New Iowa Law students relax for a moment on the community service day during orientation week.
Prospective Students
A Message from Dean Gail B. Agrawal
Congratulations on your decision to study law. You are about to embark on an intellectually challenging, and rewarding, educational endeavor. Whether you choose to practice law or pursue a career in government or business, I encourage you to make the Iowa College of Law your destination for legal education.
The Iowa College of Law is a public law school that takes its public mission seriously. And, at Iowa, “public” has always been synonymous with “excellence.” The leading academic law library, a global curriculum, and a strong writing tradition highlight this world-class legal education provided in the nation’s heartland. Through our unique Citizen Lawyer program, live-client clinics, and a wide-range of externship placements, Iowa’s law students hone their skills and embrace the highest ideals of the legal profession by providing legal services to the indigent and working on law reform for the improvement of the general welfare. Iowa-educated lawyers begin early to make a difference.
When you choose Iowa, you become part of a proud history. From the day the law school first opened its doors in 1865 through the current day, it has been a welcoming and inclusive community, admitting students dedicated to the study of law without regard to ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual identity, or socio-economic status. Today, our diverse alumni practice law from Wall Street to the Silicon Valley, from London to Beijing, and in each of Iowa’s 99 counties. As corporate counsel, they advise business leaders, and as chief executive officers, they run businesses. They are state and federal judges, appointed officials, elected leaders, law professors, law deans, and university presidents. They can be found in the halls of Congress, on Indian reservations, in classrooms, courtrooms, and boardrooms in every state in the nation, and in countries around the world. An Iowa law degree will serve you well, both near and far.
The learning environment at Iowa is rigorous and collaborative, and the intellectual climate is open and robust. Whether the topic is legal theory or legal practice, constitutional law or contracts, you will be able to select courses from a rich and varied curriculum and participate in a wide array of extracurricular learning opportunities. Your classmates will come from down the road, across the nation, and around the world. Your professors will be nationally and internationally known scholars and accomplished teachers who choose to fulfill their professional obligations to Bench and Bar by preparing the next generation of lawyers and leaders. We invite you to become one of them.
Gail B. Agrawal
Dean and F. Wendell Miller Professor of Law