We are ranked among the top 15 law schools that offer the most tuition help.
Our tuition reflects our status as a law school within an elite private university, but we are committed to making our law school as affordable as possible, and with our large endowment we are able to provide generous scholarships to over 90% of our students. US News and World Report ranks us among the top 15 law schools "that offer the most tuition help."
Few law schools have so many top-ranked programs.
The most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings issue ranked CWRU #13 in the nation in International Law, #13 in Health Law, #30 in Environmental Law, and #55 in Business Law. And, in 2024-2025, preLaw magazine ranked us as a "Top School" in 13 specialty areas: Business Law (A+) (Fall 2024), Criminal Law (A+) (Fall 2024), Health Law (A+) (Back to School Issue 2024), Human Rights Law (A+) (Back to School Issue 2024), International Law (A+) (Winter 2025), Intellectual Property Law (A+) (Spring 2025), Practical Training (A+) (Spring 2025), Tech Law (A+) (Winter 2024), Environmental Law (A) (Spring 2025), Entertainment Law (A) (Winter 2024), Trial Advocacy (A-) (Winter 2025), Public Policy Law (A-) (Winter 2024) and Racial Justice (A-) (Fall 2024).
We are a national leader in Experiential Education.
Our innovative curriculum provides students hands-on experience and client contact during all three years of law school, culminating in a capstone semester in which students choose an intensive clinical experience or an external externship. For the past five years, PreLaw Magazine has ranked us among the top 15 law schools in the nation for practical training with an A+ rating (Spring 2025).
We have one of the top Moot Court/Mock Trial Programs in the country.
US News and World Report ranks us the 49th best Law School for Trial Advocacy. And based on the success of our mock trial teams from 2019-2025, CWRU Law School ranked as the 20th best mock trial program in the nation in the Gavel Ranking (2025).
Here’s what our Law School Moot Court and Mock Trial teams accomplished this past year:
- On the heels of their 2024 national title, the CWRU Black Law Student Association Mock Trial team won the 2025 Midwest BLSA Constance Baker Motley Mock Trial Competition in Chicago, Illinois, and captured two top speaker awards. It then came in 2nd at the National Competition in Nashville, Tennessee.
- In the 2025 National Rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition in Portland, Oregon, CWRU went undefeated in the preliminary rounds; won the 2nd Best Brief award; placed fifth, ninth and tenth for Best Speaker awards; and earned a berth in the International Championship Rounds in Washington, D.C. for the eleventh time in the past 20 years (including in 2008 when CWRU won the World Championship).
- In the 2025 National Rounds of the International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition in New York, CWRU won the Best Brief and the Best Speaker awards and reached the Finals, earning a berth in the International Bar Association’s ICC Moot Court Competition in The Hague for the second time in three years.
- After coming in 2nd at Harvard University’s William C. Vis International Arbitration Moot Court Competition, the CWRU team went on to the 2025 World Competition in Vienna, where it advanced to the elimination round of 32 (out of 400 teams). CWRU also won the Eric E. Bergsten Award (Honorable Mention) for Best Team Orals, and three CWRU students were among the handful of competitors to win the Martin Domke Award (Honorable Mention) for Best Individual Oralists.
- CWRU’s Vanessa Pilátová won Rhetoric’s Inaugural “Moot Court Madness” competition, a virtual, AI-judged competition, earning a $5,000 prize.
We lead the nation in study-abroad and work-abroad opportunities.
We have semester abroad programs with 17 foreign law schools on five continents, and five concurrent JD/LLM degree programs with universities in Halifax, Lille, London, Paris and Madrid. We also provide opportunities for students to spend a summer or semester interning at international courts and organizations across the globe. Our multi-million dollar endowed Frederick K. Cox International Law Center provides funding to help defray travel and living expenses.
We're one of the nation's oldest law schools, with a strong commitment to racial and social justice.
We've trained exceptional minds in the theory and practice of the law for more than 130 years. Our commitment to social justice is equally historic: Our first class in 1892 included an African-American student. We graduated the first African-American woman to serve on the Ohio State Supreme Court, the Honorable Sara J. Harper, and distinguished champions for justice in the civil rights movement such as Fred Gray and C.B. King. In 2017 we established the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Scholarships to help make it possible for students interested in public interest law to attend our school. US News and World Report ranks us #39 for the most graduates in Public Interest Law.
We have a faculty of leading scholars.
The most recent Sisk/Leiter Study ranks our faculty #43 in the nation in scholarly impact. Their work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Tribunals, and many other courts; they regularly testify before Congress; they frequently appear in the media -- and their first priority is the success of our students (Princeton Review ranks us 27th best for quality of teaching).
Our students enjoy a comfortable lifestyle on a picturesque university campus in University Circle—the cultural hub of Cleveland.
We are located in the heart of University Circle, ranked at the #1 arts district in the United States. There are many high-quality, reasonably priced housing options near the law school, as well as excellent restaurants at affordable prices. The law school is just a short stroll from the Cleveland Museum of Art (ranked as the second-best museum in the U.S.), Severance Hall (home of the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra), the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and the Cleveland Natural History Museum and Perkins Wildlife Center.
The law school is a quick ride to the second-largest theater district in the United States, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and three professional sports teams including the perennial playoff contenders Cavaliers and Guardians. The city is surrounded by natural beauty, including rolling hills reminiscent of New England, hundreds of miles of bike trails, state and national parks and Lake Erie, the 11th largest lake in the world.
We offer flexible paths to earn your JD degree - including the option of a fully remote part-time program.
At CWRU, you can obtain your JD in person or apply to our part-time remote program with no in-person residency or visitation requirements (there are optional on-campus opportunities and a Spring Break in The Hague Program). Online JD students are instructed by the same highly-ranked faculty as in-person students, with courses designed and taught by some of the leading law faculty in the U.S. Our innovative approach to legal education responds to the ever-evolving legal world and equips our students to do the same. It’s no surprise, then, that PreLaw magazine ranks us as one of the top online JD programs in the country (Winter 2025).
We educate leaders.
Our more than 10,000 living alumni include Fred Gray (pictured), a 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom winner who served as counsel to Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights movement; Austin Fragomen, founder of the nation's largest immigration firm; Patty Inglis, Executive Vice President of the San Francisco 49ers; Richard Batson, the Judge Advocate General and Chief Counsel of the U.S. Coast Guard; Christopher Rassi, Chief of Staff of the International Federation of the Red Cross; Michele Connell, Global Managing Partner of Squire Patton Boggs; Michael Turner, U.S. Congressman who recently chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and Justin Bibb, Mayor of Cleveland.