The University of Tulsa College of Law is the law school of the University of Tulsa, a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Established in 1923, it was originally known as the Tulsa Law School and become absorbed by the University of Tulsa in 1943.
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History
The University of Tulsa College of Law was founded by local attorneys during one of Tulsa's oil booms in 1923 with Washington E. Hudson, a state senator and Ku Klux Klan leader, serving as dean from 1923 to 1943. The law school was originally known simply as the Tulsa Law School and was independent of the University of Tulsa. Initially, classes took place in the Central High School building in downtown Tulsa, while the law library was in the Tulsa County courthouse, a few blocks away. The faculty initially consisted of practicing Tulsa attorneys who taught classes at night.
Tulsa Law was formally absorbed by the University of Tulsa in 1943. A pioneering Tulsa attorney named John Rogers is credited with making this association. In 1949, the school moved into a downtown office building. In 1953, the school was accredited by the American Bar Association. During the 1950s and 60s, the library, classrooms and administrative offices were consolidated at a single location in downtown Tulsa and full-time tenured and tenure-track research faculty were hired. The school became a member of the Association of American Law Schools in 1966. The name of the school was formally changed to the University of Tulsa College of Law.
In the late 1970s, the Energy Law Journal and the National Energy and Law Policy Institute were established at the law school (NELPI). The National Energy Law and Policy Institute was initially led by Kent Frizzell, who had served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States from 1972 to 1973 and Undersecretary of the Department of the Interior from 1975 to 1977. During this time, Frizzell also taught at Tulsa Law.
Law school building
Tulsa Law moved from downtown Tulsa to its present location on the University of Tulsa's main campus in 1973, where it was housed in what was then named John Rogers Hall. The building was formally dedicated with a speech by U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist.
In May 2016, the university decided to remove the name of John Rogers from the law school's building, in response to increased controversy about Rogers' role in the founding of the Ku Klux Klan in Tulsa in the 1920s.
Employment
According to TU Law's 2021 ABA-required disclosures, 91.6% of the Class of 2016 obtained full-time, long-term positions for which bar passage was required (75%) or for which a J.D. was an advantage (16.6%) nine months after graduation, excluding solo practitioners and clerkships, putting TU in the middle of regional peers like Baylor Law School, the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and SMU Dedman School of Law.
Costs
The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at TU Law for the 2015–2016 academic year is $58,496 (full-time). 100% of TU Law students received scholarships and/or tuition benefits in 2015.
The Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $201,183 (however this figure does not account for merit- or need-based aid).
Notable faculty
The notable current and former faculty of TU Law include:
Larry Catá Backer – Cuban-American scholar of comparative law and international affairs
Daniel J. Boudreau - Oklahoma Supreme Court justice
Robert Butkin – Law professor, former Dean of Tulsa Law, and former State Treasurer of Oklahoma
Brad Carson – former U.S. Representative from Oklahoma and Under Secretary of the Army
Nancy Feldman – Civil rights activist and community leader
Paul Finkelman – Legal historian (Finkelman was listed as one of the ten most-cited legal historians in Brian Leiter's survey of most-cited law professors by specialty from 2000 to 2007)
Kent Frizzell – United States Under Secretary of the Interior (1975–1977) and Attorney General of Kansas (1969–1971)
Summers T. Hardy - Oklahoma Supreme Court justice
F. Russell Hittinger – Legal philosopher and Catholic theologian, member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences
Sven Erik Holmes – General Counsel of KPMG, former Federal District Judge for Northern District of Oklahoma.
Janet K. Levit – joined law faculty as professor in 1995. She was promoted to dean of TU College of Law in 2017, then became Provost and vice president of TU. Served as Interim President of TU, July 2020 – January 2022, then returned to her previous duties.