Brief Summary
Recent News
South Texas College of Law
Location
The law school's campus is located in the heart of downtown Houston, Texas. The law school is only 1.3 miles from the Criminal Justice Center (where the state's District and County criminal courts are located), 1.0 mile from the Harris County District Court (the new civil courthouse), .9 miles from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and U.S. Bankruptcy (Federal courthouses), and even has the Court of Appeals for the First Court of Appeals District of Texas (state court of appeals) on the school's own campus. The First Court of Appeals is an intermiediary court of appeals for the state having jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases appealed from the district and county courts in the 10 surrounding counties. There is obvious opportunites presented by having such a great resource directly on the campus, such as: law students being able to attend appellate hearings and discuss the legal issues with the justices. This great addition to the campus can give the law students some good real world experience.
Houston is the fourth largest populated city in the United States and has a large legal community to match. There are about 40 large law firms (250+ attorneys) and about 31 medium sized firms (50 - 249 attorneys) in Houston. The law school has over 2800 alumni practicing law in the Houston area with a number working in some of the largest law firms as well as working as corporate counsel for large companies. As mentioned above the city has both federal and state courts as well as a state court of appeals on the school's campus. The law school seems like it is in a great location allowing for numerous legal opportunities.
| |
South Texas College of Law |
|
Public or
Private
|
Private |
| Tuition |
$24,390 |
|
Acceptance
Rate
|
50.5% |
|
State
Bar
Pass Rate
|
Texas, July 2008
89.57%
(Overall pass
rate
for Texas 80.27%)
|
|
Employment
Rate after
9 mos. from
Graduation
|
77.5%
|
|
Employment
Rate
at
Graduation
|
Not Made Available
By the School
|
|
Average
Salary
for Graduates in
the Private Sector
|
$79,000
|
|
Student
Body
Population
|
936 |
|
LSAT
score
bottom
25th percentile of
incoming class
|
150 |
|
LSAT
score
top
25th percentile of
incoming class
|
155 |
|
Median
LSAT
of incoming class
|
153 |
|
Bottom
25th
percentile of
incoming class
undergraduate
GPA (UGPA)
|
2.92 |
|
Top
25th
percentile of
incoming class
UGPA
|
3.50 |
| Median
UGPA |
3.26 |
South Texas law school first in nation to 100 advocacy titles
The South Texas College of Law is a fourth tier law school that first opened its doors in 1923 making it the oldest law school in Houston. Although, it is not as well known nationally as some of the larger unversities the school has a very good bar passage rate and average salary. The law school has six clinics: Mediation Clinic, Family Law Basic Clinic, Family Law Complex Clinic, Probate/Estate Planning Clinic, Access to Justice Clinic (Social Security Disability cases), Guardianship Clinic.
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Grading System
The law school uses a standard alphabetical grading system with a correlating 4.0 scale GPA. The law school does not have a forced grading curve meaning there are no required D's, F's etc. The school only requires the student to maintain a passing 2.0 GPA. If any student earns less than a 2.0 GPA for a semester the student will be placed on Academic Probation. If the student does not achieve at least a 2.0 GPA after the second semester the student will be automatically dismissed. The school seems to leave a lot of the curve up to the professors and most likely there is a natural curve. Some professors are probably tougher than others when grading exams. However, this seems like a very fair grading system that rewards hard work and effort and does not automatically fail a certain percent of students. This fair grading system is probably a reason the school's graduates obtain great associate positions in the local legal community.
The law school has been recognized as the first in the United States to reach 100 national moot court competitions. The law school won its first national title in 1980 and reached the milestone on April, 7 2008.