New York University School of Law

The New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University. Established in 1835, the school offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in law, and is located in Greenwich Village, in the New York City borough of Manhattan.

NYU Law was the first law school established in New York City. It is considered to be among the most selective and prestigious law schools in the United States and is currently ranked 6th by the U.S. News & World Report. The school is especially known for its dedication to the public sector, emphasis on diversity, and large firm placement. The median starting salary of NYU Law graduates working in the private sector was $160,000 for the class of 2008 (a figure which does not include bonuses).

Academics


NYU Law publishes eight student-edited law journals, which are, in order of their founding:

The law school's longstanding commitment to public service is exemplified by its many notable alumni and the Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship Program, a full-tuition scholarship awarded each year to twenty students committed to public service.

NYU Law offers several fellowships to students admitted to the LLM Program. The most selective is the Hauser Global Scholarship: eight to ten top LLM students are admitted from all over the world. The scholarship includes full tuition waiver and reasonable accommodation costs. In addition, it offers the Hugo Grotius as well as Vanderbilt scholarships for International law studies and other branches of law respectively.

The Law school has a law and business program in which eight of the nation's preeminent student-leaders in law and business are awarded fellowships in the Mitchell Jacobson Leadership Program

NYU Law also hosts the original chapter of the Unemployment Action Center.

NYU is almost universally considered to have the strongest Tax LLM program in the country.

Partnerships
In 2005, NYU Law entered into an agreement with the Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, in Toronto, Canada, that will allow select students to obtain a joint-Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and JD, studying at both schools, in four years. The competitive program began in the fall of 2006 and accommodates up to 20 students per year. Since then, they have also implemented a jointly granted NYU/Osgoode LLB/LLM program in which graduates are granted the LLB as well as an LLM from NYU in only 3 and a half years instead of the normally required four. More recently, the NYU School of Law has entered into similar dual degree agreements with the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law and the University of Melbourne Law School.

Oxford University has a program of academic exchanges with New York University School of Law, mainly involving Faculty members and research students working in areas of shared interest.

NYU Law offers a dual-degree program with Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Students may earn a JD/MPA or a JD/MPP.

NYU Law offers a dual-degree program with Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Students may earn a JD/MPA.

There is also a limited amount of cross-registration permitted with Columbia Law School. Each year, a limited number of students are permitted to take classes at each other's schools.

Faculty
Some of NYU's notable professors include:

Notable alumni

 * ''See main article List of NYU Law School people; see also List of New York University people

Famous alumni include Governor and Democratic presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden; former New York City mayors Fiorello La Guardia, Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani; New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly; the four founders of the prominent law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Evan Chesler, the current Presiding Partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore; comedian Demetri Martin; Taiwanese president Ma Ying-Jeou; former Director of the FBI Louis Freeh; U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander, Rudy Boschwitz and Jacob Javits; sportscaster Howard Cosell; John F. Kennedy, Jr.; Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program Neil Barofsky; many U.S. Representatives, including Mitchell Jenkins, Jefferson Monroe Levy and Isaac Siegel; former Chairman of Paramount Pictures Jonathan Dolgen; Hollywood and Broadway producer Marc E. Platt; Hollywood producer and former Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment Peter Guber; several corporate leaders including Interpublic Group of Companies Chairman and CEO Michael I. Roth; ConocoPhillips President and COO John A. Carrig; Robert Half International Chairman and CEO Harold Max Messner; and Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher; as well as Nobel Peace Prize laureates Elihu Root and Mohamed ElBaradei.

Among judges, Judith Kaye, former Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, is an alumna; Dennis G. Jacobs, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is an alumnus. Judge Pauline Newman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit also graduated from NYU Law. NYU Law alumni have served as judges of the International Court of Justice, which is popularly known as the World Court.

Admissions
Admission to the New York University School of Law is highly competitive. For the class entering Fall 2010, 476 full-time students out of close to 8,000 applicants enrolled. The 25th and 75th LSAT percentiles were 169 (97th percentile) and 175 (99th percentile), with a median of 172 (98th to 99th percentile). The 25th and 75th undergraduate GPA percentiles were 3.6 and 3.9, respectively. .

Facilities


NYU Law School facilities at the school's Washington Square Campus include:

Furman Hall
NYU's latest completed building, located on West Third Street between Sullivan and Thompson, was opened on January 22, 2004 and is named for alumnus and donor Jay Furman. It connects to Vanderbilt Hall through the law library, part of which is underneath Sullivan street. The underground level also hosts the Lawyering faculty. Floors one-three have classrooms, lounges, and study space. The fourth floor hosts the career counseling program, and the fifth and sixth floors house the legal practice clinics. The highest floors, generally inaccessible to non-residents, are luxury apartments for faculty and their families. The ninth floor is accessible to students and hosts the Lester Pollack Colloquium room.

Vanderbilt Hall
The Law School's Main Building, named after Arthur T. Vanderbilt, occupies the entire block between West Third and Washington Square South (West Fourth) and between Macdougal and Sullivan Streets. Part of the first floor as well as the underground floors host the library, which it shares with Furman Hall. The first floor also holds the auditorium, student center, and main banquet hall. The second floor is mostly classrooms, while the third and fourth floors are mostly faculty and dean offices.

Mercer Street Residence
Located at 240 Mercer Street, on the southern side of West Third street, adjacent to Broadway, and a couple blocks east of D'Agostino and Vanderbilt, the Mercer residence houses approximately 500 hundred Law students and faculty. Its rooms are quite a bit more spacious than those in D'Agostino Hall. The seventh floor enjoys a terrace and two computer rooms and the 8th floor provides four small study rooms. The lobby level houses a game room (pool table, foos ball, dart board, ping pong table) The basement is home to "Mercer Pub" (a study area that can also be reserved by student groups for social events) and several student run organizations. Mercer Residence is available for summer housing for non-NYU Law students through its Summer Living in New York program.

D'Agostino Residence Hall
Located at the intersection of West Third Street and MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, D'Agostino Residence Hall houses approximately 300 law students and faculty. It is across the street from the backside of the main building of the law school, Vanderbilt Hall, and Furman Hall. The building has two terraces - one on the 12th floor and one on the 14th floor- that offer beautiful views of Washington Square Park and the Empire State Building.

The lobby is a double-split-level. Elevators to the apartments are on the highest level, the Front Desk is on the street level, and The Commons (residents' lounge with computers and printers) is on the lower level. One floor beneath The Commons is the sub-basement, home to most of NYU's legal journals. The second (above-ground) floor, houses the Centers. Two large function rooms - Lipton Hall and the Faculty Club - are also located in the building.

The law building is named after Filomen D'Agostino, one of the first woman lawyers, who graduated in 1920. Later in life, Ms. D'Agostino donated $4 million to support residential scholarship and faculty research; the school responded by naming their new apartment building after her.

D'Agostino Hall is also available for summer housing for non-NYU Law students through its Summer Living in New York program.

Wilf Hall
Scheduled for completion in June 2010, the Law School's newest building is currently under construction. The site is located across from Vanderbilt Hall on MacDougal Street.

Centers and Institutes
NYU Law is home to many centers and institutes, specializing in various areas of law.

The Brennan Center for Justice is a progressive, non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on issues involving democracy and justice.

The Center on Law and Security is an independent, non-partisan, global center of expertise designed to promote an informed understanding of the major legal and security issues that define the post-9/11 environment. Towards that end, the Center brings together policymakers, practitioners, scholars, journalists and other experts who might not otherwise meet to address major issues and gaps in policy discourse and to provide concrete policy recommendations. Through its many activities, the Center generates local, national, and international awareness of the legal dimension of security issues, including the Terrorist Trial Report Card, a comprehensive study on every terrorism prosecution in the United States since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The Center on the Administration of Criminal Law is a think-tank dedicated to the promotion of good government and prosecution practices in criminal matters. The Center analyzes important issues in criminal law or having implications for the administration criminal law. In particular, the Center focuses on the exercise of power and discretion by prosecutors. The Center accomplishes its mission in three areas: academia, litigation, and participating in public policy and media debates. The Center's academic component gathers empirical research, publishes scholarship, and organizes and hosts conferences and symposia. The Center's litigation component uses the Center's research, experience, and expertise to litigate criminal cases or cases having implications for the administration of criminal law, particularly in cases in which the exercise of power and discretion by prosecutors raises substantive legal issues. The Center's public policy and media component seeks to improve public dialogue on criminal justice matters in various ways, including testifying before public officials and the publishing of op-ed pieces.

The Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy is a joint venture between the law school and NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. It is an academic research center devoted to the public policy aspects of land use, real estate development and housing.

The Institute for International Law and Justice integrates the law school’s scholarly excellence in international law into the policy activities of the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, law firms, and industry.

The Institute for Law & Society is a joint venture between the law school and the NYU Graduate School of Arts and Science. It serves as an intellectual center for faculty, graduate students, and law students interested in studying law and legal institutions from an interdisciplinary social science perspective. It offers an opportunity to earn a J.D.-Ph.D or J.D.-M.A. dual degree in law and society.

The Institute for Policy Integrity is headed by Richard Revesz and Michael Livermore. It advocates for sound cost-benefit analysis at the state, national, and global levels.

The Pollack Center for Law and Business is a joint venture between the law school and the New York University Stern School of Business. The Center is designed to enrich the professional education of students of law and business and to facilitate joint teaching to involve leaders in banking, business, and law in the intellectual life of the University through sponsorship of meetings, conferences and dinners. The Pollack Center also offers a program for students to earn the Advanced Professional Certificate in Law and Business. The director is William T. Allen, a professor at the law school and former Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery.

The Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law & Justice brings in as Fellows each year approximately 14 leading scholars from different disciplines and cultures. Each year the Straus Institute defines an annual theme that serves as the overarching subject around which the annual fora, colloquia and conference are set. The faculty director is Joseph H. H. Weiler.

The Tikvah Center for Law & Jewish Civilization is headed by Moshe Halbertal and Joseph H. H. Weiler. The foundational premise of the Center is 1) that the study of Jewish law can profit immensely from insights gained from general jurisprudence; and 2) that Jewish law and Jewish civilization can provide illuminating perspectives both on the general study of law as a per se academic discipline, and on the reflection of law as a central social institution refracting the most important issues in our society.

The U.S.-Asia Law Institute serves as a resource and partner to various Asian countries as they reform and further develop their legal systems and institutions. It also works to improve the understanding of Asian legal systems by lawyers, academics, policy makers and the public. The faculty director is Jerome Cohen.