Temple University—James E. Beasley School of Law
The information on this page was provided by the law school.
Official Guide to ABA-Approved JD Programs
Temple University Beasley School of Law is a leading law school committed to success both in and out of the classroom. Since 1895, Temple Law has welcomed students who are thinkers, doers, and creators from every imaginable background. The spirit of cooperation and collaboration within the student body is also present in the relationships students have with the faculty and the administration. The faculty is dedicated to preparing students to enter and continue in the legal profession with the highest level of skill possible, with a firm commitment to principles of professional responsibility, and with a sense of personal obligation to lead and to serve the communities in which they live and practice.
Our success is based on our ability to provide hands-on legal training through our an extensive selection of experiential learning opportunities and practicums. Temple Law graduates have excelled in every practice area and setting, locally and around the world, and are sought after by employers who know the value of a Temple Law degree.
The JD Program
In today’s challenging and competitive professional environment, experience counts. Temple has been a pioneer in experiential learning for more than a half century, and today’s innovative teaching methods are grounded in the experience that only decades of leadership can bring. Temple’s experiential programs are innovative in design, thoughtfully built on doctrine learned in our classrooms, and integrated throughout the curriculum.
Within weeks of beginning school, students negotiate employment agreements and interview mock clients in Introduction to Transactional Skills, while Litigation Basics gets them on their feet questioning and cross-examining witnesses in mock trials. During their first summer, Temple students have the opportunity to build upon those skills in either the Law & Public Policy Program in Washington, DC, or the Temple Summer Professional Experience Curriculum in Philadelphia. Whether they find themselves in the courtroom, conference room, or classroom, the experiences our students have today will make the difference in their careers tomorrow.
Temple offers a full roster of experiential opportunities for students who are ready to take their legal education out into the world. Every interested student is guaranteed a spot in 1 of over 25 diverse clinical courses, both internal and external to the Law School. Clinical offerings include opportunities to litigate criminal cases, work on immigration issues, assist clients with small businesses, handle bankruptcy cases, participate in medical-legal partnerships, and advocate on behalf of families in custody matters. Temple also offers the Federal Judicial Clerkship Honors Program for our third-year students, as well as the State Judicial Clerkship Clinical Program, designed exclusively for second-year students. Also, the Temple Law Practicum is a unique learning opportunity where a student and full-time faculty member engage collaboratively to solve a legal problem for a real client, often under the direction of a practicing attorney.
Student Life
A Strong Community
Temple students take full advantage of all that student life at a major urban university has to offer. They are actively involved in the governance at the law school as members of the Student Bar Association, which oversees the more than 30 student groups that flourish at Temple, including the Black Law Students Association, the Latino Law Students Association, the Asian/Pacific Islander American Law Student Association, the Women’s Law Caucus, and OUTLaw. Student publications include the Temple Law Review and the Temple International and Comparative Law Journal. Students who excel in advocacy may participate in the National Trial Team or the Moot Court Competition Team.
Career Placement and Bar Passage
Tuition and Aid
Temple Law School has its own financial aid office dedicated to assisting law students with financial aid and billing questions. Our financial aid counselors are available to help students navigate the financial aid application process and provide loan and debt management counseling.
Admission Decisions: Beyond the Numbers
Temple is committed to admitting the very best applicants from our pool of talented individuals. The faculty admissions committee takes seriously its responsibility to carefully and individually evaluate each application. Our admission process is designed to look at the whole person. The faculty selects applicants who have outstanding performance records and exceptional aptitudes for the study of law. In doing so, the faculty recognizes that these criteria are not always reflected by grade point averages and LSAT scores alone.
Consistent with the ideals of Russell Conwell, the founder of Temple University, Temple Law School takes seriously its mission of offering opportunities to students who might otherwise be foreclosed from pursuing a high quality legal education. The law school began as an evening program 125 years ago, providing students with jobs and families the chance to pursue a legal education.
More than forty years ago the faculty at Temple Law School established Sp.A.C.E. in order to give a contemporary voice to Temple’s traditional mission. Sp.A.C.E. is a discretionary admissions process which avoids over-reliance on the LSAT or any other arbitrary and abstract measuring factor in the admissions process. At the discretion of the faculty admissions committee, any application may be considered under Sp.A.C.E.. The faculty has identified the following characteristics as priorities in determining whether or not an applicant should be admitted: applicants who have overcome serious long-standing economic deprivation, or who come from working class families historically foreclosed from higher education; applicants who come from racial or ethnic minority groups; applicants whose families are recent immigrants to the United States; applicants who have demonstrated exceptional leadership ability in college, community or career activities, or who have evidenced a commitment to service through Peace Corps, VISTA, military or other service work; applicants with academic honors, graduate or undergraduate degrees of unusual merit, or undergraduate grade point averages of 3.8 or higher and standardized test scores that do not reflect this academic strength; applicants who worked during college to finance their education or support their families; applicants who identify as gay, lesbian or transgender; applicants with significant or unusual career achievement since graduation from college; applicants with serious physical disabilities; and applicants with other unique strengths and achievements.
Applicants who believe that one or more of these characteristics describes them or their background are encouraged to share their unique personal history, highlighting for the faculty admissions committee their strengths and achievement. This information will assist the faculty admissions committee in fairly evaluating each applicant. This information can be included in a personal statement, or in an additional Sp.A.C.E. statement.
