The Jacksonville University College of Law has been granted provisional accreditation by the American Bar Association (ABA) — exactly two years after its board of trustees voted unanimously to launch the school.
The law school launched with its inaugural class in August 2022 with an intentionally small class of 14 students — seven women and seven men. It was the first new law school in the state of Florida in more than 20 years, and the first anywhere in the U.S. since 2014.
It welcomed its second class in August 2023.
This achievement means the law school now possesses “all the rights of a fully approved ABA law school,” and its students are eligible to take the bar exam, become members of the bar and qualify for jobs and clerkships only open to students graduating from ABA-accredited schools.
“Attaining ABA accreditation is a justifiably rigorous and demanding process, and for that reason, I am enormously proud that the law school faculty, staff, and students made accreditation a priority amongst all their other responsibilities,” said Nick Allard, founding dean of the law school, in a release by the law school. “We felt a heavy responsibility to pursue and attain accreditation before our inaugural students graduated. And we met that ambitious goal.”
Allard added that the speed in which the law school has been able to achieve accreditation must be credited to the years of careful planning and preparation to open a law school by Jacksonville University, led by President Tim Cost and the Board of Trustees, and guided by administrators, faculty, staff, with the encouragement and support of the bench, bar, city and people of the greater Jacksonville community.
The law school’s third entering class will begin their studies this August, as the law school moves to its permanent location at 121 W. Forsyth St. in the heart of downtown Jacksonville.
Jacksonville Law signed a long-term lease on the 50,000-square-foot-space earlier this year, and renovations are underway and on schedule for a summer move in.
The space will accommodate the growth of the law school and provide the opportunity to expand as it continues to welcome additional classes and hire more faculty and staff. A minimum of two years after a law school receives its initial ABA accreditation, it can apply for an affirmation of its accreditation. From then on, the school will undergo additional site visits and must demonstrate it is maintaining the standards it displayed during the initial accreditation application process to keep its accreditation.
