Courtesy of Phantom
The UNH School of Law is ranked 82nd out of 100 of the best law schools, according to U.S. News and World Report. The school, which affiliated with UNH in 2010, is located in Concord, New Hampshire, the Granite State’s capital.
The U.S. News and World Report has improved the rating of the UNH School of Law for the fourth year in a row.
UNH School of Law, located in Concord, is currently in the same ranking group as Northeastern University on the U.S. News and World Report’s Best Law Schools list, with a ranking of 82 out of 100. According to the UNH School of Law’s website, the school’s position in U.S. News’ ranking has moved up 55 spots over the past three years.
Ranking criteria includes resources, careers of graduates, cost to attend and academics. The U.S. News site also gives information about the school’s admissions and has other rankings for different departments and different types of law taught.
The UNH School of Law, widely known for its intellectual property law program, is accredited by the American Bar Association. The intellectual property law program ranks at 5 on U.S. News and World Report’s list. This particular program has consistently been rated in the top 10 of its kind for 25 years.
For 40 years, the school has taught intellectual property law and the website claims that “when you graduate from UNH Law, you will work at the level of a second- or third-year law firm associate.”
This program offers options in both patent law, and trademarks and copyrights. For certain types of work in these fields, law students must pass a bar exam specific to those topics, such as the patent bar exam for those who wish to make a living trying patent cases. The trademarks option focuses more on the creation and enforcement of trademark law. Each pathway is very intensive with different sets of courses, so students need to decide on which option they prefer early on in their law student careers.
However, intellectual property law is only one of many fields offered at the UNH School of Law. For example, other majors include – but are not limited to – sports and entertainment law, litigation, and business law. The degree types offered are Juris Doctor (J.D.), a doctorate or the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in law; L.L.M., an internationally accepted certificate of advanced study in law, master’s, joint, double, and certificates.
Also offered are two online law programs; one in international criminal law and justice and the other in intellectual property law. The second option, however, does require some amount of time spent in New Hampshire and has a focus on patent law.
On the school’s home page there is a short list of reasons why UNH School of Law is “different.” The reasons listed include: an integrated educational experience, (referring to doing field work for credit), an intimate learning environment, (referring to the tight student-to-faculty ratio of approximately 8:3) and graduate real-world ready, (referring to the high percentage of UNH Law students who pass the bar exam and quickly obtain jobs in the field of their choice, which is approximately 90 percent).
The experiential educations involves, or has in the past involved, internship-style work called “residencies” or “clinical programs” with companies such as Sony Music Entertainment and the Federal Trade Commission. This part of the website states that, “Our Daniel Webster Scholar program is the first bar exam-alternative program of its kind in the United States.”
This in-depth program has steadily continued to improve in the eyes of the U.S. News and World Report’s ranking of best law schools.v
