Chapman University School of Law

The University

Chapman University is a 146-year-old non-profit private institution currently ranked in the First Tier of Western Masters Universities by U.S News & World Reports. Chapman's overall student body consists of approximately 5,700 students, including 580 students at the law school. The school offers 53 different majors at the undergraduate level, and confers degrees in 22 graduate fields of study.

The Law School

Chapman University School of Law is fully accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). The school of law is part of a university campus, which gives law students access to educational, cultural, and recreational activities that often cannot be replicated at a stand-alone law school. It also lets us offer cross disciplinary study in approved courses with other Colleges within our University. Although the law school is less than 15 years old, Chapman has quickly earned a reputation as an emerging center for legal education. We compete exceedingly well against many well-established schools in key law school rankings.

Our school is currently ranked the Number One law school for “Quality of Life” (a measure of overall law school community experience) by The Princeton Review (2008 edition) and has been in the Top 5 in Quality of Life since 2006. The Princeton Review also ranks us in the Top 10 law school for “Best Classroom Experience” (2008).

We are pleased to report that the US News 2009 Graduate School rankings moved Chapman in the 3rd tier of American law schools with many measures of our performance well into Tiers 1 and 2. Dean John Eastman stated that, "As more and more people take notice just what we have accomplished, it will be clear to all that Chapman is a school on the rise and not satisfied with the status quo."

Chapman Law School offers JD certificate programs in five different concentrations and extensive clinical programs. In addition to our Juris Doctor degree Chapman law school offers a JD/MBA and LLM's in Taxation and Prosecutorial Science.

The Program

LL.M. IN TAXATION
The LL.M. in Taxation continues Chapman’s advance in the field of tax law. The school's commitment to tax law begins at the J.D. level with our Tax Law Emphasis certification program. We are one of very few law schools to offer such a certificate. We have a Tax Law Clinic whereby students handle actual cases before the IRS and in U.S. Tax Court. We were among the first law schools to be awarded a federal grant to operate a Low Income Taxpayer Clinic, and have participated in that program every year since its inception. We have fielded a second place team in the American Bar Association’s Young Lawyer's Tax Law Challenge. Our graduates have been placed at leading law and accounting firms and at the IRS. Clearly, there is a historical culture of tax at Chapman.

Our LL.M. in Taxation is the natural extension to build on the impressive foundations listed above. But beyond that, the faculty's decision to offer an LL.M. in Taxation demonstrates an awareness of the importance and impact of this ever expanding field of law. The LL.M. has allowed Chapman to increase our tax faculty and has allowed us to augment our specialized tax collections in the Rinker Law Library and our satellite PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, Tax Law Library.

Our six full time tax faculty includes leaders in various Tax sections and committees of the American Bar Association, professors ranked in the Top 10 in tax scholarship as measured by the Social Science Research Network, and prolific scholars including casebook authors. In addition to the traditional Personal and Business related tax law courses that you will find in most Tax LL.M. programs, Chapman has made a particular effort to include an extensive array of Advanced Estate Planning courses. We also offer specialized courses in International Taxation and many areas of Advanced Business and Personal Tax Planning.

The Tax program has both fall and spring admissions. More information about the program may be found at: http://www.chapman.edu/gradtax You may also request information by sending an email to: gradtax@chapman.edu Feel free to call the LL.M. Offices at (714) 628-2635, and you will be put into contact with a faculty member who can answer your specific questions about the Tax program.

LL.M. IN PROSECUTORIAL SCIENCE
Chapman University School of Law is proud to be the first law school in the United States to offer an LL.M. in Prosecutorial Science. Very few law schools in the nation offer an LL.M. in Criminal Law, and none specialize in an advanced degree specifically for criminal prosecutors. This program is the vision of Dean Emeritus Parham H. Williams, Jr., in collaboration with the California District Attorney’s Association (CDAA). Dean Williams is a former elected District Attorney, and has over 40 years experience in legal education, including over 35 years serving in decanal positions at ABA-accredited law schools, the last ten of which were as the Dean of Chapman University School of Law.

Entry into this program is generally limited to active prosecutors with five or more years of experience in the prosecution of crimes. The program is offered to prosecutors from District Attorney Offices, City Attorney Offices, the Department of Justice, the Office of the Inspector General, the U.S. Department of Justice, and Tribal Prosecutors as well as a variety of national offices.

Candidates who are accepted into the program will receive graduate instruction from an experienced team of veteran academicians and prosecutors. The program offers courses with application in all states, as well as advanced electives on state-specific laws and procedures.

Because the program is limited to those in active practice, classes are primarily held during the evenings and weekends with an in-house summer residency. Approximately 75% of the coursework is interactive live distance-learning courses that are conducted via sophisticated two-way on-line audio/video classrooms. This is not just a one way webcast or videos of past class lectures. Students participate in discussions and questions on a real time basis. The program consists of advanced courses important to prosecutors, including Prosecutorial Ethics, Advanced Evidence, Handling the Homicide Case, Environmental Crimes and Procedure, Handling Media Relations, and others.

The Prosecutor's program classes seat in the fall (with a summer residency in advance of your first fall semester). For more information about the program, see: http://www.chapman.edu/prosecutor You may also request information by sending an email to: prosec@chapman.edu Feel free to call the LL.M. Offices at (714) 628-2635, and you will be put into contact with a faculty member who can answer your specific questions about the Prosecutorial Science program.

The Faculty

Chapman has nearly 40 full-time faculty including a Nobel Laureate, four former Supreme Court clerks, and professors who hold degrees from Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Berkeley, Michigan, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell, Georgetown, UCLA, and USC among others. In addition to our full-time faculty, we are very proud of our program adjuncts, who are respected practitioners in their areas of expertise and bring real world experience and a teaching dynamic to the classroom.

The Princeton Review (2006, 2007, 2008) ranked our faculty in the Top 10 for “Professors Rock - Legally Speaking” (a measure of interesting and accessible faculty) which speaks volumes about the supportive nature of our institution.

Courses in the LL.M. programs are taught by a mixture of experienced full-time professors and leading practitioners who bring extensive experience in very specialized areas of legal practice. Our curriculums are designed to provide each student with a background in the program areas most often encountered, while allowing each student to choose specialized courses according to his or her interest.

Short biographies of the faculty teaching within the Tax and Prosecutorial Science programs may be found at: Chapman Faculty Profiles. Complete biographies are printed in the program brochures for the respective programs.

Entry Requirements

The admission requirements are different for each LL.M. program. Please note the differences for each program. The information below lists the minimum requirements in order for us to consider a candidate for admission. Meeting these minimum criteria in no way guarantees your admission. Please consult the individual program catalogs and Chapman's website for more detailed information about our admissions standards.

Application Procedure

The procedure to apply to our LL.M. programs varies slightly, so please note the instructions below carefully.

Tuition and Fees

2008-2009 tuition for both LL.M. programs is $1,200 per credit (unit) hour. See: Tutition and Fee Information to learn more about tuition and other fees.

Financial Aid

Merit scholarship for the LL.M. in Taxation is available for candidates with exceptional academic and/or professional records that clearly demonstrate an acumen for taxation.

The LL.M. in Prosecutorial Science program is pleased to offer up to 20 full-tuition scholarships, per enrolling class to members of the California District Attorneys Association as generously provided by the Institute for the Advancement of Criminal Justice. Procedures for scholarship consideration will be provided upon the return of a completed application.

The Financial Aid Office at Chapman University School of Law is happy to discuss the general federal loan programs (Stafford, Perkins, and Graduate PLUS) as well as private and emergency loans. You may contact our Financial Aid Office directly at (714) 628-2510, or through Chapman's website: Chapman Financial Aid Office. For more information about loans and other financing available to graduate law students, see: Chapman Graduate Loan Information.

Location

With its beautiful campus near historic old towne Orange, California, Chapman University is conveniently located between Los Angeles and San Diego in Orange County. The campus consists of historically preserved buildings (often seen in major motion pictures), and new state of the art facilities.

The law school building is Kennedy Hall, a state-of-the-art, $30 million dollar building, housing 130,000 square feet of space that includes classrooms intentionally designed to limit per-class capacity, a law bookstore, student lounges, and trial & appellate courtrooms. The building and classrooms have both wired and wi-fi capabilities.

Our Rinker Law Library has over 290,000 volumes & volume equivalents, and has been ranked as one of the Top 5 “Wired Law Libraries” (technologically advanced) in the country by National Jurist magazine. The library's reference staff includes three duo-degreed lawyer-librarians who are all published authors in their field.

Within a short walk you will find charming antique shops and boutiques, fantastic restaurants, and shaded, tree-lined streets full of unique historic homes. Within a short drive you will have access to beaches, mountains, major league sports team events, and a host of cultural and recreational opportunities.

The climate near Chapman is referred to as coastal desert, and is enviable. Summer-time average temperatures are in upper 70's with low humidity. Winter daytime averages are in the upper 60's with little rain.