Willamette University College of Law

The Willamette University College of Law is the law school of Willamette University. Located in Salem, Oregon, and founded in 1883, Willamette is the oldest law school in the Pacific Northwest. It has approximately 24 full-time law professors and enrolls about 300 students, with about 100 of those enrolled in their first year of law school. The campus is located across the street from the Oregon State Capitol and the Oregon Supreme Court Building; the College is located in the Truman Wesley Collins Legal Center. It offers both full-time and part-time enrollment for the Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.) degree, joint-degree programs, and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) program. The joint-degree programs allow students to earn both a J.D. and a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) concurrently in a four-year program, or complete a bachelor's degree and J.D. in six years. Willamette Law's oldest legal journal is the Willamette Law Review, which started in 1960 and is housed in the Oregon Civic Justice Center. According to Willamette's 2016 ABA-required disclosures, 52.63% of the Class of 2016 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation. Of all 2016 grads who passed the bar, 84.31% had full-time, long-term, JD-required employment. History Founding and early years In July 1866, Willamette University's trustees formed a committee to explore the possibility of a legal department. At that time, legal education was traditionally taught as an apprenticeship in which those wishing to be lawyers would study under an existing attorney for several years before being allowed to pass the bar. Although the school did not begin a legal department in 1866, Willamette did confer a Doctor of Laws degree on Matthew P. Deady, who later helped establish the University of Oregon School of Law, Oregon's second law school.