Church to Establish Law School at BYU

A major announcement affecting Church education was released in the early spring when the First Presidency announced their decision to establish a college of law at Brigham Young University. The new college will receive its first students in the fall of 1973.

The college will be named the J. Reuben Clark, Jr., College of Law, in honor of the late counselor in the First Presidency (1933–1961). He was Undersecretary of State in the Department of State, U.S. ambassador to Mexico, and an authority on international law.

One reason for the establishment of the law school is that most U.S. law schools are filled to capacity. Consequently many Latter-day Saint students desiring law training are unable to receive it. Some 90,000 students took the Law School Aptitude Test in the United States this year. They were competing for only 27,000 openings in law schools.

Present plans are to accept about 150 to 175 students each year to maintain an enrollment at the new college of about 450 to 500 students in the three-year program. Before the college goes into operation, BYU will need a new law building, law library (40,000 volumes to be collected for the first year of operation, and by the third year, a total of 100,000 volumes), and a law faculty.

The new college will not increase the 25,000 maximum enrollment at BYU set by the board of trustees. The law college enrollment will be a part of the 25,000 maximum enrollment.

Of special interest to potential law students is that a characteristic of the BYU law school will be its emphasis on national (USA) rather than state laws. Most U.S. law schools are attached to state universities and concentrate on the laws of their respective states. Students at BYU, however, come from every state in the union and usually return to their home states. Hence, the new Church law school will serve the needs of its students rather than the needs of a particular state.