Washington and Lee University

Law School Overview

U.S. News Rankings

Ranking score and category

Rank Category Name #26 Best Law Schools

Law School Overview

The School of Law at Washington and Lee University has an application deadline of March 1. Its tuition is full-time: $43,462 per year. The student-faculty ratio is 10.2:1. The School of Law at Washington and Lee University has 60 full- and part-time faculty on staff.

The Washington and Lee University School of Law is a small private law school with a total enrollment of about 410 students. While the first and second year curriculums include required courses and electives, the third year at W&L focuses on lawyer engagement, training students through problem-based practicum courses, externships, and clinics. There are no specialty tracks or concentrations within the law school curriculum, though students can tweak their education through electives.

Students can choose from close to 10 legal clinics for hands-on training, such as the Black Lung Legal Clinic, which assists coal miners in getting federal benefits for their years spent breathing in coal mine dust, and the Virginia Capital Cast Clearinghouse, which aids attorneys representing capital murder defendants in Virginia. Students can also get involved with four legal journals at the law school: the Washington and Lee Law Review; the Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice; the German Law Journal; and the Journal of Energy, Climate, and the Environment. The Washington and Lee School of Law has its own campus in Lexington, Va., separate from the undergraduate university. Students can live in university-owned housing, though about 90 percent choose to live off campus.

After graduation, close to a fifth of Washington and Lee Law graduates practice in Washington, D.C., and some of the school’s most notable alumni include Stokely Caldwell, Jr., a renowned sports lawyer at Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, and Christopher Wolf, director of the Privacy and Information Management practice group at Hogan Lovells.

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Year founded	1849
Public/private	Private
Law school designation	National

Admissions

Application deadline	March 1
Full-time program application fee	$0
Part-time program application fee	$0
Admissions Phone	(540) 458-8504
Admissions E-mail	lawadm@wlu.edu
Web site	http://law.wlu.edu

Academics

Full- and part-time faculty	60
Student-faculty ratio	10.2:1
Total faculty	66

Student Body

Enrollment (full-time)	457
Gender distribution (full-time)
J.D. candidates graduating in 2011-2012	130

Cost

Tuition and fees
Full-time: $43,462 per year
Room and board	$11,600

Careers

Employed at graduation 2	27.9%
Median private sector starting salary	$83,000
Median public service starting salary	$55,000

Library

Total volumes and volume equivalents

474,798

* Law School Overview details based on 2012 data