John Marshall Law School (Chicago) - John Marshall Law School

The John Marshall Law School is a law school in Chicago, Illinois, that was founded in 1899 and accredited by the American Bar Association in 1951. The school was named for the influential nineteenth-century U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall.

The John Marshall Law School offers programs for both part-time and full-time students, with both day and night classes available, and offers January enrollmentâ€"choices most law schools no longer offer.

John Marshall is located in Chicago's central financial and legal district, most commonly known as The Loop. It is across the street from the Dirksen Federal Building, which houses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and about four blocks from the Daley Center, which houses the Cook County Courts. It is also next door to the Chicago Bar Association.

The fall 2015 entering class had a median GPA of 3.12 and a median LSAT of 147.

Post-graduation Employment and Background

According to John Marshall's official 2015 ABA-required disclosures, 56.6% of the Class of 2014 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation. John Marshall's Law School Transparency under-employment score is 22.7%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2014 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.

According to the law professor blog, The Faculty Lounge, based on 2014 data submitted by law schools to the American Bar Association, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, 48.9% of graduates obtained full-time, long term positions requiring bar admission (i.e., jobs as lawyers), ten months after graduation, ranking 149 out of 197 law schools.

The bar passage rate for the July 2015 bar exam was 73%. Correlating statistics for 2015 John Marshall Law School graduates employed within nine months of graduation is still pending.

Costs

The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at John Marshall for the 2015-2016 academic year is $72,594. The Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $274,430, based on data from the 2013-2014 school year.

Curriculum

John Marshall has day and evening divisions, with identical instruction, course content, and scholastic requirements. Lawyering Skills courses, which focus on writing, research, and oral argument, are an integral part of the core curriculum. These courses are taught in small groups, to maximize the individual attention given to each student. A student may earn a J.D. certificate in a certain area of the law or focus more emphatically and earn a joint degree (J.D./LL.M.).

The law school also offers Master of Laws (LL.M.) and Master of Jurisprudence (M.J.) programs for practicing attorneys and non-attorney professionals and other individual students.

The John Marshall Law School offers eight Master of Laws (LL.M.) programs for attorneys seeking specialized education in legal issues and for current J.D. students who would like the maximum concentration in particular areas of the law. As the largest graduate law school in the Midwest, John Marshall offers a comprehensive curriculum in the following areas: Employee Benefits Law, Estate Planning, Information Technology and Privacy Law, Intellectual Property Law, International Business and Trade Law, Real Estate Law, Tax Law, and U.S. Legal Studies.

John Marshall's U.S. Legal Studies program is available only for lawyers and law students from other countries, and students enrolled in the program can receive a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree.

Clinics, externships, and special programs

Practical legal experience plays a vital role in education at The John Marshall Law School. Students are required to earn three experiential learning credits - working in a clinic, externship, or a combination of both - in order to graduate. The law school offers students practical opportunities through 9 clinics and more than 100 externships. Clinics include the Business Enterprise Law Clinic, Conflict Resolution Institute & Clinic, Domestic Violence Clinic, Fair Housing Legal Support Center & Clinic, International Human Rights Clinic, USPTO-certified IP Patent Clinic, USPTO-certified IP Trademark Clinic, Pro Bono Program & Clinic, and the Veterans Legal Support Center & Clinic. Externship opportunities include judicial, governmental, and non-profit placements.

Global Legal Skills Conference Series

The Global Legal Skills Conference Series was founded in 2005 at The John Marshall Law School as a forum for professors who teach Legal English and international legal skills to exchange information on teaching techniques and materials. The conference built upon the law school's strengths in legal writing education, trial advocacy, and international legal education, creating a specialized conference connecting legal writing professionals and other professors who had an interest in teaching international students and lawyers who spoke English as a second language. Since its inception, the Global Legal Skills Conference has been held four times in Chicago, once in Washington, D.C., twice in Mexico, twice in Costa Rica, and twice in Italy. The conference now also includes presentations of GLS Awards for individual achievement, institutional vision, and outstanding publications.

Interscholastic Competitions

In 2007, the school’s Advocacy and Dispute Resolution Team of Daniel Padernacht and Curtis Vosti placed Second in the Nation in the American Bar Association National Negotiation Competition. This competition involved 220 teams from law schools around the country. The John Marshall team of Padernacht and Vosti then went on to represent the United States in the 2007 International Negotiation Competition for Law Students in Singapore where they placed Sixth in the World. The team was coached by Dawn Bode, Kenneth Kandaras and Susann Maclachlan.

In 2007, in the ABA Dispute Resolution Mediation and the CBA Mediation competitions, John Marshall placed second and fourth.

In 2007, The John Marshall Moot Court teams won Second Place Brief at the Illinois Appellate Lawyers Competition, First Place in the Frederick Douglass (Black Law Student Association) Competition Nationals, Second Place in the Hispanic National Bar Association Competition, Second Place (Petitioner's Brief) at the John J. Gibbons Criminal Procedure Competition, and competed in the Semifinals of the Thomas Tang Moot Court Competition (hosted by NAPABA), winning Third Best Brief in the nation against eighty teams.

In 2008, The John Marshall Moot Court program took first place in the Hispanic National Bar Association Moot Court competition. The school also took second place at the Cardozo/BMI Entertainment and Communications Law Moot Court Competition and at the 21st Annual August A. Rendigs, Jr. National Products Liability Moot Court Competition.

Library

The Louis L. Biro Law Library occupies the 6th - 10th floors of the law school's State Street building. A team of over 20 professional librarians and staff members work to serve the students during the 96 hours/week that the library is open. The library holds over 410,000 volumes and microform equivalents and provides on-campus and remote access to over 4,000 titles via their specialty electronic databases. It is continually adding more online subscriptions to its growing collection of electronic resources, including Lexis, Westlaw, CALI Lessons, BNA Premier, IICLE SmartBooks, Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law Online, Justis International Law Reports, Courtroom View Network, which contains audio versions of law school casebooks and streaming trial videos, and Mango languages, an easy to follow system for learning over 20 different languages.

Students have wireless access throughout the law school and the library offers seating for 750, including twelve group study rooms. In addition to supporting the research & instructional needs of the students, faculty & staff of the law school, the library is also open to law school alumni and members of the Chicago Bar Association, whose headquarters building is next door.

Student activities

There are five honors programs: The John Marshall Law Review, The John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law ("RIPL"), the Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law, the Moot Court Honors Program, and the Trial Advocacy and Dispute Resolution Honors Program. John Marshall sends teams to more than 30 moot court and mock trial competitions annually.

The student community at The John Marshall Law School includes more than 50 student organizations engaging in social awareness, community service, legal discussions, and social activities.

Notable alumni and faculty

Alumni

• Patrick J. Walsh - Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court of the Central District of California
• William M. Daley - Former White House Chief Of Staff under President Barack Obama. Served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 1997 to 2000.
• Donald W. Banner - United States Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks 1978 - 1979.
• Joe Birkett - DuPage County State’s Attorney and former Republican nominee for Illinois Lieutenant Governor.
• Timothy C. Evans - Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
• Thomas R. Fitzgerald - Retired chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
• Michael Hastings - Democratic member of the Illinois Senate, representing the 19th District since 2013.
• Michael Noland - Democratic member of the Illinois Senate, representing the 22nd District since 2007.
• Ira Silverstein - Democratic member of the Illinois Senate, representing the 8th District since 1999.
• Adamantios Androutsopoulos - Lawyer, professor, and the Prime Minister of Greece from 1973 to 1974.
• Femi Gbaja Biamila - Nigerian Lawyer, Action Congress politician, and Minority Whip of the House of Representatives of Nigeria.
• Otto Bock - Former Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court
• Archibald Carey, Jr. - Judge, Chicago alderman and pastor of Quinn Chapel AME Church.
• John W. Cox, Jr. - Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from the 16th District of Illinois from 1991 to 1993.
• Thomas W. Ewing - Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from the 15th District of Illinois from 1991 to 2001.
• Thomas R. Fitzgerald - Former Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
• Charles E. Freeman - First African-American justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
• Cheryl Johnson (Class of 1973) - judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin, Texas, since 1999
• Darin LaHood - Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from the 18th District of Illinois from 2015 to present.
• Blanche M. Manning - United States District Court Judge for the Northern District of Illinois.
• Howard Thomas Markey - First Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and former Dean of The John Marshall Law School.
• Adrian Neritani - Former Permanent Representative of Albania to the United Nations.
• Roman Pucinski - U.S. Representative from 1959 to 1973, and alderman from the 41st Ward of Chicago from 1973 to 1991.
• Mark Pedowitz - Current President of The CW Television Network
• Alexander J. Resa - U.S. Representative from Illinois from 1945 to 1947.
• Edith S. Sampson - First Black U.S. delegate appointed to the United Nations.
• Evelyn Sanguinetti - Lieutenant Governor of Illinois (2014 to present).
• John Smietanka - Prosecutor for Berrien County, Michigan from 1974 to 1981, and a United States Attorney in Western Michigan, appointed by Ronald Reagan, from 1981 until 1994.
• Kenneth Wendt - Former member of the Illinois House of Representatives and judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County and then as judge of the Criminal Court for the Cook County Circuit Court.
• James E. Shadid - District Court Judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois.
• Michael J. Zalewski - Illinois State Representative for the 23rd District (2008 to present).

Faculty

• John W. Darrah - United States federal judge.
• Elmer Gertz - lawyer, writer and civil rights activist, best known as the plaintiff in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.
• Fred F. Herzog - former Dean and the only Jewish Judge to serve in Austria between the world wars
• Arthur J. Goldberg - taught at The John Marshall Law School in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s before becoming a U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice and then the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
• Anthony Niedwiecki - former Vice Mayor of Oakland Park, FL and former President of The Association of Legal Writing Directors
• Ann Claire Williams - United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
• Samuel V. Jones - noted public intellectual and professor of law.

References

External links

• Media related to John Marshall Law School (Chicago) at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website