DePaul University College of Law

DePaul University College of Law is the professional graduate law school of DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 125 full- and part-time faculty members and enrolls more than 500 students in its Juris Doctor program. The school is recognized for its health law and intellectual property law programs, its experiential learning opportunities, and for its multiple joint degree programs offered in conjunction with other DePaul University colleges and schools.

The law school’s facilities—encompassing nine floors across two buildings on the DePaul University Loop Campus—include the Vincent G. Rinn Law Library, Leonard M. Ring Courtroom, technology-enabled classrooms, two student lounges, and student offices and meeting spaces. The law school is located within two blocks of state and federal courts and is close to numerous law firms, corporations and government agencies.

History

DePaul College of Law started in 1897 as Illinois College of Law, founded by Howard N. Ogden. It was the only law school not on the East Coast to offer both day and evening classes.

DePaul University acquired Illinois College of Law in 1912. This purchase benefited both institutions and saw the law school’s enrollment double to approximately 400 students. Ogden stayed on as the College of Law’s dean, and he became the first non-Catholic trustee of the University. Three years later, upon Ogden’s death, DePaul obtained full ownership of the law school.

Originally housed at 64 East Lake Street, DePaul Law moved to its current home in the Lewis Center at 25 East Jackson Boulevard in 1958. Formerly known as the Kimball Building, it was gifted to DePaul in 1955 by the Frank J. Lewis Foundation. At that time, it was the largest gift received by the University.

In 1972, DePaul purchased the Finchley Building next door and later renamed it Comerford J. O'Malley Place (commonly known as “O’Malley Place”) in honor of the former president and chancellor of DePaul. Also that year, DePaul Law opened its first legal clinic in the United States.

Statistics

Student body

For the 2023 entering class, DePaul Law had 150 full-time students and 27 part-time students with a median LSAT of 156. Ages for all students ranged from 20-38 with a median age of 24 for full-time students and 28 for part-time students.

Programs and Degrees
 12 Juris Doctor (JD] certificate programs: Art & Museum Law; Business Law; Criminal Law; Family Law; Health Law; Health Care Compliance; Information Technology, Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Law; Intellectual Property; International and Comparative Law; Patent Law; Public Interest Law; and Taxation
 11 joint degree programs:  BA/JD (3+3 program with the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and College of Communication); JD/Master of Arts in International Studies; JD/Master in International & European Business Law; JD/Master of Business Administration; JD/Master of Science in Computer Science; JD/Master of Science in Public Service Management; JD/LLM in Health Law, Intellectual Property Law, International Law, or Taxation; JD/Nonprofit Management; JD/Master of Public Administration; JD/Master of Public Policy; JD/Master of Science in International Public Service
 Six Master of Legal Studies (MLS) concentrations: Business Law; Criminal Law; Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Law; General Legal Studies; Health Care Compliance; Health Law; International & Comparative Law; Public Interest Law
 Four Master of Law (LLM) degrees: Health Law; Intellectual Property Law; International Law; and U.S. Legal Studies

DePaul Law’s six Programs of Excellence allow students to focus their education around the following legal practice areas: Business Law & Tax Law, Family Law, Health Law, Immigration Law & Human Rights Law, Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology, and Public Interest Law & Public Service. Most of these programs are supported by the law school’s institutes and initiatives.

Experiential Learning

Legal Clinics
DePaul Law’s legal clinics allow students to assist clients who are facing real legal issues. Available to second- and third-year students, the law school offers seven in-house and field clinics.

 Asylum & Immigration Law
 Business Law
 Civil Litigation & Health Law
 Criminal Appeals
 Croak Community Legal Clinic
 Family Law
 Technology/Intellectual Property

Student Opportunities

Journals

DePaul Law publishes five academic journals:

 DePaul Law Review
 DePaul Business and Commercial Law Journal
 DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law 
 DePaul Journal of Health Care Law 
 DePaul Journal for Social Justice

Moot Court Society and National Trial Team 

DePaul Law’s Moot Court Society and National Trial Team enable students to participate in competitions across the country. In 2022, the National Trial Team was named Regional Champions at the American Association for Justice's Student Trial Advocacy Competition, and they placed fifth at Nationals. Also that year, the Moot Court team won second place overall at the Chicago Bar Association’s Moot Court Competition, and its students received Best Oralist and Second Best Oralist awards.  

DePaul Law also sponsors the Honorable William J. Bauer Moot Court Competition, an annual intramural appellate competition in which student teams analyze and brief a hypothetical appellate problem and argue the case before practicing attorneys and judges.

Notable alumni

The following are some of DePaul Law's notable alumni.
 Honorable William J. Bauer, Senior Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
 Albert E. Bennett, Illinois State Senator
 Michael A. Bilandic, former Mayor of Chicago; Chief Justice, Illinois Supreme Court 
 Robert A. Clifford, prominent Chicago trial attorney
 Richard J. Daley, former Mayor of Chicago
 Richard M. Daley, former Mayor of Chicago
 Kirk Dillard, Chairman, Regional Transportation Authority; former Illinois State Senator
 Honorable Thomas Durkin, U.S. District Judge, Northern District of Illinois
 Chaz Ebert, CEO and publisher of Ebert Digital, which runs RogerEbert.com
Bernard Epton, Illinois State Representative and Chicago mayoral candidate
 Jack M. Greenberg, former chairman and CEO of McDonald’s Corporation
 Benjamin L. Hooks, American civil rights leader, executive director of the NAACP (1977 to 1992)
 Gerald D. Hosier, Intellectual Property Attorney and Patent Litigator 
 Perry Wilbon Howard, attorney and Republican civil rights activist from Mississippi
 Augustus Sol Invictus, white nationalist and speaker at the Unite the Right rally
 Honorable Lee M. Jackwig, United States Bankruptcy Judge, Southern District of Iowa
 Michael Jaharis, founder of Kos Pharmaceuticals and Vatera Healthcare Partners LLC, and co-founder of Arisaph Pharmaceuticals
 Sidney Korshak (1908–1996), an attorney best known as a liaison between the Chicago Outfit crime syndicate and corporate Hollywood. He was widely considered to be a power broker in Hollywood and was reportedly one of the inspirations for Robert Duvall's character in The Godfather.
 J. Elmer Lehr, former Wisconsin State Senator
 James Lyons, prominent Denver attorney and former Federal Judicial Nominee, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit 
 Erica MacDonald, United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota
 Andrew J. McKenna, chairman emeritus of McDonald’s Corporation 
 Richard A. Napolitano, Illinois State Representative
 Natalye Paquin, Chief Operating Officer, The Rockefeller Foundation 
 Harry Nicholas Pritzker, entrepreneur and philanthropist, patriarch of the Pritzker Family
George Remus, notorious Chicago criminal defense attorney and, later, bootlegger in Cincinnati, Ohio, known as the “King of the Bootleggers,” was an Illinois College of Law graduate.
 Dennis Shere, author
 John Stroger, former President, Cook County Board of Commissioners; namesake of Stroger Hospital
 Samuel Skinner, former U.S. federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Illinois and U.S. Treasury Secretary and Chief of Staff under President George H.W. Bush
 Juliana Stratton, Lieutenant Governor of Illinois
 Charles E. Tucker, Jr., retired U.S. Air Force major general and executive director of the World Engagement Institute (WEInstitute)
 Honorable Franklin Valderrama, U.S. District Judge, Northern District of Illinois
 Jody Weiner, novelist, non-fiction author, film producer and lawyer

Notable faculty

Current
 Roberta Kwall is the Raymond P. Niro Professor at DePaul Law; the founder of the Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology at DePaul Law; and the author of several books, including Remix Judaism: Preserving Tradition in a Diverse World (2020) and The Soul of Creativity (2010).

Former
 Susan Bandes is emeritus centennial distinguished professor of law at DePaul and author of The Passions of Law (2000). She is one of the most widely cited professors in criminal law and procedure and is one of the founders of the field of Law and Emotion.  
 M. Cherif Bassiouni was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 for his work on behalf of the International Criminal Court. In 2007, he was awarded the Hague Prize for International Law for his "distinguished contribution in the field of international law". He served as the president of DePaul's International Human Rights Law Institute. 
 Erwin Chemerinsky is currently dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. At DePaul, he taught courses in administrative law, constitutional law, federal courts, and law and the mass media.  
 Clarence Darrow, a criminal defense attorney known for the Scopes Trial and the Leopold and Loeb case, among others, was an early adjunct professor at DePaul Law.  
 James Fleissner served as deputy to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in the Justice Department investigation into allegations that one or more government officials illegally disclosed the identity of a CIA agent.

References

External links
Official website

Catholic law schools in the United States
College of Law
Universities and colleges established in 1912
Law schools in Illinois
1912 establishments in Illinois