BYU Law School Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Quinquagenary activities include refugee service project and charter class reunion

PROVO, Utah, Aug. 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- BYU Law, a global law school affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is celebrating its 50^th anniversary. The youngest of the top 25 law schools, BYU Law is renowned for its strong student body and influential faculty who have pioneered such fields as law and entrepreneurship, disaster law, transactional design, law and leadership, law and corpus linguistics, international religious freedom, and legal technology. The school, which opened its doors for the first time on Aug. 27, 1973, will hold a series of quinquagenary celebrations beginning with a charter class reunion on Saturday, August 26.

BYU Law recently ranked No. 22 in U.S. News & World Report's 2023-2024 Best Law Schools. Only four of the top 25 law schools were founded after the 1800s, with BYU Law ranking as the youngest law school on the list. The next youngest school is UCLA, which was founded in 1949 – 24 years before BYU. The only other top 25 law schools founded after the 1800s are USC (1900), Chicago (1902), and Florida (1909).

"In 50 short years, BYU Law has become a leader among law schools in the U.S. and beyond," said David H. Moore, dean of BYU Law. "BYU is also unique among law schools. BYU Law combines faith and intellect, heart and mind to develop top-notch lawyers who are also committed followers of Jesus Christ dedicated to lifelong service to God and neighbor."

BYU Law has long attracted a strong student body. In its short history, BYU Law has placed fifteen students as Supreme Court clerks. In any given year, roughly two-thirds of the student body speaks at least one foreign language. In addition to academic and professional excellence, BYU Law students are known for a strong work ethic, resilience, collegiality, integrity and maturity. Over the past 50 years, BYU Law graduates have gone on to successful careers as federal and state judges, public servants, partners in multinational and local firms, presidential advisors, and CEOs.

BYU Law emphasizes that law is a leadership degree. A component of BYU Law's Inspiring Leadership Initiative, the Milestones Program helps students develop their professional identity and prepare for leadership in the law. BYU Law also hosts an annual Law and Leadership Conference to address current challenges with a focus on how the legal industry can make the world a better place.

BYU Law pioneered the discipline of law and corpus linguistics, becoming the first law school in the U.S. to offer a course on the topic, host an annual corpus linguistics conference, and develop a dedicated Law and Corpus Linguistics Technology Platform. A methodology to understand the meaning of words by analyzing naturally occurring language in large collections of text called "corpora," corpus linguistics has grown in influence among judges and practitioners alike. 

BYU Law has also pioneered the field of international religious freedom. In January 2000, the school founded its International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) to study and promote freedom of religion or belief throughout the world. ICLRS is a recognized leader in the field of religious rights, both nationally and internationally. Through ICLRS and other programs, BYU Law has been instrumental in organizing dozens of conferences and law reform consultations each year in countries around the globe.

ICLRS is an important component of BYU Law's global footprint. That footprint includes the Global Business Law Program, with its annual Deals Conference, Future of Antitrust Series, and initiatives in Law and Entrepreneurship, Private Markets, Bankruptcy, and Women in Business Law. BYU Law's global efforts extend to a Global Law Seminar through which students spend a semester working abroad and an LLM Program for foreign attorneys that cultivates global leaders.

Since its early days, BYU Law has also been a leader in legal technology. Though remarkable now, in spring 1983, representatives from 80 law schools visited Provo to revel in BYU Law's new integrated computer system. Dean Carl Hawkins fretted that the innovative computer system would never be used enough to justify its expense. But the law library – also a pioneer in automation ­– administrators and faculty embraced the change. BYU Law continues to lead in legal technology with other pioneering initiatives that include the LawX legal design lab, launched in 2017 to explore policy and technology solutions to pressing access to legal services issues, and its Legal Technology Initiative, a state-of-the-art space that can be used for large lectures or transformed to serve as a collaborative classroom for design-thinking, problem-based, and remote instruction.

BYU Law will host a series of Golden Anniversary celebrations throughout the year beginning with a reunion of its charter class of 159 students on August 26 at the Wilkinson Center Skyroom. Other anniversary activities will include a Founder's Day dinner on August 31; a 50^th anniversary celebration on October 13; and a refugee service project focused on providing vital legal and temporal assistance to refugees in the local community, as well as the adoption of a refugee family.

About BYU Law School
Founded in 1971 with its inaugural class in 1973, the J. Reuben Clark Law School (BYU Law) has grown into one of the nation's leading law schools – recognized for innovative research and teaching in social change, transactional design, entrepreneurship, corpus linguistics, criminal justice and religious freedom. The Law School has more than 7,000 alumni serving in communities around the world. National Jurist recognized BYU Law as the #1 best-value law school in its 2021 and 2022 rankings. BYU Law also earned its highest U.S. news ranking to date, coming in at No. 22 in the U.S. News 2024 Best Law School rankings. For more information, visit https://law.byu.edu.

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