From the Dean
I have always been proud to point out that Memphis is an extremely unique city and one that is easy to love, once you get to know it. It is full of stories, individuals, communities, history and innovations that are hard to really understand until you’ve been here and immersed yourself in this city on the bluffs of the Mississippi River. But you may not know about all of those things from afar because oftentimes what matters most about the city is obscured by more attention-grabbing headlines. But great things happen here every day.
In a similar fashion, our law school is, and has been, excelling at what truly matters for law students and young attorneys, though it may sometimes take a second glance to see the full picture.
Though I am always pleased to see Memphis Law on a positive trajectory in any set of national rankings, they rarely tell the whole story of who we are (and never have, no matter the ranking). National rankings can function as an easy reference tool for prospective law students during their search for the next step in their education. They lay all 200 law schools out on a single spectrum, despite the unique missions and values individual institutions embrace. National rankings assign a numeric value that implies greater distinction among schools than any student, faculty or alumna could detect. They are a poor tool for determining the best law school for any particular student. At Memphis Law, we focus on excelling at the things that we believe really matter in life, law and the legal future for our students and legal community.
That’s why, if you take the time to look, it is clear that Memphis Law is excellent at what matters most.
Ultimately, there are several key areas of importance for any law student, past, present, or future. Affordability, practice-ready experience, finding a good job and very importantly, the ability to pass the Bar.
I can say with the highest assurance that while these items may not always be addressed in every ranking, they are some of the most important matters a student should examine and are all areas where Memphis Law sets itself apart.
Our most recent Ultimate Bar Passage Rate of 89% shows that our students are already passing the Bar exam at high rates. And in just three years, the Bar exam itself will undergo an incredibly important transformation. By 2026, the NextGen Bar exam will test takers’ practical lawyering skills through multiple-choice, short-answer and essay questions. Memphis Law has always excelled at preparing practice-ready attorneys. It’s at the heart of our mission and apparent from our investment in clinics and externships.
The NextGen Bar could not be better suited for Memphis Law students. Our nationally ranked and recognized Experiential Learning program (a Top 30 program in the nation among public law schools) excels at providing our students with real-world learning opportunities that translate to academic and career success. Our clinical training program and uniquely advantageous location have allowed us to build relationships and partnerships that cannot be found anywhere else, and our students are the direct beneficiaries.
The unique real-world learning opportunities Memphis Law provides already produces amazingly practice-ready attorneys and, with the rollout of the NextGen Bar, that will be evident on the exam as well as in our student’s legal employment after law school.
Our employment rate is another place where Memphis Law excels. Over the past few years, our overall employment rate for recent graduates comes in at 87%, with a healthy range of employers; including government, law firms, public interest, business and industry and judicial clerkships. In fact, our most recent numbers rank us 31st in the nation for judicial clerkship placements.
And finally, no matter the ranking a law school has, if a student cannot afford to attend, everything else is irrelevant. That is why Memphis Law has always placed an emphasis on affordability. We’ve been known as a “Best Value” law school for years, but I think it’s particularly important to note that we are an under-the-radar option for many out-of-state students that may not realize it. We are currently in the top seven for most affordable out-of-state law school tuition in the entire country, with our out-of-state tuition coming in as more affordable than the in-state tuition of 83% of all law schools in the nation! And the same holds true for those prospective students in Tennessee, where we have the lowest in-state law school tuition fees in the state.
Our values and priorities cannot be captured by a single metric. Our commitment to community engagement and the empowerment of our diverse community to pursue justice as a moral virtue and social good will always drive our mission. As will our ongoing efforts to offer an affordable, intellectually rigorous and practice-oriented legal education that leads to strong employment opportunities.
National rankings can continue to focus on a one-size-fits all approach to examining law schools, but at Memphis Law we plan to keep focusing on excelling at what matters most to our students, faculty, alumni and legal community.
Sincerely,
Dean Katharine T. Schaffzin
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