Loyola University New Orleans

The law school has obvious resources and advantages by its location in New Orleans such as being the birthplace of Jazz, the largest city in Louisiana, and a very multi-cultural city. The law school is about 5.0 miles from the District Court of Orleans Parish (state Civil and Criminal courthouse), 4.8 miles from the The John Minor Wisdom United States Court of Appeals Building that houses the 5th District Court of Appeals (Federal appeals court), 4.9 miles form the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (Federal court), and only 1.4 miles from The State of Louisiana Court of Appeal, for the Fourth Circuit.

New Orleans is the most populated city in Louisiana, although it is only the 62nd largest city in the U.S. and does not have a very large legal community. There are about 8 large law firms in the city (250+ attorneys) and about 19 medium sized firms (50 - 249 attorneys). The law school has about 800 plus alumni practicing in New Orleans with a substantial number who are partners and associates in the largest law firms and who also work as corporate counsel for very large publicly traded corporations.

Overall, the law school is in a great location. It has a great social atmosphere for students to make alumni connections and releive stress from the rigors of law school and seems like a very nice place to work.

	Loyola University New Orleans
Public or Private	Private
Tuition	$32,395
Acceptance Rate	67.2%
State Bar Pass Rate	Louisiana, July 2008 70.5% (Bar pass rate for Louisiana, 64.3%
Employment Rate after 9 mos. from Graduation	95.3%
Employment Rate at Graduation	63.4%
Average Salary for Graduates in the Private Sector	Not made available
Student Body Population	868
LSAT score bottom 25th percentile of incoming class	149
LSAT score top 25th percentile of incoming class	155
Median LSAT of incoming class	153
Bottom 25th percentile of incoming class undergraduate GPA (UGPA)	3.09
Top 25th percentile of incoming class UGPA for both campuses	3.56
Median UGPA	3.3

The Loyola University New Orleans College of Law is a third tier law school located in New Orleans in the Uptown/Carrolton District. The law school was founded in 1914 and the larger Loyola University New Orleans is a member of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (Jesuit is an order of the Roman Catholic Faith and the association has over 28 affiliated colleges, such as Boston College, that share resources i.e. a job bank and study abroad programs) The school has three legal centers and programs: The Center for Law and Sports, The American and Carribean Law Initiative (where students work on legal issues with Carribean attorney generals), and the Northeast Florida Environmental Summit. As new as the school is, it had doen well in employment Rates (although the average salary is low) and bar passage rates. As one of Louisiana's law schools the school offers courses in Civil (the law of Louisiana wherein judges decide cases based on the civil code not legal precedent i.e. judge made law) and Common Law (typical american legal system with legal precedent and legislation).

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The law school uses a standard alphabetical grading system. For each first year course the grading curve is as follows:
there must be at least 5% A's in the class but no more than 15% of the grades;
there must be at least 5% B+'s in the class but no more than 15%;
there must be at least 10% B's in the class but no more than 30%;
there must be at least 10% C+'s in the class but no more than 30%;
there must be at least 10% C's in the class but no more than 30%;
and finally there must be at least 5% C-'s and below but may not be more than 20% of the grades.

Therefore, the school has a flexible grading curve guideline that the professors must follow (or give a justification for deviation to the Dean) and seems to allow the curve to be between an B and a C. Most likely the curve will depend on the subject and professor.

Overall it seems like a fair grading system that allows the professors a lot of leeway.

The population of New Orleans before Katrina was about 485,000 and is now about 288,000 or 59% of its population before the hurricane. Obviously the decrease in population has had some effect on the legal community. However, the city still has two Federal courts and several state courts. For a city of its current population the city has a decent sized legal community.