University of Arizona Law Welcomes New Class

The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law welcomed new faces to campus this August – in Arizona, online and abroad – kicking off the college’s 110th academic year.    

A diverse group, the combined JD and JD for Non-U.S. Lawyers entering class includes 117 students representing 66 undergraduate institutions, 20 states, eight Native Nations and seven countries. 

Women make up 57% of the incoming JD class, and 34% of the class are students of color. This year’s entering JD class is also among the strongest academically in the college’s history with a median LSAT score of 163, a median GPA of 3.78, and a median JD-Next score of 790 (on a scale from 400 to 1,000). 

Fourteen percent of the new class are the first in their families to attend college and many more are first-generation law or graduate students. Joining us with a broad range of professional and educational backgrounds, the class includes collegiate athletes, a firefighter, dancers – swing and bhangra – and a martial artist. 

The JD class is joined by 1,980 undergraduate students who are pursuing a BA in Law degree, the first undergraduate law program in the U.S.  

The reach of the BA program extends well beyond U.S. borders. This fall there are more than 600 students working towards the BA in Law at our micro campuses – Ocean University in Qingdao China, American University Phnom Penh and Hanoi Law University. Students in each of those programs will earn a BA in Law from the University of Arizona and a law degree from their home institution. 

Graduate education at University of Arizona Law continued to expand this year, attracting students from around the world to advance their skills. The Masters of Laws (LLM) program welcomed thirteen students to the General LLM and ten to the International Trade and Business Law LLM.  

In addition, six LLM students, six Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) students, and seven Native JD students joined the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy (IPLP) program. The LLM and SJD IPLP students join us from eight different countries and seven different Indigenous communities.     

The college also welcomed a strong and diverse class of new Master of Legal Studies (MLS) students, admitting nearly 120. The vast majority of these students will be pursuing the degree online, while 18 will join us here in Tucson, on the main campus. Among the MLS class, 65% are women and 66% identify as diverse. Twenty-six members of the class hold prior graduate degrees. Twenty-two members of the fall MLS cohort and 15 from the summer cohort are participating in the Legal Paraprofessional (LP) concentration. 

The Health Law & Policy Program welcomes 123 students in its fall 2025 courses, adding to the now 2,022 students who have taken Health Law & Policy courses since its launch in 2019. With the inclusion of this semester’s new cohort, nearly 450 students have pursued a Graduate or Undergraduate Certificate in Health Law. Health law students are enrolled in law programs as well as public health, medicine, nursing, business, applied sciences and biomedical engineering and come from across the country, Europe, China, India, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.   

In his remarks to the new class during orientation, Interim Dean Jason Kreag encouraged students to be brave, in law school and beyond. “So much of the law is about people with power exercising their discretion over people who have less power,” he said. “If this is the case, we want the people with power to at least be exposed to various perspectives. We want those exercising discretion to know all angles of an argument.  We want them to hear the best arguments on both sides. This means that your perspective is important. Your voice is important.”