About The Equal Justice Works Guide To Law Schools

The Equal Justice Works Guide to Law Schools is a free interactive online resource of public interest opportunities, curricula and financial assistance programs at law schools across the United States. The result of a unique collaboration between Equal Justice Works and participating schools, The Guide compiles extensive data on the availability of courses, clinics and externships, financial aid and loan repayment assistance programs, the allocation of faculty and administrative resources, and other criteria essential to students who plan to pursue public interest legal careers. Unlike traditional print resources, The Guide allows you to create side-by-side comparisons and see how schools measure up to your personal priorities.

Who uses The Guide?
The Equal Justice Works Guide to Law Schools provides valuable information for several user groups:

• Pre-law advisors and law school applicants who wish to research and compare public interest programs, curricula, faculty and student engagement, tuition and the availability of financial aid, scholarships and grants, and public interest opportunities at law schools around the country;
• Current law students seeking fresh ideas from other schools regarding student group activities and curricular and co-curricular offerings;
• Law school faculty and staff who wish to improve or expand their current programs by taking a look at innovative practices at other institutions; and
• Public service employers seeking schools that provide students with courses, practical skills training and opportunities that are a good match for their client services and hiring needs.

Read more about what you should look for in The Guide.

How is The Guide different from other law school guides?
Equal Justice Works is committed to creating a more just society by mobilizing the next generation of lawyers committed to equal justice. Our intent is for The Guide to assist students in finding the best schools for them and to assist law schools in comparing their offerings and raising the bar for public interest programs and opportunities.

More specifically, the goals of The Equal Justice Works Guide to Law Schools are:

1. To provide a resource to help law school applicants look beyond lists and rankings to find schools that meet both their practical needs and educational goals;
2. To provide all users with comparable information on key factors that indicate how law schools have institutionalized support for public interest throughout and beyond the legal education experience;
3. To protect resources devoted to public interest programs;
4. To attract additional visibility and resources;
5. To highlight best practices and curricular and co-curricular innovations dedicated to advancing public interest law; and
6. To encourage discussion on the role of public service in legal education.

There are no rankings in The Guide
The data and narratives we collect from schools do not lend themselves to qualitative rankings and we discourage attempts to do so. Equal Justice Works does not make any qualitative judgments about the data, nor do we weight or otherwise prioritize the data.

We believe that rankings have little to do with finding a quality legal education for an individual applicant. Many aspects of the law school experience are extremely important to education and training but are difficult to quantify. These include student satisfaction, rigor of academic and skills-based training, accessibility of faculty and administrators, support for – and recognition of – student initiatives and more.

Equal Justice Works recognizes that each law school is different in its mission, culture and student engagement. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to what public interest offerings are a good fit for an individual school, or for individual law school applicants. With this in mind, The Guide is structured so that each school can highlight its strengths, through clinics, externships, career services, curriculum, affordability and financial aid, student engagement, publications, pro bono and other public service programs and initiatives.

Where do we get the information in The Guide?
Participation in The Guide is voluntary. Participating schools self-report using a carefully designed and user-tested online survey database. We are fortunate to have had the advice of many experts in legal education in selecting and refining questions.

Schools confirm the accuracy of the current information and have the ability to update their information on an ongoing basis so check back often.