Founded in 1807, the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is Maryland’s only public health, law, and human services university, dedicated to excellence in education, research, clinical care, and public service.

UMB enrolls 6,500 students in six nationally ranked professional schools — medicine, law, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, and social work — and an interdisciplinary Graduate School. The University offers 50 doctoral, master’s, baccalaureate, and certificate programs and confers most of the professional practice doctoral degrees awarded in Maryland.

The School of Law's experiential programs are among the most extensive in the country. Through our nationally recognized Clinical Law Program, students can enroll in an array of courses to represent a criminal defendant, an emerging business owner, someone with HIV/AIDS, an environmental group, a disabled person, or perhaps a scientist wanting to patent a new drug. Students meet regularly with their professors to review the professional, ethical, and practical issues raised by their work. They also explore the connections between what is taught in the classroom and the practice of law as they are experiencing it.

Maryland offers specialty certificates in Environmental Law and Law and Health Care. Other programs include Advocacy, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Business Law, Clinical Law, Intellectual Property Law, and International and Comparative Law. Because these programs are interdisciplinary, students can work with lawyers and professionals in related fields to resolve problems that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. For example, a student in the Law and Health Care Program could supplement a diverse curriculum of classroom courses with clinical opportunities, internships with organizations such as the National Institute of Health, and an editorial position on the school's Journal of Health Care Law and Policy.

The law school community is both diverse and congenial. About half of our students come from other states or the District of Columbia, as well as many foreign countries. They represent more than 100 undergraduate schools, and about one-third identify themselves as persons of color. Maryland Law's vibrant student organizations present many opportunities for participating in the social, cultural, and political life of the school and the historic city of Baltimore.

Students interested in writing can compete for positions on five student-run legal journals. The school also has an extensive moot court program and opportunities to participate in trial advocacy, counseling and negotiation competitions. The school's Thurgood Marshall Library is the largest law library in the state.