|
The Thomas M. Cooley Law School, founded in 1972, is an independent graduate college of law fully accredited by the American Bar Association since 1978 and the Higher Learning Commission, a commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools since 2001. The law school was named for Thomas McIntyre Cooley, who was the 19th century's leading constitutional commentator and served on the Michigan Supreme Court from 1865 to 1885 as part of the Michigan Supreme Court legal dream team known as the Big Four. His other colleagues were James Campbell, Benjamin Graves, and Isaac Christiancy.
Since the school was founded, Cooley Law School has earned a national reputation for providing graduates with the practical skills necessary for a seamless transition from academia to the real world. As the second largest law school in the nation, Cooley's diverse student population comes from across the United States and abroad. Cooley Law School prides itself on teaching students the knowledge, skills, and ethics needed to succeed.
Cooley Law School has developed a curriculum to prepare students for bar passage, further legal study, and career enhancement. Cooley has more required courses than most other law schools in the country. This course roster provides full instruction in aspects of law that are considered essential to a lawyer's understanding of state and federal jurisprudence. Elective courses offer additional flexibility, allowing a student to select from several areas of concentration.
Cooley's Brennan Law Library is one of the finest research libraries in Michigan. It ranks in the top third when compared to libraries at other ABA-accredited law schools in terms of volume and title counts, staffing, available space for students, and hours of operation.
It is the law school's historic mission to provide a legal education that is both scholarly and practical in its application. Every student who graduates from Cooley Law School will have taken courses that provide skills training in a simulated setting, advanced legal writing practice, and direct career experience through an internship or externship. In keeping with its mission of practical legal scholarship, hundreds of locations have hosted Cooley externs at venues as diverse as governmental and judicial offices, Fortune 500 corporations, public defender and legal aid offices, major universities, and Native American tribal organizations. At each location, students work with their supervising attorneys and real clients on actual cases. Presently, there are over 800 externship sites across the nation and abroad.
Cooley Law School, as part of its Strategic Plan for the 21st Century, established a Professionalism Plan that reflects the institution's commitment to higher standards in the legal profession. The school supports a Professionalism Group of full-time faculty members who teach the professionalism principles of the law school to ensure ethically practices in the legal community and society.
Cooley Law School now offers first term classes at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. Find out more about Cooley at www.cooley.edu and take the Virtual Tour! You may contact the Admissions Office at (517) 371-5140 ext. 2244, or e-mail at .
|
