Dear Prospective Student,

Welcome to Ave Maria School of Law. As you explore and plan your legal career I invite you to consider how our distinctive approach to legal education can help you realize the personal and professional goals that you have set for yourself.

Ave Maria offers a comprehensive curriculum that is structured to ensure a rigorous intellectual experience in which students will be well prepared for all types of legal employment in all regions of the country. Our distinctive mission provides the faculty with an opportunity to incorporate the rich Catholic intellectual tradition and the natural law tradition; this classroom debate helps our students gain an appreciation for the foundations of our laws and how aspiring attorneys might serve their future clients and society at large without renouncing to their moral values and principles. Indeed, in developing our vision for the School of Law, we asked such pertinent questions as:

• How can a law school curriculum instill dedication to justice, while acknowledging contradictions so frequently encountered in the law?
• How can attorneys be trained to recognize that cases may be right legally, but wrong morally?
• Is it possible to produce lawyers who think that ethics are as important as technical skills, and who believe that moral standards should guide conduct?

By providing our students with an academically excellent foundation and by asking them to reflect critically on the law and its moral underpinnings, we equip students with more than a technical mastery of the skills to competently practice law.

Our Admissions Committee welcomes students of all faiths who seek a legal education enhanced and complemented by a commitment to truth.  

Sincerely,

Monique McCarthy
Assistant Dean of Admissions