​About the USD School of Law

The University of San Diego School of Law is recognized for the excellence of its faculty, depth of its curriculum and strength of its clinical programs.

Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation. 

USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 30th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 28th nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.

School of Law Mission Statement

We are proud to be an integral part of the University of San Diego -- an engaged contemporary Catholic university community that is “committed to advancing academic excellence, expanding liberal and professional knowledge, creating a diverse and inclusive community and preparing leaders who are dedicated to ethical conduct and compassionate service.” The central mission of the USD’s School of Law (“Law School”) is to cultivate and sustain a stimulating, entrepreneurial, and compassionate intellectual environment that nurtures and supports both our students’ education and training and our faculty’s scholarship. In the service of this central mission, we have educational and scholarly missions that sustain and reinforce each other. Our educational mission is to prepare our students to become outstanding attorneys and leaders who excel in the practice of law. Our scholarly mission is to make an enduring mark on our fields of study and to illuminate and enliven how we educate our students.

We strive through our teaching, scholarship, and service activities to instill in our students the capacity for critical judgment and practical skills that they will need to thrive in their professional lives. We are committed to providing our students with a deep understanding of the legal and social theory and research skills that will inform their choices and arguments. We are dedicated to endowing our students with a full appreciation of the ethical duties and responsibilities that come with being a member of the legal profession, which will allow them to become leaders in their public lives.