University of Illinois College of Law: A Comprehensive Overview

Established in 1897, the University of Illinois College of Law is a premier public law school renowned for its distinguished faculty, innovative curriculum, and accomplished alumni who have made significant contributions to law, business, education, and public service. As one of the nation’s top public law schools, it resides on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a leading global research institution.

A Legacy of Excellence

The University of Illinois College of Law holds a rich history and a commitment to excellence. It was a charter member and founder of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and was on the first national list of law schools approved by the American Bar Association (ABA). Illinois Law is also the birthplace of the Order of the Coif, the prestigious law honor society, and has been home to influential legal scholars who have shaped interdisciplinary movements like law and economics and law and psychology.

Academic Environment

Faculty and Curriculum

Illinois faculty members are known for their expertise, national visibility, engaged teaching approach, open-door policy with respect to students, and strong commitment to students’ professional development. The College of Law boasts a rich and expansive curriculum designed to expose students to a range of practical, theoretical, and interdisciplinary perspectives on the law.

The first-year curriculum introduces students to the foundational elements of the law, including civil procedure, constitutional law, contracts, criminal law, property, torts, advocacy, and legal research and writing. After the first year, students can explore a rich curriculum of more than 130 courses, including robust offerings in business law, criminal law, family law, intellectual property, and international law. Many upper-division courses are taught in small sections of less than 25 students. Coursework at Illinois is rooted in the work of leading legal theorists and the findings of multidisciplinary research.

Experiential Learning

Experiential learning is a strong focus at Illinois Law. The college offers 15 in-house clinics, field placements, and other live-client courses, as well as an array of externships. The law school’s innovative Chicago Program permits third-year students to take classes in Chicago-the nation’s third-largest legal market.

Joint Degrees

The University of Illinois College of Law also offers a number of joint degrees.

Admissions and Enrollment

For law school applicants interested in the 2024 admissions cycle at University of Illinois College of Law, 1509 candidates submitted JD applications, and 706 received acceptance letters. This means that of the 706 applicants who received law school acceptance letters, 160 chose to enroll. For the class entering in 2023, the law school accepted 43.69% of applicants, with 21.57% of those accepted enrolling.

Illinois Law seeks individuals with the ability, character, and life experience needed to become exceptional lawyers and leaders. In its holistic review of applicants, Illinois Law values intelligence, integrity, creativity, grit, public spiritedness, teamwork, hard work, diversity, and a global perspective.

Applicants to the LLM program must hold a bachelor’s degree, LLB, or equivalent degree. The bachelor’s degree does not need to be in law. Applications are considered year-round on a rolling basis. To receive maximum consideration, interested candidates should submit their applications by April 1 for a fall (August) start and by September 1 for a spring (January) start, but the College of Law will continue reviewing applications until the class is full.

To qualify for review, an applicant must submit: a completed application (the application fee has been waived); a résumé; a statement of purpose; certified transcripts and credentials; at least one letter of reference from an instructor or employer; and unless exempt, a TOEFL (at least 80), IELTS (at least 6.5 overall), or Duolingo (at least 115 overall) score taken within two years of program term of entry.

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For a competitive law school application to University of Illinois College of Law, students should aim to meet or exceed the median statistics shown below.

LSAT and GPA

Rising LSAT/GPA medians, narrowing bands, or falling acceptance rates indicate increasing competitiveness.

Affordability and Financial Aid

Consistent with its mission as a public, land-grant institution, Illinois Law is committed to affordability and accessibility. There is no application fee. Under the Illinois Tuition Guarantee, tuition is locked in for all three years of law school. The college also offers an extensive number of scholarships for students who show particular promise for success in the study and practice of law. College of Law scholarships are not conditional upon maintaining a minimum grade-point average or class standing, and the amount is guaranteed as long as the recipient remains enrolled. All applicants are automatically considered for need- and merit-based scholarships, and more than 80 percent of our LLM students receive a scholarship. Law school tuition at University of Illinois College of Law is $93k annually (calculated from semester costs).

Career Services and Outcomes

Illinois Law prepares its students to succeed in a competitive legal marketplace. The office’s professional staff, located in both Chicago and Champaign-Urbana, consists entirely of lawyers with extensive practice experience at top law firms, government agencies, and in-house legal departments. The College of Law provides its students with: tools for successful networking, career planning, job-search strategies, and more through regular workshops and resource sessions; individualized counseling; and opportunities to engage with practitioners in many different settings. Elements of the career development program for LLM students include participation in the International Student Interview Program (in New York) and the opportunity to compete for a Global Law Fellows internship following the completion of the Illinois LLM program.

After completing their JD program at University of Illinois College of Law, graduates entering private law firms earn a median starting salary of $150,000. JD graduates pursuing public sector legal careers start at approximately $72,000. Additionally, 5.4% of graduates obtain prestigious judicial clerkships, and 7.4% pursue public interest law careers. For JD graduates from University of Illinois College of Law, the first-time bar exam pass rate is 72.48%.

Read also: Legacy of Fordham University

LLM Program

The Illinois LLM program is designed to introduce international students to the United States legal system while also providing opportunities to build students’ legal skills and take advanced coursework in their own area of academic or professional interest.

Strengths and Concentrations

The College of Law has a worldwide reputation in several areas of strength, including:

Business and Law
Constitutional Law
Criminal Law
Employment and Labor Law
Environmental Law, Sustainability, and Compliance
International Law
Public Interest
Tax Law
Technology and Intellectual Property Law

Optional concentrations for an LLM degree can be earned in the following areas:

Corporate Law, Commercial Law, and Trade
Criminal Law
Intellectual Property and Technology Law
International and Comparative Law
Justice, Democracy, and Legal Rights
Regulation, Sustainability, and Compliance

Bar Exam Compliance

For students planning to take a bar examination in the United States, the Illinois LLM is compliant with the requirements of several states, including New York, Missouri, Texas, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia. Although a bachelor’s degree in law is not required for admission to the Illinois LLM program, applicants without a bachelor’s degree in law should be aware that they may not qualify to take a bar examination in the United States, even after completing the Illinois LLM.

Degree Requirements

Illinois LLM students complete a minimum total of 32 credit hours (generally eight courses) for the LLM degree. A minimum grade-point average of 2.75 based on a 4.0 scale is required to graduate.

Chicago Program

During the spring semester, LLM students are eligible to take courses in downtown Chicago taught by leading practitioners and College of Law faculty. The Chicago Program offers students the opportunity to experience the City of Chicago and network with the College of Law’s more than 4,000 Chicago-based alumni.

Mixed Classes

Sharing classes and interacting with the JD students are hallmarks of the Illinois LLM program. LLM students select the majority of their classes from the nearly 150 courses offered each year at the College of Law.

Extended LLM (Third-Semester) Option

Students may elect to remain at the College of Law for an additional semester in order to complete a more intensive program of study, enjoy greater internship options, and benefit from more time to study for a bar exam.

LLM Legal Writing and Research Course

Illinois LLM students take a specially designed two-credit orientation and legal writing and research course. This course provides LLM students initial training in legal reasoning, writing, and analysis, and introduces them to the unique learning environment of the US law school. Students meet their faculty in a classroom setting and practice legal research and writing skills in small-group sections. This course meets for three weeks prior to the start of the fall semester for those beginning the program in the fall. It is offered during the spring semester for those beginning in the spring.

Competitions

LLM students have the opportunity to build legal skills through participation in an LLM Negotiation Competition and Client Counseling Competition.

Campus Life and Facilities

Location and Environment

The campus is located in the college town of Champaign-Urbana and offers the friendliness, warmth, and safety of the American Midwest while being two to three hours from Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis. Champaign-Urbana, with its big-city amenities yet small-town accessibility, is a vibrant and extremely affordable college town with a lively cultural scene, free public transit for students, a wide range of restaurants, and numerous sporting opportunities. Recognized as one of the best cities for recent college graduates and as one of the best college towns in America, the Champaign-Urbana area abounds with possibilities, from attending performances at the acclaimed Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, watching Big Ten sporting events at venues across campus, to partaking in any number of other local events, such as the Illinois Marathon, the Ebertfest Film Festival, Urbana’s Market at the Square farmers market, or Friday Night Live music events in downtown Champaign. On and off campus, Champaign and Urbana are filled with parks, athletic facilities, green spaces, bicycle and walking paths, and other opportunities for both indoor and outdoor recreation.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers a large, diverse student community with nearly 11,000 international students from over 110 countries. The law school’s enrollment consists of approximately 500 students in its JD, LLM, MSL, and JSD programs. In recent years, the law school has welcomed LLM students from many nations.

Facilities and Amenities

Located on the southern half of the University of Illinois campus, the College of Law is well equipped and situated to meet the needs of its students. The College of Law building is a three-story facility of roughly 160,000 square feet, located on the University of Illinois flagship campus in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. The building features an auditorium, a courtroom, five classrooms, four seminar rooms, clinical and experiential learning spaces, a bookstore, a café, and two student gathering areas. The law building also houses the 58,000 square foot Albert E. Jenner, Jr.

Library

The Albert E. Jenner Jr. Library offers students, faculty, and members of the community exceptional legal academic resources. College of Law reference librarians are experts in legal research, with dual graduate degrees in law and information science. The law library is part of the University Library, the largest public university library in North America. All LLM students at the College of Law are given full access to a wide range of legal research resources, including WestLaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law.

Recreation and Arts

One of the largest on-campus recreation facilities in the United States, the Activities and Recreation Center (ARC), is just down the street from the College of Law. It features a climbing wall, two 50-meter pools, a sauna, a one-fifth-mile indoor track, an instructional kitchen, table tennis, exercise machines, weightlifting equipment, and multiple basketball and racquetball courts. Krannert Art Museum, the second-largest general fine arts museum in Illinois, is located directly across the street from the College of Law.

Housing

The majority of College of Law students live in off-campus housing that includes apartments, condos, and rental houses. The University of Illinois also has graduate and family housing units available, as well as graduate student dormitories.

Student Life

As a student, you will find activities to complement your legal education. The College of Law and student organizations hold numerous academic and social events open to all members of the Illinois Law community every year. You may want to join in the College of Law softball league, socialize with your classmates while enjoying snacks and refreshments at a biweekly Peer’s Pub event, attend a lunch lecture given by a prominent legal scholar, carve a pumpkin at the annual Fall Festival, or participate in any number of other College of Law events held every semester. As a University of Illinois student, LLM students are also welcome to partake in the many events held on and around campus for students every week, such as free lunches at the various cultural houses, free movie showings at the Illini Union, a variety of speakers, and more! The College of Law has student organizations covering almost every interest, and there are opportunities for socializing with graduate students from across all departments at the University of Illinois. Whether it is public interest or corporate law, Illinois provides opportunities for students to get involved. Additionally, there are a plethora of registered student organizations on campus outside the College of Law that LLM students may participate in.

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