University of Virginia. School of Law

The University of Virginia School of Law (UVA Law or Virginia Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Established in 1819 as one of the original schools of Thomas Jefferson's university, it is the second-oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Law classes began in 1826 on The Lawn, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the school has occupied its own campus on the university's North Grounds since 1974. Although UVA is a state university, the law school receives no state appropriation and operates under an arrangement the university calls financial self-sufficiency, funding itself through tuition, its endowment and private giving. The school enrolls roughly 300 students in each J.D. class and also awards the LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees. It offers more than 275 courses a year, including 24 clinics, along with 12 international exchange programs, 25 research centers and programs, and 10 student-edited journals, among them the Virginia Law Review. The school has more than 20,000 living alumni. Over its two centuries its students have included President Woodrow Wilson, who studied law at the school in 1879–80; Vice President Alben W. Barkley; Supreme Court Justices James Clark McReynolds and Stanley Forman Reed; Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy; FBI Director and special counsel Robert Mueller; Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano; and the sitting presidents or chief justices of the International Court of Justice, the Supreme Court of Ireland and the Supreme Court of Virginia.