Located in Washington, D.C., The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law (Catholic Law) is among the best choices you can make if your goal is to graduate with the skills — such as critical legal analysis, legal writing, and effective oral advocacy — that are essential to successful legal practice in the 21st century. Catholic Law is composed of collegial and compassionate students, academically distinguished and supportive faculty, and accomplished and well-connected alumni that stand ready to help today’s students reach their goals.
Catholic Law has a unique mission of service, which is part of our Catholic Faith and the legal profession. This mission crosses all religions, and allows those of any faith to feel at home and part of the University. The Law School maintains Clinics, Centers, and Projects to further explore subjects like Immigration, Religious Liberty, the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Law & the Human Person, and more.
Applications for Fall 2024 are being accepted on LSAC.org and the application fee for Catholic Law has been waived. There are Scholarships available to Catholic Law for qualified students. Contact our Admissions team with your questions at 202-319-5151 or admissions@law.edu.
Clinics at Catholic Law
The commitment to ensuring that our graduates are practice-ready directs the Catholic Law experience. Recognizing that classwork and textbooks alone do not quite complete the transformation of student to lawyer, all academic programs include transition-to-practice requirements. Many also require participation in clinics, externships, trial or moot court teams, or other hands-on experience.
Through "live client" and simulated lawyering experiences, students learn practical trial techniques, research and writing skills, and other important lawyering skills, such as counseling, interviewing, negotiating, and mediating.
Clinical skills lie at the heart of how the law functions as a tool to help and protect others, especially society’s most vulnerable. The Law School’s clinical options offer students invaluable, firsthand experience in representing real clients with real legal problems in real courts, under the supervision of faculty members.
- Columbus Community Legal Services
- Families and the Law Clinic
- Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Clinic - Criminal Defense Clinic
- Criminal Prosecution Clinic
- D.C. Modern Prosecution Program
- Nonprofit Advocacy Clinic
- Religious Liberty Clinic
- Trusts and Estates
The Center for Religious Liberty
The Center for Religious Liberty at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, is an academic center dedicated to the study and articulation of the Catholic approach to religious liberty as a fundamental human right for all persons, regardless of faith. This right is recognized by the United States Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Church's teaching in Dignitatis Humanae.
The Center will aim to increase discussion and understanding of these issues by hosting speakers, organizing conferences, awarding writing prizes, providing educational programming, and commenting on religious liberty issues in the public square.
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The Center for Law and the Human Person
The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law aims to achieve distinction in the Catholic intellectual tradition and to promote the ideals of the dignity of each human person, respect for the inviolability of all human life, justice rooted in the common good, the recognition and protection of human rights as gifts of the Creator, care for the poor, the neglected, and the vulnerable, and the obligation of love for one another.
The Center for Law and the Human Person serves as our central resource for thinking about how these core commitments ought to inform the study, teaching, and practice of law. The Center will support relevant scholarly research and curricular development, emphasize student formation, and engage broader academic, professional, and public policy communities.
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The Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition
The Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) promotes scholarship that explores the relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition for American constitutionalism. That tradition is deep and rich, including philosophical and theological accounts of law and politics by such figures as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Although CIT’s primary focus is on theories of constitutional law, such as originalism, its ambit is broad and covers the relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition for constitutional history, doctrine, and other fields of study. CIT carries out its mission through such activities as guest lectures, conferences, courses offered through the Law School, a program on the Catholic intellectual tradition for young lawyers in the D.C. area, and a program of special events and offerings for students at The Catholic University of America.
CIT’s goal is to become the center of scholarly conversation about the relationship between the Catholic intellectual tradition and American constitutionalism and to reach beyond the academy to think tanks, young professionals, and the broader public.
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