Suffolk University Law School
Suffolk University Law School is the private, non-sectarian law school of Suffolk University located in downtown Boston, across the street from the Boston Common and the Freedom Trail, two blocks from the Massachusetts State House, and a short walk to the financial district. Suffolk Law was founded in 1906 by Gleason Archer Sr. to provide a legal education for those who traditionally lacked the opportunity to study law because of socio-economic or racial discrimination.
Suffolk Law school has full-time, part-time evening, hybrid online, accelerated and dual-degree JD programs. It has been accredited by the American Bar Association since 1953 and the Association of American Law Schools since 1977.
According to Suffolk's Office of Professional and Career Development 2021 ABA-required disclosures, 82.8% of the Class of 2021 obtained full-time, long-term, bar admission required or JD advantage employment nine months after graduation.
History
One of New England's oldest law schools, Suffolk was founded in 1906 by lawyer Gleason Leonard Archer as the "Suffolk School of Law." The school was named after its location in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Archer's goal was to provide immigrants and the working class with the opportunity to study law. In 1907, Archer moved the school from Roxbury, Massachusetts to downtown Boston. Suffolk Law School's first student passed the bar in 1908. By 1930, Archer developed Suffolk into one of the largest law schools in the country, and the law school received full accreditation from the American Bar Association. Originally an all-male school, with the New England School of Law serving as a sister school, Suffolk became co-educational in 1937. In 1999, Suffolk Law School opened its new building at 120 Tremont Street, near the Boston Common.Many alumni were historically notable for breaking boundaries in the legal field. Suffolk University founder Archer Gleason wanted to "open the doors to higher education to all capable students," and as a result the school was more inclusive of students from marginalized backgrounds.
Thaddeus Alexander Kitchener, a Jamaican immigrant, was the first person of color to graduate from Suffolk Law, earning his degree in 1913. Louis Eugene Pasco, who earned his degree in 1914, was the first Latino to graduate from the school. In 1922, Shichiro Hayashi became the first Asian alumnus of Suffolk Law. In 1925, Nelson D. Simons, future chief of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, was the first Native American to graduate from the school. After graduating from Suffolk Law in 1929, Harry Hom Dow went on to become the first Chinese-American to pass the Massachusetts Bar Exam. The first woman to graduate from Suffolk Law was Marian Archer MacDonald in 1937. Charlotte Anne Perretta, the first woman to sit on the Massachusetts Appeals Court as an associate justice, graduated from Suffolk Law in 1967. Linda Dalianis became the first female appointee to the New Hampshire Superior Court and the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court in 2010.
Curriculum and programs
Suffolk Law has full-time, part-time evening, hybrid online, accelerated and dual-degree JD programs. Academic concentrations are available in intellectual property, international law, business law & financial services, health & biomedical law, legal innovation & technology, and trial & appellate advocacy. Dual degree options include: JD/MBA; Accelerated JD/MBA ; JD/Master of Public Administration; JD/Master of Science in finance; JD/Master of Science in crime & justice studies; JD/Master of Sciences in law: life sciences; and the Accelerated JD/LL.M. in Taxation. The school also offers the Doctor of Juridical Science.Accelerated JD students begin first year classes in May and attend classes year-round so they can earn their degrees one year faster than traditional JD students. Accelerated students have the same required coursework, take the same number of credits, and pay the same per-semester cost as traditional JD students— but graduate one year earlier.
Part-time evening JD students take a reduced schedule with all classes offered after 6 p.m. Evening students can choose the traditional or accelerated track, to graduate in as few as 2.5 years or up to four years.
Hybrid Online JD students earn a JD with a mix of in-person and online classes. They take their first 30 credit hours in-person at Suffolk Law in Boston then enroll in the remaining JD coursework online or a mix of in-person and online. The Hybrid Online JD is available for full- or part-time evening students who achieve a 3.0 during their first year of law school.
Students at ABA-accredited law schools can enroll in summer courses at Suffolk Law. All summer classes are offered after 6 p.m.
Foreign-educated attorneys may enroll in up to 15 non-degree credits at Suffolk Law to satisfy the requirements of Massachusetts Rule 6 and sit for the Massachusetts Bar Exam.
Admissions
In 2023, Suffolk received 2,899 applications for its entering class students of 395 students, which included 299 full-time students and 96 part-time evening students. The school accepted 1,864 applicants having an acceptance rate of 64.30% with 13.38% of applicants enrolling. The median GPA for incoming 2023 Suffolk Law students was 3.55, and the median LSAT score was 154. The 25th-75th percentile GPA was 3.33-3.72 and the 25th-75th percentile LSAT was 150–158. Incoming Suffolk Law School students in 2022 came from 37 states, 7 countries and 211 colleges and universities. The incoming class of 2023 remained among the most diverse since 2014, with 28% of incoming students identifying as ethnically diverse. In addition, 25% of incoming students identified as being first-generation college students.Academic rankings and honors
In its 2025 guide, U.S. News & World Report ranked Suffolk as the 130th Best Law School. In the US News Best Law Schools guides from 2017 to 2025, Suffolk's clinics, legal writing, trial advocacy, and dispute resolution programs have all ranked in the top 35 --the only law school with this distinction.Suffolk's legal writing program has ranked in the US News top 10 for twelve consecutive years. The clinical program has placed in the top 20 for nine consecutive years. Trial advocacy has been ranked in the top 35 for nine consecutive years. Dispute Resolution is ranked No. 21 and has been in the top 30 for 12 of the last 13 years. Intellectual Property is ranked No. 36. In 2021, Suffolk Law's legal technology program was named No. 1 in the nation by PreLaw magazine and is perennially listed among the top programs in the nation.
Suffolk's National Trial Team has won the New England regional championships in the American Association of Justice Student Advocacy Competition or the National Trial Competition 29 times in the last 39 years.
Libraries and archives
In 1999, after construction of the new law school building was completed, the John Joseph Moakley Library moved to its new home, on the fifth through seventh floors, in Sargent Hall. The library contains over 450,000 volumes, and budget of new acquisitions reaching approximately $2 million, covering common law and statutes from all major areas of American law in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and with primary legal materials from the U.S. federal government, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the European Union.The library also features a substantial treatise and periodical collection and houses the John Joseph Moakley Archive and Institute. Some of the collections in the Archive include the Congressman John Joseph Moakley Papers, a collection of the late U.S. Representative's papers which he gave to the school in 2001; the Gleason L. Archer Personal Papers, founder of the Law School and University; the Harry Hom Dow Papers a 1929 Law School graduate; the Jamaica Plain Committee on Central America Collection; and the Records of Suffolk University. The Library also houses law review journals from all ABA accredited law schools in the United States as well as numerous journals from European and Canadian law schools. Suffolk also records and broadcasts oral arguments for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and has archives of those proceedings available in the library and online.
Law review and journal publications
Suffolk University Law School maintains five student-run publications.| Law Review | Founded | Notes |
| Suffolk University Law Review | 1967 | The oldest continuously published scholarly publication at Suffolk Law. |
| Suffolk Transnational Law Review | 1976 | Focuses on international legal issues and is the second oldest international law review in existence. |
| Journal of High Technology Law | 1998 | Focuses on publishing works related to High Technology Law. |
| Journal of Health & Biomedical Law | 2004 | Focuses on cutting-edge legal developments in the field of health law. |
| Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy | 2005 | Provides practical, in-depth analyses of current legal issues relating to trial and appellate practice. |
Employment
According to Suffolk Law's office of Professional and Career Development ABA-required disclosures, 83.3% of the Class of 2023 obtained full-time, long-term, bar admission required or JD advantage employment ten months after graduation.Costs
The tuition at Suffolk Law for the 2022–2023 academic year is $53,920 for the day division and $40,440 for the night division.Notable people
Throughout Suffolk's history, faculty and alumni have played prominent roles in many different fields. Its 24,000 alumni are found in high-level judicial, political, and private positions throughout the United States.In 1913, Thaddeus Alexander Kitchener, a native of Jamaica, was the first "colored" graduate of the law school. A scholarship is named for him. He went on to help lead the Boston Chronicle newspaper with other West Indian immigrants in Boston. Thomas Vreeland Jones was another early Black graduate and Louis Eugene Pasco was Black and Mexican.