Pace University—Elisabeth Haub School of Law
The information on this page was provided by the law school.
Official Guide to ABA-Approved JD Programs
Pace Law is a national law school, recognized for several of its high-quality programs, particularly the Environmental Law program. Students can explore a wide range of curricular offerings or pursue 1 of 13 areas of study. Pace Law also offers a variety of clinics, centers, externships, and simulation courses for hands-on practical experience. White Plains, New York, home to Pace Law, is also home to federal and state courthouses, numerous law firms, corporations, public interest organizations, and government entities and is just 20 miles north of the heart—and pulse—of New York City.
Founded in 1976, Pace Law benefits from its network of more than 9,000 alumni throughout the world. Pace Law offers full-time and part-time flex Juris Doctor scheduling options with the opportunity to pursue a Master of Laws in Environmental Law (including the nation’s first Climate Change track and the Land Use and Sustainable Development track); a Master of Laws in Comparative Legal Studies; and a Doctor of Laws in Environmental Law. The school is part of Pace University, a comprehensive, independent, and diversified university with campuses in New York City and Westchester County.
The JD Program
The JD program provides students with the fundamental skills necessary for the practice of law nationally, and the flexibility to shape their elective coursework based on particular career goals. The curriculum is based on the concept that rigorous standards and high-quality teaching can coexist with an atmosphere congenial to learning and enjoyment. Students may obtain Advanced Certificates in Environmental Law, Health Law and International Law.
Joint degrees such as a JD/MBA, JD/MPA, or JD/MS in Environmental Policy with Pace University; a JD/MEM with Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; a JD/MS in Environmental Policy with Bard College; or a JD/MA in Women’s History with Sarah Lawrence College are also offered. Graduate law degrees (an LLM in Comparative Legal Studies or Environmental Law) attract attorneys from around the world. JD candidates taking 12 credits of Environmental Law may earn LLM degrees in one additional semester.
Pace Law also offers students the opportunity to complete a three-year JD degree in two and a half years through the Accelerated Program.
The majority of elective classes have fewer than 35 students, which fosters close faculty-student relationships. The range of scholarship reflects a faculty of diverse interests, and the curriculum offers courses in traditional areas of legal study, legal theory, and specialized studies. Areas of study include
- Business Law (Corporate and Financial Services Tracks)
- Civil Litigation and Dispute Resolution
- Criminal Practice
- Employment and Labor Law
- Environmental Law
- Family Law
- Health Law and Policy
- Immigration Law
- Intellectual Property and Technology Law
- International Law
- Real Estate Law and Land Use Law
- Taxation
- Trusts and Estates
- Women, Gender and the Law
Faculty scholarship also covers such specialized areas as the Americans with Disabilities Act, children’s legal representation, environmental and toxic torts, equal pay, food and beverage law, hazardous waste, health-care fraud, international commercial law, land use law, legal and ethical issues in health care, nonprofit organizations, prosecutorial and judicial ethics, racially motivated violence, securities fraud, sports and entertainment law, and white-collar crime.
Engaged Learning
Pace Law has implemented experiential education programs to ensure that students learn a wide variety of lawyering skills while in law school. Our First Year Legal Skills Program teaches first-year students—in small sections of approximately 22 students—the fundamental lawyering skills of legal research, case synthesis and analysis, and informative and persuasive writing. Our highly trained team of law librarians teaches students how to conduct print and electronic research using cutting-edge technology and electronic databases. The first-year experience culminates at the end of the second semester of the program with the Louis V. Fasulo First Year Moot Court Competition, in which students draft an appellate brief and argue before a panel of distinguished judges.
In the upper level, to fulfill the Upper Level Skills Requirement, students may enroll in a wide variety of skills classes, including 20 different simulation courses, 11 externship programs, and seven client representation clinics. The simulations allow students to master specific lawyering skills such as interviewing, counseling, negotiating, drafting, conducting direct and cross-examinations of witnesses, and closing transactions. Externships place students on or off campus with legal services providers, public interest organizations, research and advocacy centers, government agencies, and other not-for-profit law offices so they can work with practicing lawyers. In on-campus clinics, students represent actual clients under the supervision of faculty in areas such as criminal trial advocacy, disability rights, food and beverage law, immigrants’ rights, investor rights, environmental justice, mediation and workers’ rights. In addition, our moot court and advocacy programs offer cocurricular opportunities to compete against students from other law schools in national student competitions to demonstrate mastery of lawyering skills such as client counseling, trial, and appellate advocacy. Pace Law encourages students to pursue a semester immersed in practice through the Pro Bono Scholars program where students devote their entire final semester to providing legal services in our clinics and other legal service offices after taking the February bar exam.
In the popular and growing field of environmental law, students work on conservation and development matters through the Land Use Law Center; help nation-states develop climate change policies through the country’s only United Nations Environmental Diplomacy Externship; extern with a federal agency in Washington, DC; and help accelerate the world’s transition to clean, efficient, and renewable energy alternatives through the Pace Energy and Climate Center.
Pace Law’s international programs allow students to spend a semester or even a full academic abroad with some of the top law schools in Europe, Australia, Asia and South America. In addition, Pace Law students work with Missions to the UN and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) throughout the school year and have approximately 20 international law courses to choose from, ranging from Prosecution of War Crimes to International Business Transactions.
Judicial externship programs allow students to hone their writing skills in a mentoring program with a faculty member and in the chambers of a state or United States district or federal circuit court judge.
Whatever your interests, Pace Law has the facilities and resources to help you pursue them.
Centers and Institutes
Through our centers, Pace Law directs its innovative spirit into emerging and re-emerging realms of the law where it can play a decisive role in shaping policy and structuring practice while also helping clients and the community.
- Energy and Climate Center
- Global Center for Environmental Legal Studies
- Land Use Law Center
- Pace-NRDC Food Law Initiative
- Women's Justice Center
Advocacy Programs
Our advocacy program allows you to learn by doing. In the advocacy program we feature introductory, as well as advanced learning in the art of questioning technique, evidence, jury profiling and selection, theory, and platform skills. Students are given an opportunity to develop skills in openings, closings and examinations. Pace Law heralds a nationally recognized trial skills program. This comprehensive program interfaces with the traditional curriculum allowing students an opportunity for simulated learning skills sessions. Students' knowledge of substantive law is integrated in an intensive course study of trial skills. The program provides all students an opportunity to experience the vigor of a trial in a controlled simulated environment. Additionally, the program sponsors a series of lectures featuring noted attorneys who provide insight into fascinating and complex litigation matter. These small and sometimes large seminars allow students a chance to question top litigators on strategy and technique. They provide an advanced intellectual discussion of modern trial problems.
Student Life
Office of Housing and Residential Life
Dannat Hall is located on the Law School campus and houses up to 104 residents. All rooms are single occupancy and furnished. Large units are furnished with a full-sized bed, two closets, one bureau, a large desk and office chair, a nightstand, and a small table with two chairs. Small units are furnished with a twin-sized bed, one dresser, a desk and an office chair, and a nightstand. Windows in each unit are covered with mini-blinds, and residents share common, single-sex bathrooms on each floor. Dannat Hall is also equipped with wireless internet, a lounge on every floor, a kitchen, laundry room, recreation room, and fitness room.
Student Activities and Organizations
Pace Law publishes three law reviews, the Pace Law Review, the Pace Environmental Law Review, and the Pace International Law Review. Students also work on GreenLaw, an online blog published by the Pace Law Center for Environmental Legal Studies; and the Pace Intellectual Property, Sports and Entertainment Law Forum, an online publication dedicated to the discussion of emerging legal issues in the intellectual property, sports, and entertainment law fields. Students compete in interscholastic moot court competitions; host the largest environmental moot court competition in the country (the Jeffrey G. Miller Pace National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition); and participate in the Pace-founded Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, the first and largest international commercial arbitration moot court competition of its kind, in Vienna, Austria. Pace Law also sponsors 34 active student organizations, focusing on professional interests, diversity, politics, and social action.
Campus and Location
Pace Law is located in White Plains, New York, just outside New York City, blocks away from federal and state courthouses, major law firms, and corporate headquarters. As the only law school between New York City and Albany, Pace Law enjoys a unique relationship with the law firms, judiciary, and corporations in this thriving regional economy. The unique campus setting is tree filled with lots of room for students to enjoy the outdoors. Pace Law has a dormitory on campus where students may choose to live during their time here. The Pace Law Library is housed in a 50,051-square-foot airy, modern facility. The law library contains an extensive collection of law and law-related publications, provides access to materials in other libraries in metropolitan New York and throughout the United States, and subscribes to national online research systems. Pace Law students have free access to these databases from computer terminals distributed throughout the law library as well as in the student lounge, and remotely from their home computers. The library features attractive, comfortable spaces in which students can study individually or in groups.
Career Placement and Bar Passage
Tuition and Aid
| Expense | Cost |
|---|---|
| Tuition |
$50,482.00
|
| Fees |
$1,108.00
|
| Expected Cost of Attendance |
$51,590.00
|
The Financial Aid Office assists students in receiving a comprehensive financial aid package that includes a combination of need-based aid and merit-based awards. We are here to help make law school affordable; Pace Law strives to help make law school possible for every student accepted to our degree programs, whatever their current financial circumstances. Pace Law feels a responsibility to assist students with financial need as much as possible. We also recognize students with superior academic achievement. Most JD students receive a comprehensive financial aid package that includes a combination of need-based aid and merit-based awards. Students who are accepted to Pace Law are automatically considered for a number of Pace-sponsored scholarships. However, additional steps are required to secure aid from other sources. Financial aid based on either merit or financial need is available to students matriculated at Pace Law from a variety of sources, including Pace University, the federal and state government, and private sources, in the form of scholarships, fellowships, grants, and loans. Our Financial Aid 101 page is designed to help give you a comprehensive overview of your financial aid options and general tips on how to apply.
Admission Decisions: Beyond the Numbers
Admission Standards/Visits to Campus
Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law seeks qualified students who can meaningfully contribute to the law school community and the legal profession. A person who holds a bachelor's degree from an institution that is accredited by an agency recognized by the Department of Education is eligible to apply for admission as a candidate for the JD degree. At Pace, as at many law schools, the most important admissions criteria are the undergraduate grade point average (GPA) and the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). At this time most law schools require applicants to submit an LSAT score as part of the application process. Pace will also consider the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) score. The Admissions Committee will also consider other factors when making decisions such as the strength of the curriculum undertaken or the quality of the institution at which undergraduate work was done, class rank and the progression of grades. Writing, grammar, and spelling skills are extremely important. In addition, character and fitness, proven capacity for leadership, dedication to community service, excellence in a particular field, diversity, motivation, graduate study, work experience, extracurricular activities and other key indications of professional promise receive careful consideration in appropriate cases.
Pace Law hosts several open-house programs that include tours; discussions with faculty, administrators, and students; and information sessions regarding the admission process, financial aid, career placement, and campus life. We also encourage individual visits to include sitting in on a first-year class and a tour with a student mentor. For a complete list of our on-campus events, visit our website.
Admitted Applicant Profile
