page_title: Tulane University Law School
section_title: Academic program
hierarchical_section_title: Tulane University Law School / Academic program
caption_attribution_description: Tulane University campus, New Orleans. Jones Hall building, former law library, now special collections library.
context_page_description: Tulane University Law School is the law school of Tulane University. It is located on Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans, Louisiana. Established in 1847, it is the 12th oldest law school in the United States.
  In addition to the usual common law and federal subjects, Tulane offers electives in the civil law, giving students the opportunity to pursue comparative education of the world's two major legal systems. Students are permitted to survey a broad range of subject areas or to concentrate in one or more.
  Tulane Law School's environmental law and sports law programs are considered among the strongest nationwide, and its maritime law program is among the most well-regarded in the world. For more than 20 years, the school has hosted the Tulane Corporate Law Institute, a preeminent mergers and acquisitions and corporate law forum.
context_section_description: To complete the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree program, a student must finish six semesters in residence, 88 credit hours, an upper-level writing requirement, and a 30-hour community-service obligation. The first-year curriculum comprises eight required courses. The first-year legal-research-and-writing program is taught by instructors with significant experience as lawyers and writers, each assisted by senior fellows.
  After the first year, all courses are electives, except for a required legal-profession course. All first-year and many upper-class courses are taught in multiple sections to allow for smaller classes. The upper-class curriculum includes introductory as well as advanced courses in a broad range of subject areas, including international and comparative law, business law, corporate law, environmental law, maritime law, criminal law, intellectual property, taxation, litigation, and civil procedure, among others.
  Tulane Law offers six optional concentration programs for J.D. students who wish to receive one certificate of completion in an area. The six are European legal studies, environmental law, international and comparative law, maritime law, sports law, or civil law.
  Tulane's Eason Weinmann Center for Comparative Law, its Maritime Law Center, and its Institute on Water Policy & Law, promote scholarship in comparative, maritime, and environmental law.
  Tulane conducts an annual summer school in New Orleans and offers summer-study programs abroad. Tulane also offers semester-long exchange programs with select law schools in a number of countries throughout the world.
  In addition to the J.D., the school offers two graduate degrees in law: The Master of Laws (LL.M.) the Doctor of Laws (S.J.D.) program. The five specialized LL.M. programs are in: maritime law, energy and environmental law, American business law, American law, and international and comparative law.  LL.M. students may also pursue a general LL.M., which does not concentrate in any one area.
  The law school offers six live-client clinical programs, in the areas of: civil litigation, criminal defense, juvenile litigation, legislative and administrative advocacy, domestic violence, and environmental law (the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic). In addition, there is a trial-advocacy program, and third-year students may engage in externships with federal and state judges, with a local death-penalty project, or with certain administrative agencies.  The judicial externships are possible because of Tulane's close proximity to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, and the Louisiana Supreme Court, all of which are in New Orleans. The school was the first in the country to institute a pro bono program requiring that each student complete legally related community service prior to graduation.
  Every summer, BarBri, a national bar exam-preparation company, offers New York Bar Exam and Louisiana Bar Exam preparation courses at the Tulane Law School. Additionally, a California Bar Exam preparation course is offered when demand warrants it, as it did in 2010.
caption: Jones Hall, where the law school was located from 1969 until 1995 and where scenes for The Pelican Brief were filmed.
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