About the College
The College of Law at the University of Arizona is a nationally prominent law school that has developed an outstanding academic program to prepare lawyers for leadership and service throughout the State, the country and internationally. We have created a close-knit community of scholars, educators and students who seek to advance justice. Our core values— justice, professional integrity, public leadership and community service—inform all of our programs, activities and decisions.

The University of Arizona College of Law—the first law school in Arizona and one of the first established in the West— was founded in 1915, when a Department of Law was created as part of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Arizona, Arizona’s first University. In 1925, the College of Law was established as the fifth college at the University of Arizona. In 1999, the College was renamed the James E. Rogers College of Law, in honor of the generous support of James E. Rogers, prominent attorney, businessman, educational leader and philanthropist, who graduated from the College of Law in 1962. During the College’s almost 100-year history, many of Arizona’s most distinguished judges and lawyers have pursued their legal educations at the UA. In addition, our graduates hold positions of leadership in the legal, corporate and political arenas throughout the U.S. and internationally. The College is fully accredited by the American Bar Association and has been a member of the Association of American Law Schools since 1931. The College is one of 80 law schools nationwide to have a chapter of the Order of the Coif, the prestigious national law academic honor society.

 Click here to view a video about the history of the College of Law.

The University of Arizona Rogers College of Law is part of one of the world’s premier research universities and we are located in Tucson, a vibrant Southwestern city that straddles multiple cultural and national borders. We are dedicated to first-rate teaching, research and service to the public and the legal profession. We strive to create an educational environment that challenges, nourishes and embraces each student. We are small by choice. Our size— approximately 150 students in each entering class and a total student body of about 480—and varied curriculum permit small classes and close interaction between students and faculty. Our spirit of collegiality promotes an environment of collaboration among students. We emphasize demanding coursework, critical analysis, excellent written and oral communication skills, as well as a strong sense of professional ethics and responsibility. Students develop their legal research and writing skills and cultivate an understanding of a substantial body of law through a wide array of courses, and learn how law is used in practice via exceptional clinical, trial advocacy and career services programs. The College offers the opportunity to pursue a broad-based general legal education and to focus in depth in several areas of law. Expanding and encouraging our students’ visions of their talents, opportunities and potential is central to our educational goals.

We are a public school that recognizes that law is a public profession. We seek to prepare lawyers with skills and knowledge for a lifelong ability to practice in a multicultural society and global environment and for leadership positions locally, nationally and internationally in the 21st century.

At Arizona, we are proud of both our faculty and our students. Our full-time faculty includes 32 outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations for excellence. They are the authors of major texts; they write extensively in the law reviews, and participate widely in the academic and professional communities nationally and internationally.

Before teaching, they had exemplary academic preparation and had varied and significant experiences in the law, from national public interest organizations to Wall Street to international legal development work, from large international law firms to the United States Justice Department and clerkships in federal and state trial and appellate courts throughout the United States.

Our students bring outstanding academic backgrounds, unique work experiences, diverse cultural perspectives and great humanity to the law school experience. Our students represent over 170 different undergraduate and graduate institutions, almost 40 states and several foreign countries, and a rich array of interests and experiences—internationally, from Peace Corps service, military combat, human rights and international business work to domestically, from Teach for America service and law enforcement work to journalism and entrepreneurship.

The strength of the University of Arizona’s many departments and offerings campus-wide encourages interdisciplinary work and collaboration. At Arizona, we transcend traditional academic boundaries to foster cross-disciplinary dialog that brings vexing societal issues into better focus. Through the Rogers Program in Law in Society, the College of Law collaborates with Arizona’s nationally acclaimed Departments of Anthropology, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology to offer interdisciplinary coursework for students, colloquium series on public policy issues, national conferences on important multi-disciplinary topics, and promote faculty and student research collaborations to explore new ways of addressing problems. The academic environment is strengthened further by numerous endowed lectures and our Sabbatical Visitors Program, which brings leading teachers and scholars from other outstanding law schools to join us, typically for a semester.

The Facilities
The main law building, completed in 1979 and expanded and renovated in school year 1996- 97, is a modern facility housing faculty and administrative offices, class and seminar rooms, a student lounge and offices, a large library, and two courtrooms frequently used for trials and appellate arguments and for traditional student instruction. The building is functional and attractive, and contains a teleconferencing classroom, a student computer lab and a computer-equipped courtroom. The College of Law is fully wheelchair accessible and adapted for the visually impaired.

The Rountree Building, renovated in 2004 and dedicated in 2005 in honor of Arizona graduate George Rountree III, houses the clinical programs operated by the College of Law—the Domestic Violence Clinic, the Child Advocacy Clinic, the Immigration Law Clinic, and the Indigenous Peoples Law Clinic and the graduate programs in International Trade Law and Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy. The College of Law is in the process of planning for a new $18 million addition and renovation to expand the library and student space. We hope to break ground on the expansion in the Fall of 2007.

The Law Library
Perhaps nowhere in the College has technology had a greater impact on the way we train law students than in the law library. Increasingly, the legal information sources lawyers rely upon are in a digital format. The Law Library owns or subscribes to a wide array of online databases and digital libraries. In addition, the College of Law community has access to a variety of interdisciplinary databases available through the University Library. Law librarians monitor emerging digital services and secure access in response to student and faculty needs.

The College of Law Library is a fully networked, technologically sophisticated facility that is constantly evolving. The student computer lab in the library contains networked computers allowing for easy access to a full range of digital information. Email, computerized legal research services, the Internet and electronic reserve materials are available not only through the computer lab, but also at public area work stations and through laptop ports located throughout the law library, and through a wireless network available in the library and throughout the College of Law.

Various software applications, ranging from word processing and spreadsheets to presentation programs are available to students in the lab. Learning software in a range of law school subjects developed or distributed by the Center for Computer- Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI), a consortium of over 180 law schools, including the College of Law, is available in the laboratory. Both WESTLAW and LEXIS maintain a presence in the laboratory and students are trained in electronic legal research.

The library also maintains a comprehensive print collection. The Law Library contains over 425,000 volumes and microform volume equivalents. In addition to a strong Anglo-American collection, the library has nationally recognized collections in Mexican, Latin American, Native American and Water Law. The University’s National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade has a formal relationship with the College of Law Library. The Law Library receives all publications of the Center and has access to the Center’s Latin American legal database. The library is also a selective depository of United States Government documents.

College of Law students have access to the resources of the Arizona Health Sciences Center Library and University Libraries, with combined collections exceeding 11 million volumes. The Law Library is also a member of the OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center, library network.

A library is more than the materials it contains; it is the professionals who work there. The University of Arizona Rogers College of Law Library is staffed by dedicated individuals with outstanding academic and practical preparation, who are committed to providing the highest levels of personal service to the students, faculty and staff of the College. The librarians offer training in the use of all resources of the library, teach throughout the curriculum, and advise and work closely with members of the student publications and other student organizations to help meet their research needs.

For additional information about the library, its staff and the services offered, visit the Law Library website at www.law.arizona.edu/library/.