Ryan J. Dowd
J.D. ’03
The College of Law has a strong commitment to public service. Many alumni serve as public interest attorneys, prosecutors, defenders, elected officials and judges.
Out of 3,200 alumni, 71 are judges - one of the highest ratios of alumni to alumni judges among law schools in the state.
Jennifer Rosato, dean of the college, is only the third Latina law school dean in the nation.
College of Law
The NIU College of Law is an ABA-approved law school and is the only public law school in the greater Chicago area.
NIU Law Named a “Tuition Winner”
NIU Law was named as one of the top law schools in the nation when it comes to minimizing tuition inflation according to preLaw magazine in its Spring 2012 issue. The College of Law was represented on a list of “Tuition Winners” based on the lowest tuition increases by dollar amount of all law schools in the United States.
Named a Best School for Public Service
In January 2012, the College of Law was named one of the "Best Schools for Public Service" by The National Jurist. NIU was one of only 20 law schools named to the category of "Government" with 16 percent of its graduates landing legal jobs local, state or federal governments.
Diversity Honor Roll
The National Jurist also named the College of Law one of the most diverse law schools in the United States in its March 2011 issue. NIU Law was one of only 24 schools to receive an A- or above out of 198 colleges included in the rankings.
Ranked in Nation's Top 20 Best Values
The College of Law was ranked among the Top 20 law schools in the nation based on value by preLaw Magazine, sister publication of the National Jurist, as part of its 2010 Best Value Law Schools study.
The study ranked the top 60 schools, both public and private institutions, of the nearly 200 American Bar Association-approved law schools in the United States. As the only public school in the Chicago metropolitan area to make the Top 20, NIU Law ranked 13th on the list.
Among Nation's Top 10 for Faculty Diversity
The College of Law was ranked among the Top 10 law schools for having the most diverse faculty by the Princeton Review, as published in its 2011 edition of Best 172 Law Schools.
Ranked No. 9 in the nation, this is the sixth year since 2005 that NIU Law has been named on this prestigious list and among the Top 10 schools for diverse faculty. Nearly 40 percent of the full-time faculty are people of color and 40 percent are women.