Brooklyn Law School

History

The origins of Brooklyn Law School can be traced back to the Pratt Institute in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, when in the 1890s the school established its Department of Commerce. Because of its overwhelming popularity, the Department of Commerce broke off from the main Institute and formed its own school, under the guidance of Norman P. Heffley, personal secretary to Charles Pratt. The Heffley School of Commerce, formed from Pratt’s Department of Commerce, originally shared facilities with Pratt.

In 1901, William Payson Richardson and Norman P. Heffley reorganized the Heffley School to become Brooklyn Law School, the first law school on Long Island. Using space provided by Heffley’s business school, the law school opened on September 30, 1901, with five faculty members (including Richardson as dean and Heffley as president), and two special lecturers.

The year began with five students, and ended with 28. In late 1901, the Board of Regents of the State of New York granted a charter to the Law School. The Law School became fully accredited by the American Bar Association through the Council of its Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. The Law School’s curriculum is registered with and approved by the New York State Education Department.

From its earliest days, Brooklyn Law School opened its door to minorities, women, and immigrants, and it offered night classes for those with full-time jobs. Dean Richardson also allowed students who had difficulty paying tuition to remain enrolled on credit. The school moved twice between 1901 and 1928, when it finally moved into the first building designed and built specifically for it at 375 Pearl Street in downtown Brooklyn. Though the school lacked a campus, dormitories, and a cafeteria, students could engage in a wide range of extracurricular activities.

World War II struck Brooklyn Law School especially hard, and by 1943 enrollment was down to 174 students. St. Lawrence University, which until then operated Brooklyn Law School and conferred its degrees, decided to shut down the school. Prominent alumni were galvanized into action, and negotiated the repurchase of the school’s assets, ensuring that Brooklyn Law School would operate as an independent institution.

Rankings

Bar passage rate and career prospects

In 2013, 94% of the law school's first-time test takers passed the New York bar exam, third-best among New York's 15 law schools.

In 2012, five Brooklyn Law School graduates filed a class action lawsuit, which was dismissed the following year, alleging consumer fraud and common law fraud. As part of a series of identical lawsuits against law schools nationwide, the complaint alleged that the law school administration incorrectly reported employment and salary information for the purpose of enticing students to attend the law school. Prior to the lawsuit, Brooklyn Law School had claimed that 95% or more of graduates found employment within 9 months of graduation, without always distinguishing between full-time, part-time, and non-JD-required employment (which breakdown ABA/NALP rules did not require at the time of the statistics at issue in the suit, but which breakdown has been required since 2012). In April 2013, NY State Supreme Court Justice David Schmidt dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the school’s disclaimers on its employment and salary data warned graduates that their own post-grad earnings may not measure up to the data.

Of the law school's 478 graduates in 2013, nine months after graduation all were employed other than 39 who were seeking employment, and 5 who were not seeking employment (the employment status of 8 was unknown); 316 had secured jobs practicing law, and 74 had taken a J.D. advantage position. Brooklyn Law School's Law School Transparency under-employment score was 22%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2013 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.

Of 382 graduates in 2014, nine months after graduation 38 were unemployed, and 7 were of unknown employment status.

The law school was ranked # 36 of all law schools nation-wide by the National Law Journal in terms of sending the highest percentage of 2015 graduates to the largest 100 law firms in the US (9.25%).

Location and facilities

Brooklyn Law School’s academic and administrative buildings and ten student residences are located in the Brooklyn Heights Historical District, where many federal and state courts and corporate and public interest law offices are located. Brooklyn Law School’s main academic building at 250 Joralemon Street houses classrooms, faculty offices, a conference center, dining hall, and a four-story law library with 550,000 volumes. The office building across the street at One Boerum Place houses many of the law school’s clinics, its student journals, the bookstore, and administrative offices.

Brooklyn Law School guarantees housing in its residences in Brooklyn Heights to all entering students. The largest residence is Feil Hall, a 21-story building at 205 State Street that opened in 2005. Designed by noted architect Robert A. M. Stern, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, it accommodates about 360 students in 239 furnished apartments of varying sizes, and includes a conference center and café.

All the student residences are within a short walk of the main building. In addition to Feil Hall, the law school owns and operates two other residences in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood, and a combination of brownstones and apartment buildings, that house approximately 550 students and faculty.

Faculty

Brooklyn Law School’s faculty includes 64 full-time professors, 6 emeriti faculty, and a number of adjunct faculty. The Law School draws on a large body of practitioners, public officials, and judges as adjunct faculty to teach specialized courses in many areas of law, including international sales law, securities law, real estate development, trial advocacy, business crimes, corporate litigation, sports law, and border and homeland security law. In addition, in any given semester, visiting professors come from all over the world to teach at the school.

The Law School is home to several well-known scholars, including torts expert Aaron Twerski, who holds the Irwin and Jill Cohen Professor of Law Chair, and Rose L. Hoffer Professor of Law Elizabeth Schneider, an expert on gender, law, and civil procedure. Both were highly ranked in Brian Leiter’s survey of “Most Cited Law Professors by Specialty."

Other notable professors include Roberta Karmel, a former Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission and columnist for The New York Law Journal, and Susan Herman, president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In recent years, the Law School has hired a number of new junior faculty members whose work draws on a variety of influences to contribute scholarship in areas as diverse as copyfraud, law and religion, international business law, land use planning, and the secondary mortgage market.

Journals

The Law School publishes four student-edited law journals: the Brooklyn Law Review, Brooklyn Journal of International Law, the Journal of Law and Policy, and the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial, and Commercial Law. Over 290 second and third-year students have the opportunity to write for one of the journals.

All four student journals select new members based on writing ability and academic achievement. Each journal selects members by membership competition submissions and grades received during the first year of law school. Each journal requires that its members be in the top 75% of their class.

Moot Court

The Law School has both trial and appellate advocacy moot court divisions. Each year it enters approximately 30 teams in national moot court competitions. These competitions span all areas of the law, including family law, criminal procedure, white-collar crime, and international law.

In 2011, Brooklyn Law School took home top international, national, and regional titles. Its teams won first place in the Irving R. Kaufman Memorial Moot Court Competition, and were first place Champions in the Domenick L. Gabrielli National Family Law Competition. They were also Semi-Finalists in the New York Region of the New York City Bar National Moot Court Competition, Semi-Finalists in the Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition (students won Third Best Brief and Sixth Best Oralist), Semi-Finalists in the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition (students won Best Oralists in the Preliminary Rounds), Semi-Finalists in the Evan A. Evans Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition, Semi-Finalists for the Navy JAG Corps Moot Court Competition, and Semi-Finalists in the Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition.

Jerome Prince Evidence Competition

Each year Brooklyn Law School hosts the Jerome Prince Memorial Evidence Competition, a national moot court competition. Named in honor of the late Brooklyn Law School Dean and renowned evidence scholar, the competition draws over 30 law school teams from across the country. Many students from the Moot Court Honor Society are involved in the coordination of the Prince Competition, and a few students have an opportunity to work with faculty members to research and write the problem – an issue at the forefront of evidentiary law – that is used in the Competition.

Academic offerings

Brooklyn Law School offers students over 190 courses and seminars in the law.

Centers

Each Brooklyn Law School center focuses on a specific area of the law and hosts lectures, symposia, forums, and round-table discussions that address emerging issues.

Clinics

In 2009, Brooklyn Law School clinical program was ranked 28th in the nation. In 2010, The National Jurist ranked BLS fourth in the country for its public service work, largely influenced by its clinical program. The clinics specialize in the areas of bankruptcy, securities arbitration, immigration, entrepreneurship, technology, criminal law, real estate practice, intellectual property, and mediation. Students represent individual clients, groups, and businesses and appear in state, federal, and administrative courts, on both the trial and appellate levels. Brooklyn Law School created a new mandate in 2014 that requires students to complete at least one clinic or externship course before graduation. Among the Law School’s clinics include:

Fellowship programs

Brooklyn Law School offers several paid fellowships for students seeking to further enrich their legal interests.

LL.M. Degree program

Brooklyn Law School offers an LL.M. program for foreign-trained lawyers. The program facilitates specialized study in three subject areas: business law, intellectual property law, and refugee and immigration law.

Joint Degree programs

Brooklyn Law School offers five joint degree programs:

Certificate programs

Brooklyn Law School offers five certificate programs:

Public Service programs

Brooklyn Law School has created one of the nation’s leading public service programs. Brooklyn Law School has a robust public service community that is championed by its dedicated Public Service Office. The Office is an invaluable resource, providing individual counseling and information on summer and academic year externships, steering students toward pro bono opportunities, and helping students apply for postgraduate fellowships as well as employment opportunities.

Summer abroad

Brooklyn Law School, in conjunction with Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, sponsors two summer abroad programs each year. Students study international and comparative law for two or three weeks in one of two locations: Beijing or Bologna.

Semester abroad

Each year, the Law School selects two students to attend Bucerius Law School during the fall semester while two Bucerius students study at Brooklyn Law School. The Bucerius Law School Program in International and Comparative Business Law is designed to develop and expand students' understanding of the forces that shape international business law and offers a unique opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of German, European, and international law. Courses are taught in English by a combination of American law school professors and international professors of law.

The University of Essex exchange program allows two Brooklyn Law School students every semester to study at the University of Essex while two English students are chosen to study at the Law School for a full academic year. The focus of the program is on international human rights and European Union law.

Brooklyn Law School's exchange program with University College Cork (UCC) gives two Brooklyn Law School students each semester the opportunity to study at UCC, a college founded in 1845 with a Law Faculty that is the largest department in the University. Two Cork students spend an academic year at the Law School. Brooklyn Law School students have the ability to learn many legal subjects from an Irish law perspective, as well as many topics from an international and comparative stance.

Two Brooklyn Law School students have the option of studying in Hong Kong for a semester in exchange for two Hong Kong University students attending Brooklyn Law School for the year. Due to China's rapid social and economic development and Hong Kong's location in the Pacific Rim, the program courses focus mostly on Chinese commercial law, human-rights law and international corporate and financial law. Except for some courses offered in the LL.M. program (e.g., Chinese Law), the course instruction is in English.

Brooklyn Law School recently added this program to allow students to study law in Spanish from a Civil Law system perspective. The program highlights courses in tax law, law and economics, business law, law and finance, criminal law, and law and public policy.

Two Brooklyn Law School students in their second year also have the new opportunity to attend Tel Aviv University, home of the Cegla Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the Law, in the Spring semester. Students will be able to take a variety of courses touching upon international and comparative law, as well as the option to study Hebrew.

Student organizations

Brooklyn Law School has over 40 student-led organizations, which reflect the diversity of the student body. Student organizations include:

Academia

Business

Government

U.S. Court of Appeals

U.S. District Court

State

U.S. Court of International Trade

Media and entertainment

Private practice

Sports

Other

Costs

The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Brooklyn Law School for the 2013-14 academic year was $78,604. The total cost of attendance for the 2015-16 academic year will be $70,534 as a result of a 15% tuition reduction plan going into effect May 2015. The estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $204,197.