Academic Programs
Texas Law is home to six innovative, award-winning, academic programs, and still growing. You should also learn about our 11 centers, each helping lead the national conversation on topics such as national security, energy, the First Amendment, and public interest law.
Advocacy Program
The University of Texas School of Law has a nationally recognized Advocacy Program that links the academic and competitive aspects of advocacy. The program focuses on all areas of advocacy by building on the rich tradition already established and assisting students in developing a core set of skills that will make them persuasive advocates no matter who their audience.
AI Innovation and Law Program
The AI revolution has profound implications for law, lawyers, and legal institutions—just as law has profound implications for the future path of the labs, researchers, companies, and investors who are fueling the revolution. With the entrepreneurial spirit characteristic of Austin and The University of Texas, Texas Law’s new AI Innovation and Law Program is moving in real time with novel courses, creative events, engagements with policymakers, and more, all to explore—and chart—the future of artificial intelligence
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Law and Business Program
Texas Law has a proud tradition of alumni success in transactional and business careers. Building on that foundation, we have launched the Law and Business Program (LAB) as the next stage in our commitment to attracting students interested in such careers and providing them with world-class opportunities and guidance. The Program expands our already-robust offerings with new courses and unique extracurriculars emphasizing practical transactional know-how and knowledge of business fundamentals. It also enhances community for students interested in such careers through mentoring, networking events, support for student organizations, and identification as Student Affiliates.
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Law and Philosophy Program
The Law and Philosophy Program (LPP) is a joint endeavor of the School of Law and Department of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin. The university established LPP as a combined J.D. and Ph.D. degree program that is designed to be completed in seven years. Students in LPP may count two law courses towards the Ph.D. requirements and four philosophy courses towards the J.D. requirements, and in this way they can save roughly a year’s worth of work towards the two degrees.
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Private Law Theory Program
Texas Law scholars are engaging in sustained study of the conceptual, normative, and doctrinal foundations of private law. The building blocks of private law—torts, contract, and property—do more than merely distribute resources and opportunities, a role typically associated with public law. They also shape the predistribution of powers and entitlements that construct interpersonal relationships. In so doing, private law structures the terms of our interactions in the market, the workplace, the neighborhood, on the road, across online platforms, within families, and beyond. Visit our site to learn about our scholarship, courses, and upcoming events.
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Richard and Ginni Mithoff Pro Bono Program
The vision for the Richard and Ginni Mithoff Pro Bono Program at Texas Law is that students will engage in pro bono work to increase access to justice, build their lawyering skills and develop a lifetime commitment to providing legal services to those in need.
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Centers
Texas Law is home to some of the nation’s leading centers in legal education. From our newest center, the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, to the longstanding Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, these subject-driven hubs of scholarship and activity offer Texas Law’s students access to talented faculty from the law school and across campus, and to work opportunities in the school and across the globe. Through our centers, students are surrounded by networks to support their varied interests and professional futures.
Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center
The Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, founded in 2020, is dedicated to advancing the discussion, education and scholarship of the First Amendment. The rights secured by the First Amendment include the liberties of religion, speech, and the press, as well as the freedoms to peacefully assemble and petition the government. The Center, led by Director Steven T. Collis, provides opportunities for deliberation about these rights and the controversies related to them, in forms that include conferences, scholarship, lectures, conversations, and debates. Among the center’s main projects will be a new experiential education opportunity, the Law and Religion Clinic.
Visit the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center
Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice
The Rapoport Center serves as a focal point for critical, interdisciplinary analysis and practice of human rights and social justice. Its growing network of affiliated faculty from various disciplines provides the center with the academic energy and ideas to advance human rights work, and its graduate scholars and undergraduate interns support the center through their varied contributions to its programs.
Visit the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice
Budd Innocence Center
The Budd Innocence Center was created in 2017 to improve the criminal justice system by helping prevent injustice and protect the innocent. The Center sponsors events to highlight issues related to wrongful convictions and, as its main project, supports the education of students through the Actual Innocence Clinic.
Visit the Budd Innocence Center
Capital Punishment Center
The Capital Punishment Center brings together scholars, students and practitioners interested in the death penalty and its administration. The law school has long been committed to educating students about capital punishment. The Capital Punishment Clinic has been offered every semester since the fall of 1987, and the center was created in 2006 to expand the law school’s academic focus on the issue.
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Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution
The Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution provides effective conflict resolution assistance and services including education and training. The center is a nonprofit organization of professionals who focus on state and local government and are dedicated to the stewardship of conflict resolution in state and local government, the UT community and the public. The center seeks to bridge resolution with conflict using alternative dispute resolution methods.
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Center for Women in Law
The Center for Women in Law is the premier educational institution devoted to the success of the entire spectrum of women in law, from first-year law students to the most experienced and accomplished attorneys. It combines theory with practice, identifying and addressing the persistent issues facing individual women and the profession as a whole. The center serves as a national resource to convene leaders, generate ideas and lead change.
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David J. Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing and Appellate Advocacy
The Beck Center provides all students at the University of Texas School of Law with a foundation for excellence in legal research, oral presentation, oral argument, and, most importantly, legal writing. The center is the organizational focal point for the required first-year courses in legal research and legal writing, as well as advanced courses available to upper-class students.
Visit the David J. Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing and Appellate Advocacy
Institute for Transnational Law
The Institute for Transnational Law was established by Texas Law to enhance the teaching of international and comparative law, to support research into international and comparative law, to build international contacts for the law school, and to increase student exchanges between Texas Law and the best foreign law schools around the world.
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Kay Bailey Hutchison Energy Center
The Kay Bailey Hutchison Energy Center aspires to be the nation’s pre-eminent energy center focused on the critical energy issues and challenges facing our planet. As a multidisciplinary endeavor of the University of Texas School of Law, McCombs Business, Cockrell Engineering, and Jackson Geosciences School, the Energy Center achieves this mission by leveraging the resources and talents of these schools and by collaborating with the many other schools, centers, and areas of study that comprise the unparalleled collection of energy-related talent, expertise, and knowledge at the University of Texas.
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Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law
The Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law integrates expertise from across The University of Texas at Austin, as well as from the private and public sectors, in pursuit of practical solutions to emerging international challenges. Towards that end, the center sponsors a wide array of research programs and educational initiatives.
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William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law
Texas Law joined with Judge William Wayne Justice’s former law clerks and many admirers in 2004 to create the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law in his honor. A resource for students, faculty, alumni, and the community, the Justice Center promotes equal justice for all through legal education, scholarship, and public service.
Visit the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law