University of Cincinnati College of Law

University of Cincinnati College of Law
University of Cincinnati College of Law
Motto	Juncta Juvant (Latin) ; "Strength in Unity"
Parent school	University of Cincinnati
Established	1833; 191 years ago
School type	Public law school
Dean	Haider Ala Hamoudi
Location	Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; 39.12905°N 84.52010°W
USNWR ranking	78th (tie) (2024)
Website	www.law.uc.edu

The University of Cincinnati College of Law is the law school of the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio.

History

The University of Cincinnati College of Law was founded in 1833 as the Cincinnati Law School. It is the fourth oldest continuously operating law school in the United States — after Harvard, the University of Virginia, and Yale — and the first in the nation's interior. In 1900, it was a charter member of the Association of American Law Schools.^[2] Then-dean (and future 27th President of the United States) William Howard Taft (1880) merged it with the University of Cincinnati in 1896. Its notable alumni include two U.S. Supreme Court justices, Willis Van Devanter and Taft, who was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after his presidency. Additionally, Jimmy Nippert, the namesake of the university's Nippert Stadium, was a student at UC Law at the time of his death in 1923.^[3]

Until August 2022, the College of Law was located at the corner of Clifton Avenue and Calhoun Street in the Heights neighborhood of Cincinnati. Since August 2022, the College of Law has been located in a new building on the corner of Martin Luther King Drive W and Campus Green Dr. The new premises were named the 11th best law school campus in the country by preLaw Magazine.^[4]

Academics

Degrees Offered

The Juris Doctor (JD) degree is offered, along with four joint degree programs, including a JD/MBA with the Lindner College of Business, a JD/MA Womens Gender & Sexuality Studies (first in the nation) with UC’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a JD/Master of Community Planning with the School of Planning in the prestigious College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, and a JD/MA or JD/PhD with the School of Public and International Affairs.

Cincinnati Law also offers an LLM (Master of Laws) in the US Legal System for international attorneys. Graduate certificates in US Law are also available.

U.S. News & World Report, listed University of Cincinnati College of Law as the No.78th law school out of 196 in Best Law Schools. in the nation in 2024.^[5]

UC Law is home to several journals including the Human Rights Quarterly, University of Cincinnati Law Review, the Immigration and Nationality Law Review, and The Freedom Center Journal (FCJ), a joint publication between the law school and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

Deans

Dean^[6]^[7]	Years Served
Timothy Walker	1833–1843
William S. Groesbeck	1844–1869
Charles L. Telford	1844–1869
Maskell S. Curwen	1850–1868
Rotated among faculty	1869–1873
J. Bryant Walker	1873–1874
Rufus King	1875–1880
Jacob D. Cox	1880–1897
William Howard Taft	1897–1900
Gustavus H. Wald	1900–1902
William P. Rogers	1902–1916
Albert B. Benedict	1916–1926
Merton L. Ferson	1926–1946
Frank S. Rowley	1946–1952
Roscoe L. Barrow	1952–1965
Claude S. Sowle	1965–1969
Samuel S. Wilson	1969–1970 1973* 1974–1978
Edward A. Mearns, Jr.	1970–1973
Victor E. Schwartz	1973–1974*
Jorge L. Carro	1978–1979*
Gordon A. Christenson	1979–1986
Thomas Gerety	1986–1989
Joseph P. Tomain	1989–1990* 1990–2005
Louis D. Bilionis	2005–2015
Jennifer S. Bard	2015–2017
Verna L. Williams	2017–2019** 2019–2022
Michael Whiteman	2022–2023**
Haider Ala Hamoudi	2023–present

*Acting
**Interim

Employment

According to University of Cincinnati's 2022 ABA-required disclosures, 80% of the Class of 2022 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.^[8]