Florida State / College of Law / Prospective Students / Highlights

Florida State University’s highly accomplished and accessible law faculty delivers a program that has a liberal arts orientation designed to produce well-rounded and effective lawyers.

 



Robin Kundis Craig, Attorneys’ Title
Professor and Associate Dean for

Environmental Programs
World-class expert on water law

U.S. News & World Report (2009) ranks our overall program 52nd and our environmental law program 11th in the nation (tied with Stanford and Tulane).


The National Jurist magazine (2009) ranks us the nation’s 10th “Best Value” law school, based on employment rate, bar passage and tuition.

Our faculty regularly ranks in the top 30 most downloaded law faculty on the Social Science Research Network, with our tax faculty in the top 15.


Law schools nationally use books written by our faculty in areas such as Endangered Species Law, Energy Law, Environmental Law, First Amendment Law, International Intellectual Property, Law and Economics, Law and Religion, Ocean and Coastal Law and Tax Law.


Hispanic Business magazine (2009) ranks us the nation’s 3rd best law school for Hispanic students.




Chris Tanner, Class of 2010
Worked at the White House for the deputy chief of staff and senior advisor to the president before law school

Our current students represent 34 states, 16 countries and 181 colleges and universities, including: Brandeis, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, George Washington, Michigan, Notre Dame, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Stanford, Texas, U.C.-Berkeley, U.C.L.A., U.N.C.-Chapel Hill, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Washington, Washington and Lee and William & Mary.


Twenty-five percent of the students in our 2009 entering class have LSAT scores of 162 or higher and the average LSAT is 161. The median GPA is 3.53.


We receive 14 applications for every seat in our entering class.




Kelli Murray, Class of 2009
Works at Baker Hostetler’s Orlando office, where she was a summer clerk in 2008

Ninety-eight percent of the graduating class of 2008 was placed within nine months of graduation.


Our graduates have ranked 1st in the state in five of the last eight administrations of the Florida Bar Exam. Graduates taking the July 2009 General Bar Examination for the first time passed by a rate of 91.4 percent.

Second- and third-year students gain valuable first-hand experience by clerking with Tallahassee’s many state and federal courts, the Florida Legislature, administrative agencies, or in one of Tallahassee’s 450 law firms.


Graduates work in 49 states and in major markets including Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Graduates also work in prominent firms in all Florida cities.

 

 

Ramona Thomas and Robert Powell,

Class of 2009
Craven National Constitutional Law Competition winners with T.K. Wetherell, university president

Our Student Bar Association was selected “SBA of the Year” in 2008 and 2009 by the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association.


In February 2009, our Moot Court Team won 1st place in the Craven National Constitutional Law Competition held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This year’s team also won four best oralist awards in national competitions.


Our three student-edited journals have all been rated high on “impact factor” by Washington and Lee University
: the Florida State University Law Review; the Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law; and the Journal of Transnational Law & Policy.





First District Court of Appeal building
Future addition to Florida State Law
We are acquiring, as an addition, a 50,000 square-foot modern courthouse directly across the street from our present facilities. Among other things, this acquisition will give us one of the nation's finest facilities for trial and appellate advocacy.


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