LLM

Chapman University School of Law

One University Drive, Orange, CA 92866, USA
Phone: 877.CHAPLAW | Website: www.chapman.edu/law or www.chapman.edu/llm

Introduction

School of Law exterior Chapman University School of Law is located in the historic Old Towne district of Orange, California. We are part of the nonprofit private university that is 150 years old. The law school, established in 1995, received full approval by the ABA in 2002 and AALS accreditation in January 2006.

The school of law is part of the main university campus, which gives law students access to educational, cultural, and recreational activities that often cannot be replicated at a stand-alone law school. It also lets us offer cross disciplinary study in approved courses with other colleges within our university.

Our school is noted for offering an excellent quality of life (a measure of overall law school community experience), great classroom experiences, and diverse faculty.

We compete exceedingly well against schools much older than us and are clearly an institution that is on the move. Dean John Eastman stated that, "As more and more people take notice of just what we have accomplished, it will be clear to all that Chapman is a school on the rise and not satisfied with the status quo. Chapman has quickly earned a reputation as an emerging center for legal education."

In addition to our LLM programs, Chapman offers JD certificate programs in five different concentrations and extensive clinical programs along with JD/MBA and JD/MFA dual degrees.

Law School Enrollment

Chapman Law has committed itself to building a small, talented, and diverse student body. Total student enrollment for 2010–2011 was approximately 610 students, including approximately 70 LLM students.

The Faculty

Chapman has over 40 full-time faculty including a Nobel Laureate, five former US Supreme Court clerks, and professors who hold degrees from Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Berkeley, Michigan, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell, Georgetown, UCLA, and USC, among others. In addition to our full-time faculty, we are very proud of our program adjuncts, who are respected practitioners in their areas of expertise and bring real-world experience and a teaching dynamic to the classroom.

Chapman Law's environment is conducive to learning. Students have access to the faculty and frequent opportunities to engage them in both formal and informal settings. Our student-to-faculty ratio remains 8.89 to 1. Our interesting and accessible faculty speaks volumes about the supportive nature of our institution.

Courses in the LLM programs are taught by a mixture of experienced full-time professors and leading practitioners who bring extensive experience in very specialized areas of legal practice. Our curriculums are designed to provide each student with a background in the program areas most often encountered, while allowing each student to choose specialized courses according to his or her interest.

Short biographies of the faculty teaching within the programs may be found at Chapman Faculty Profiles. Complete biographies are printed in the program brochures for the respective programs.

Physical Facilities

The beautiful Donald P. Kennedy Hall opened in 1999, with state-of-the-art learning facilities in its classrooms, law library, and trial and appellate courtrooms. The Rinker Law Library holdings now exceed 348,000 volumes and volume equivalents. The collection is fully accessible to students both in hard copy and through the computer network. Library carrels and desktops are generous in number, and many are wired for Internet access. Several group study rooms are available for student use and extended research. Two state-of-the-art courtrooms provide computers, cameras, and electronic blackboards for trial advocacy exercises, competitions, and formal hearings by visiting courts.

Housing

Very limited on-campus housing exists for graduate law students. There are numerous housing opportunities in the surrounding areas. Inquiries should be forwarded to the LLM Programs Office:

Phone: 714.628.2635
E-mail: LLM@chapman.edu

LLM Programs/Areas of Specialization

Chapman Law's six LLM programs include Taxation, Trial Advocacy, Business Law and Economics, Entertainment and Media, and International and Comparative Law, as well as a self-designed course of study.

Taxation

Taxation is Chapman's oldest LLM program and continues Chapman's advances in the field of tax law. Our renowned JD Tax Program bolsters our graduate tax programs as well. Our six full-time tax faculty members include leaders in various Tax sections and committees of the American Bar Association, as well as prolific tax scholars, including casebook authors. We are the only law school in the nation with both Trial and Appellate tax clinics (whereby students handle actual cases while in school) and an Estate Planning clinical opportunity. Our graduates have been placed at leading law and accounting firms and at the IRS. In addition to the traditional Personal and Business related tax law courses, Chapman has made a particular effort to include an extensive array of Advanced Estate Planning and Advanced Business and Personal Tax Planning courses.

For additional information about this program, please visit the LLM Programs website, or contact: