425 West Jefferson Street
Tallahassee, FL 32306-1601
Phone: 850.644.3787; Fax: 850.644.7284
E-mail: admissions@law.fsu.edu; Website: www.law.fsu.edu
The Florida State University College of Law offers an extraordinarily collegial environment and a sophisticated program of study that prepares students to enter the worlds of law, business, or government at the highest possible level. Students can choose from an extremely broad menu of classroom and externship experiences. Florida State has especially strong programs in business law, environmental law, and international law. In each of these areas, the school offers courses and experiences that go far beyond the basics. In addition, the law school offers certificate programs in all three specialties and an LLM program in environmental law. Florida State also offers an LLM in American Law for lawyers from around the world.
Outside of the classroom, faculty members are actively involved with the work of students. At Florida State, collaboration outside of the classroom is as important as the classroom experience. Faculty members work with students on law review articles, moot court and mock trial competitions, business plans, or directed independent studies. Clinical professors work closely with students in a rich array of externship programs and "live-client" clinics. The wide variety of internship and externship experiences available to Florida State students supplements the traditional classroom experience and often helps with job placement.
Students love going to law school in Tallahassee. Florida's capital city offers them the chance to try on for size many different legal roles while taking classes. Many students find part-time employment or internships in one of Tallahassee's 500-plus law firms, courts, the Governor's Office, the Florida Legislature, or one of Tallahassee's many state agencies.
One of the greatest strengths of Florida State is its 8,000-plus alumni who are highly engaged with the law school. Graduates work in 49 states and around the world. They provide a vital network to help Florida State students find employment. Alumni are generous with their time and donate countless hours to helping students perfect their job search skills and learn about practicing law. Alumni regularly visit campus to talk with students about their specific fields of practice, answer students' questions, and conduct mock interviews. They also host networking meetings with students in their cities. Alumni also provide students clerking and full-time employment opportunities. In addition to visiting campus, alumni also meet or interview students via videoconference. The law school's alumni network is the principal reason for Florida State's nationally recognized success in placing new graduates in jobs that require law degrees.
Florida State University College of Law receives 13 applications for every seat in its entering class. The fall 2011 entering class had a median LSAT score of 162 and a median GPA of 3.47. Currently, the talented student body represents 32 states, 15 countries, and 191 colleges and universities. Florida State has been recognized nationally as one of the best law schools for Hispanic students.
Florida State University College of Law's three-year curriculum begins with traditional courses and expands to include the latest in theoretical and interdisciplinary analyses. The first-year curriculum provides the foundation in history, doctrine, process, and analysis that students need to fully appreciate more specialized elective courses offered later in law school.
In the second and third years of law school, the program is almost entirely elective. It includes a wide range of courses and approaches. Florida State also offers many opportunities for experiential learning and other courses designed to enable students to be sophisticated entrants into the worlds of business, government, and law practice.
Cocurricular organizations provide students a wealth of ways to earn credit for "hands-on" legal activities. The mock trial and moot court programs prepare students to be trial and appellate advocates, and three student-run scholarly journals give students additional opportunity to hone their research and writing skills. Since 2010, the moot court team has won first place in one international competition and in nine national competitions.
Florida State University College of Law has especially strong programs in business law, environmental law, and international law. In each of these areas, Florida State offers courses and experiences that go far beyond the basics. In addition, the law school offers certificate programs in all three specialties and an LLM program in environmental law. Florida State also offers an LLM in American Law for lawyers from around the world. Additionally, Florida State has one of the best criminal law programs in the region.
JD students can take advantage of one of nine joint-degree programs, offered in cooperation with other colleges, schools, and departments at Florida State University. The most popular of these is the joint JD-MBA program.
Florida State has one of the most extensive externship programs in the United States. The clinical externship program places students at more than 100 externship sites throughout Florida and elsewhere. Students may even select international externships in locations around the world, including with the International Bar Association in London, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (The Hague), and the Court of Appeal in the Republic of Botswana.
The law school's Public Interest Law Center provides on-campus clinical legal training for second- and third-year students. Students are certified by the Florida Supreme Court to practice law as interns and, under the supervision of licensed attorneys, are responsible for all facets of cases to which they are assigned. The center has three clinics: the Children's Advocacy Clinic, the Family Law Clinic, and the Medical-Legal Partnership—an innovative collaboration between Florida State's law and medical schools that partners law students with medical students, social work students, lawyers, and physicians to examine patients' social determinants of health.
Florida State Law also sponsors a summer program at Oxford University in England. As the oldest ongoing summer program in Oxford sponsored by a US law school, it provides students with a unique opportunity to study comparative law and the history of the common law and its institutions in their original setting.
The physical facilities of Florida State University College of Law consist of Roberts Hall; the connected Research Center; the Village Green, which is comprised of four restored houses; and the Advocacy Center. The 50,000-square-foot Advocacy Center opened in January 2012 and is devoted to using the third year of law school to better prepare students for immediate entry into the legal profession. It houses five courtrooms for advocacy training, suites of offices for the business faculty and environmental faculty, and offices for the faculty and students serving clients in the Public Interest Law Center.
All of the law school's classrooms are either new or recently remodeled. Classrooms are equipped with technology podiums that allow professors to present multimedia lectures. A strong wireless infrastructure allows students to utilize the Internet during class, throughout the building, and outdoors.
Florida State University College of Law students have 24/7 access to the Research Center. The distinctive feature of the Research Center is that its faculty proactively train students and other faculty members to produce highly sophisticated, cost-effective legal research. For example, it offers specialized courses in efficient research relating to environmental law, economics, business and tax law, and international law. In 2011, it started offering a Certificate in Florida Legal Research, which helps students develop the legal research skills most useful to new lawyers in Florida. The law school's Research Center has been significantly remodeled during the past few years to be more user-friendly.
Students can participate in more than 35 student and service organizations. The Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity maintains a chapter on campus. In addition, Florida State University College of Law was granted a chapter of the Order of the Coif in 1979. Three times in the past five years, the Student Bar Association has been selected SBA of the Year by the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association. In 2006, 2011, and 2012, the Black Law Students Association was named National Chapter of the Year by the National Black Law Students Association.
The law school provides assistance to law students, graduates, and legal employers through its Placement Office. Florida State Law students have access to a list of more than 600 alumni who have volunteered to serve them as Career Placement Mentors. Students are encouraged to take advantage of the law school's on-campus interviewing programs and individual career counseling services. A variety of seminars and workshops on career options, résumé writing, and interviewing skills are also available.
Within nine months of graduation, 90.7 percent of the graduating class of 2011 found employment. The law school's alumni network is the principal reason for Florida State's nationally recognized success in placing new graduates in jobs that require law degrees.
For 9 of the last 14 administrations of the Florida Bar examination, Florida State's bar passage rate was either first or second among Florida's 11 law schools. Graduates who take the exam in jurisdictions outside of Florida do equally well.
This grid includes only applicants who earned 120–180 LSAT scores under standard administrations.
| GPA | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LSAT Score |
3.75+ Apps |
3.75+ Adm |
3.50– 3.74 Apps |
3.50– 3.74 Adm |
3.25– 3.49 Apps |
3.25– 3.49 Adm |
3.00– 3.24 Apps |
3.00– 3.24 Adm |
2.75– 2.99 Apps |
2.75– 2.99 Adm |
2.50– 2.74 Apps |
2.50– 2.74 Adm |
2.25– 2.49 Apps |
2.25– 2.49 Adm |
2.00– 2.24 Apps |
2.00– 2.24 Adm |
Below 2.00 Apps |
Below 2.00 Adm |
No GPA Apps |
No GPA Adm |
Total Apps |
Total Adm |
| LSAT score 175–180 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| LSAT score 170–174 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 21 |
| LSAT score 165–169 | 35 | 35 | 41 | 41 | 21 | 21 | 21 | 21 | 15 | 15 | 9 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 149 | 148 |
| LSAT score 160–164 | 88 | 88 | 143 | 136 | 130 | 100 | 104 | 77 | 51 | 29 | 27 | 20 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 6 | 561 | 459 |
| LSAT score 155–159 | 125 | 42 | 180 | 28 | 190 | 7 | 122 | 2 | 68 | 1 | 40 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 750 | 80 |
| LSAT score 150–154 | 70 | 4 | 118 | 2 | 118 | 2 | 79 | 0 | 70 | 0 | 35 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 517 | 8 |
| LSAT score 145–149 | 33 | 0 | 63 | 0 | 63 | 0 | 78 | 0 | 44 | 0 | 38 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 349 | 0 |
| LSAT score 140–144 | 7 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 50 | 0 | 29 | 0 | 32 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 191 | 0 |
| LSAT score 135–139 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 59 | 0 |
| LSAT score 130–134 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 20 | 0 |
| LSAT score 125–129 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| LSAT score 120–124 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Total | 369 | 176 | 577 | 212 | 589 | 134 | 445 | 102 | 302 | 47 | 196 | 29 | 74 | 5 | 37 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 37 | 8 | 2629 | 716 |
Apps = Number of Applicants
Adm = Number Admitted
Reflects 99% of the total applicant pool; highest LSAT data reported.