The mission of the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law is to graduate outstanding public interest lawyers and to enhance the diversity of the legal profession. Our motto, “Law in the Service of Human Needs,” infuses everything we do.

CUNY Law is located at 2 Court Square in Long Island City, a vibrant, urban community in the heart of New York City in the borough of Queens. The school is just minutes from midtown Manhattan and easily accessible by public transportation. CUNY Law’s beautiful facility is LEED-Gold certified, meaning its construction had a reduced environmental impact, and its design promotes occupants’ health and well-being. It was built with 90 percent post-consumer, recycled steel. The building recycles rainwater and runs on wind power. This makes CUNY Law one of the greenest law schools in the nation.

CUNY Law’s unique and integrated curriculum has made it a national leader in progressive legal education heralded by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Our program of study integrates practical experience, lawyering, and doctrinal study beginning in the first semester and continuing throughout the entire curriculum. All first-year students take a required two-semester Lawyering Seminar, where they focus on fundamental lawyering skills, including the skills of legal analysis and legal writing and engage in simulations requiring a wide range of lawyering tasks, such as document drafting, client interviewing and counseling, fact assessment, attorney negotiations, and presentations before tribunals. In the second year, each student also elects a four-credit Lawyering Seminar focused on developing more advanced lawyering skills in a subject area of choice, such as trial practice, mediation, public benefits, community economic development, criminal defense, and judicial writing. The lawyering program culminates in the third or fourth year, when all students are required to participate in a supervised clinic or directed externship. Complementing our lawyering program, our doctrinal faculty designs the core law school courses, such as torts, contracts, civil procedure, and constitutional law, to connect lawyering skills with the theory and doctrine necessary for our graduates to become excellent public interest attorneys. In addition, comprehensive academic support is provided by the Irene Diamond Professional Skills Center to assist students as they navigate law school. Regardless of the type of class, faculty guidance, supervision, and feedback permeate the process, as does an open-door policy, so that students learn to reflect on and become active participants in their own learning.

CUNY School of Law offers a full-time day program over the course of three years, as well as a part-time evening program over the course of four years.