Loyola University New Orleans College of Law was established in 1914. A central part of the College’s mission is to “educate future members of the Bar to be skilled advocates and sensitive counselors-at-law committed to ethical norms in pursuit of dignity for all.” In the spirit of the Jesuit tradition, the College of Law focuses on holistic education and strives to educate the whole law student and equip each student with the skills and competencies necessary to be a functioning and confident professional on the day of graduation. Loyola is committed to a practice-ready model, student centered teaching and Carnegie initiatives in the following manner:
- Beyond its academic requirements, Loyola requires students to earn skills credits through courses taught by practitioners and judges. The courses provide either an overview of a specific area of law or introduce basic hands-on training.
- Our clinical program has a forty-year history and now includes nine sections dedicated to social justice. Students selected for the clinic enroll in a year long, live client clinical seminar in a variety offields, including criminal defense and prosecution, immigration, family law, community justice, work place justice, and civil rights clinics.
- This year the Loyola 1L class will attend the College’s first annual Professionalism Convocation: “A Call to the Profession” – a ceremony dedicated to reaching out to the 1L class after their first semester and welcoming each student into the profession in a dignified manner, much like a “white coat” ceremony in medical school.
- Several professors at Loyola integrate experiential modules into their course design to include such skills as complaint and motion drafting, client interviewing, discovery practice, and oral advocacy.
- The Office of Skills and Experiential Learning was recently formed to assist in modernizing Skills courses through assessment and curricular design, as well as to provide resources for faculty members in integrating experiential modules in course design.