Georgetown University Law Center

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Georgetown University Law Center
Established	1870
Type	Private
Dean	T. Alexander Aleinikoff
Students	2,017
Location	Washington D.C., USA
Campus	Urban
Website	http://www.law.georgetown.edu

The school's original sign, preserved on the north quad of the present-day campus.

The Georgetown University Law Center campus, viewed across I-395 looking east. From left to right, the Edward Bennett Williams Law Library, McDonough Hall, and Gewirz Student Center.

Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) is Georgetown University's law school. It is among the ten most selective law schools in the United States and is considered to be in the "top 14," a legal insider recognition of its reputation. Princeton Review ranks it in the top ten for "Best Career Prospects" and "Best Overall Academic Experience." Law School 100, a ranking scheme that purports to use qualitative criteria instead of quantitative, ranks the law school seventh overall, tied with Cornell, University of Virginia and others. The school is a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). Its current dean is T. Alexander Aleinikoff. The law school ranked in the top 10 in 7 categories of U.S. News 2006 edition, including tax, international law, and others. The law school often emphasizes in its materials that its location in close proximity to federal government agencies, courts, and the Supreme Court offer a significant advantage in the study of law.

Opened as Georgetown Law School in 1870, it was the first law school run by a Jesuit institution within the U.S. GULC has been separate from the main Georgetown campus (in the neighborhood of Georgetown) since 1890, when it moved near what is now Chinatown. The GULC campus is located on New Jersey Avenue, several blocks north of the Capitol, and a few blocks due west of Union Station.

The campus is composed of Bernard P. McDonough Hall (1971, expanded in 1997), housing classrooms and Law Center offices and designed by Edward Durrell Stone, the Georgetown Law Library, (housed in two buildings: the Edward Bennett Williams Law Library (1989) which houses the Law Center's United States law collection, and the John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library), the Bernard S. and Sarah M. Gewirz Student Center (1993), which provides housing to mostly first year law students, and the Eric E. Hotung International Law Center (2004). A four-level Sport and Fitness Center (2004) including a pool, fitness facilities, and cafe connects the Hotung Building to the Gewirz Student Center and completes the Capitol Hill campus.

[edit] Curriculum

Georgetown Law Center's J.D. program can be completed over three years of full-time day study or four years of part-time evening study. The school offers LL.M. programs in Taxation, Securities and Finance Regulation, and Global Health Law, as well as a general LL.M. curriculum for lawyers educated outside the United States. Beginning in the 2007-08 school year, Georgetown will offer a Masters of Studies in Law (M.S.L.) degree for professional journalists.

Georgetown has been a leader in reform of the legal curriculum. Students are offered the choice of two tracks for their first year of study. "Curriculum A" is similar to the traditional law curriculum taught at many schools, including courses in contracts, constitutional law, torts, property, criminal procedure, civil procedure, and legal research and writing. "Curriculum B" is a more interdisciplinary, theoretical approach to legal study, but covers largely the same content in order to prepare students to take the same upper-level classes as their Curriculum A peers. The Curriculum B courses are Bargain, Exchange and Liability (contracts and torts), Democracy and Coercion (constitutional law and criminal procedure), Government Processes (administrative law), Legal Justice (jurisprudence), Legal Practice (legal research and writing), Legal Process and Society (civil procedure, criminal procedure, and ethics), and Property in Time (property). Students in both curricula participate in a week-long introduction to international law between the fall and spring semesters.

[edit] JD, JSD, LLM Programs

[edit] Faculty

McDonough Hall, the main classroom building, facing 2nd St. NW

Edward Bennett Williams Law Library, viewed from the campus north quad.

The Hotung International Law Center and the GULC fitness center, seen across the south quad.

Gewirz Student Center provides student housing for mostly first-year law students.

Notable current faculty include (the following is a non-exhaustive list):

• Charles F. Abernathy
• Randy Barnett
• David D. Cole
• Viet D. Dinh, former Assistant Attorney General of the United States, chief architect of the USA PATRIOT Act.
• Martin D. Ginsburg, prominent tax attorney and husband of United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
• Michael Gottesman
• Neal Katyal, lead counsel in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
• Marty Lederman
• Mari Matsuda
• Eleanor Holmes Norton, delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives
• Julie O'Sullivan
• John Podesta, former Clinton chief of staff
• Robert Pitofsky, former Federal Trade Commission chairman
• Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz
• Laurence H. Silberman, United States Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

The roster of current professors also includes many former Supreme Court clerks and other notable legal academics and professionals.

Former professors include:

• William Brennan, Supreme Court Justice
• Father Robert Drinan, U.S. Congressman
• John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
• Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Justice
• Mark Tushnet, prominent critical legal studies proponent, constitutional law scholar, and author of many books.

[edit] Publications

Georgetown University Law Center has ten student-run law journals and a weekly student-run newspaper, the Georgetown Law Weekly. The journals are:

• Georgetown Law Journal
• American Criminal Law Review
• Georgetown Immigration Law Journal
• Georgetown International Environmental Law Review
• Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law
• Georgetown Journal of International Law
• Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy
• Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics
• Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy
• The Tax Lawyer

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] Also attended

• Lyndon Johnson, took classes for a few months in 1934
• Donald Rumsfeld, in 1957 then dropped out that same year

[edit] External links

• Georgetown University Law Center official site