR 99.00-98.00 (OP 1–2). UQ Law additionally offers LLM, MICLaw, MICLaw/MCom, MIL, MIR/MIL, MPhil and PhD degrees. Though no exact figure can be found, the total student enrolment is estimated to be 1200–1650 students (with ~500 students, about 30% of the total student cohort).
The school, as part of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law (BEL), works closely with several student associations including the University of Queensland Law Society Inc. (UQLS), the Justice and the Law Society (JATL) and the Australian Legal Philosophy Students Association (ALPSA).
History.
Although the Law School began properly teaching in 1936, a Faculty of Law was established "pro forma" with the foundation of the University of Queensland in 1911. This enabled the university to confer "ad eundem gradum" degrees"," an honorary degree recognising the award given by another university, and Doctors of Laws "honoris causa," recognising the contribution of selected persons toward the establishment of the university"."
A limited amount of law subjects began to be taught in 1926- when the first Garrick Professor of Law was appointed. However, this was under the ambit of the university's faculty of arts, as no law school had been properly established yet. In 1935 Thomas Charles Beirne endowed the university with £20,000, enabling the university's senate to officially approve the law school on 10 May 1935. In May 1936, students commenced studies under the newly formed TC Beirne School of Law.
Reputation and student achievements.
Since 1935, twenty-seven UQ Law graduates have won Rhodes scholarships. In 2020, two UQ law students won scholarships to study at the University of Cambridge. Eleven UQ Law students have won Fulbright Scholarships since 1955. Ten UQ Law students have won New Colombo Plan Scholarships or Mobility Grant Programs since 2014.
The UQ School of Law is well regarded as one of the world's foremost law schools for mooting; significant mooting achievements include the following:
Building.
In 2015, UQ commissioned a refurbishment of the west wing of the heritage-listed Forgan Smith building; focused on re-imagining the School of Law and the Walter Harrison Law Library and signalling a re-imagined program restructure and smaller cohort size. In 2017, Brisbane based architecture firm BVN completed the School of Law's Forgan Smith Building refurbishment. The re-imagined west wing of the Forgan Smith building has since won numerous awards:
Academics.
The UQ Law School is Queensland's premier law school; usually achieving the highest rank for law of any Queensland university. The UQ Law School is Australia's best academically-performing law school, as measured by the averaged QS c"itations per paper" (CPP) and QS "H-Index citations" (H-index) ranking, at 27.5; ANU College of Law follows UQ Law at an averaged CPP &amp; H-index ranking of 38.5.
When focusing on objective academic performance indicators, University of Queensland's School of Law performs extremely well, often appearing to be Australia's foremost law school: according to Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the school has ranked 1st (nationally) for CPP in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020; and 1st, 3rd, and 2nd (nationally) regarding H-index in 2018, 2019, and 2020 respectively. Globally, the school currently ranks =25th for QS' CPP metric (alongside Cambridge University's law school) and =30th for QS' "H-Index citations" metric"."
Notably, UQ's Law School achieved a THE-WUR "citation ranking" of 3rd globally (1st domestically) in 2017 (THE 2018)- two positions above Yale Law School, six positions above top-ranked Duke Law School, and just one position below Harvard Law School. UQ's Law School also recently received a THE-WUR "research ranking" of 36th in the world (THE 2020).
Current and previous ranking positions.
"(Positions enclosed in parentheses refer to domestic ranking)"
Notable ranking positions have been emphasised.
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Publications.
The following publications are produced by staff and/or students at UQ Law:
Alumni.
The UQ School of Law's alumni include:
Jurists
Politicians, public servants and vice regals
Business leaders
Higher education
Other