New York Law School gives each student a solid foundation in the law—the substantive knowledge and professional skills necessary to represent clients responsibly, effectively, and creatively. We offer students a wealth of intellectual opportunities to engage in the profession through experiences in and out of the classroom. But what distinguishes our law school from most is an emphasis on meeting students’ individual needs. We recognize that students have different professional ambitions that may change during the course of their studies and we offer our students early and individualized attention to help them set their course for professional development.
Evening Division
Our student body is as diverse as New York City. Many are professionals in the middle of successful careers. Our Evening Division allows these students to obtain legal training that complements their professional obligations. It also means that we graduate accomplished professionals who start their legal careers with an unmatched breadth of real world experience.
Aggressive Recruiting
New York Law School reflects the cosmopolitan nature of its urban setting. Our student body represents more than 186 undergraduate schools and 13 foreign institutions. Our location has made us far more successful than most Law Schools at attracting minority students -- 25 percent of the student body are members of minority groups. The average age is 27, and students range from 21 to 67 years old. As a result of this diversity, our students are better prepared to confront the complexity of the modern workplace – a crucial skill particularly in New York -- than graduates of most other law schools.
Our students speak multiple languages fluently, and include police officers and newspaper editors as well as recent college graduates. Many students, especially in the Evening Division, already have established careers and are either preparing to return to those occupations in a new role or are seeking to establish a new profession.
Accomplished, Activist Faculty
As a body, the 55 full time faculty at New York Law School hold 28 advanced degrees (LL.M., Ph.D., S.J.D., and the like), five were Fulbright Scholars, and another 15 held prestigious post-graduate fellowships from Yale, Harvard, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities among others. Many entered teaching after successful careers as practitioners in major firms, corporations, labor unions, and in government service. They have collectively authored more than 100 books and hundreds of articles in prominent scholarly law reviews and journals. Their works range from path breaking legal history to up-to-the-minute advocacy of reshaping governmental powers, from international law to the law of New York State, and from legal practice to legal philosophy. NYLS faculty-sponsored symposia and conferences attract participants from around the world and from the highest echelons of the legal profession and public office.
Through their scholarship, research, and advocacy, members of the faculty are engaged in some of society’s most pressing concerns. In the area of economic and social justice here in the United States, they develop programs on economic literacy; advocate for civil liberties; testify before congressional committees; and are sought after by the media for their expertise. In the international arena, members of the faculty have a longstanding engagement with the development of constitutional democracy around the world, from South Africa to Latin America to Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and at the same time a strong focus on issues of private international law, such as the critical developments in the World Trade Organization.
