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List of law schools in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Law schools in this list are categorized by whether they are currently active or closed; within each section they are listed in alphabetical order by state, then name. Most of these law schools grant the Juris Doctor degree, commonly abbreviated JD, which is the typical first professional degree in law in the United States. Alaska is currently the only state without a law school.

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ABA accredited law schools

Law schools are nationally accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA),[1] and graduates of these schools may generally sit for the bar exam in any state. There are 198 ABA accredited law schools, along with one law school provisionally accredited by the ABA.[2] The ABA occasionally revokes accreditation, as was done mostly recently with the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in 2019.

In the past decade, since 2014, 11 law schools have closed, with the most recent closing, of Golden Gate University School of Law, announced in fall 2023.[3]

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State approved law schools

In addition, individual state legislatures or bar examiners, like the State Bar of California, may maintain a separate approval system which is open to non-ABA accredited schools. As of 2025, 19 law schools are approved by the State Bar of California.[4] Other states that approve non-ABA accredited law schools include Alabama, Massachusetts, and Tennessee.

Also, the CBE allows registered unaccredited schools to operate and students of those schools are eligible to take the California Bar Examination upon graduation. Eleven correspondence and online law schools, although not accredited, are registered by the Committee of Bar Examiners of the State Bar of California.[5] This means that the graduates of these distance learning law schools can sit for the California Bar Examination and, under varying circumstances, the bar exams in many other states.

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Non-profit schools

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1 – Provisional ABA accreditation expired in June 2011
2 – Provisional accreditation via the Puerto Rico Supreme Court

  1. Cooley Law School was affiliated with Western Michigan University until the schools ended their relationship in 2020.
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For-profit schools

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Former

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See also

Notes

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