New Program Features Collaboration with UALR College of Business
The UALR William H. Bowen School of Law has created an innovative, new opportunity for its JD students, a concentration certificate in business law. The certificate, which includes three courses taught to MBA students though UALR’s College of Business, was created based on input from practicing lawyers, including high-level lawyers employed by Walmart and International Paper.
The program is arguably the most rigorous law school program of its kind, requiring more coursework and more experiential learning than other law schools’ certificate programs. The three-course business school requirement also distinguishes the certificate program; students must take courses in business fundamentals, finance, and accounting — critical knowledge, according to practicing lawyers, needed by new lawyers in the field.
“The faculty at Bowen wanted to create a business law certificate that genuinely prepares students to serve business clients,” said Bowen Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz. “Lawyers can be deal makers or deal killers; we want Bowen graduates to fall in the first category.”
The new certificate is one of the many ways the Bowen School of Law has successfully collaborated with other UALR departments and colleges to create innovative programs that enrich the law school’s offerings.
Bowen recently added a J.D./MSW joint degree, offered with UALR’s College of Education and Health Professions. In fact, the law school already has four students who are taking advantage of this educational opportunity. The law school also offers a J.D./MBA with the UALR College of Business, a J.D./MPA with the UALR College of Social Sciences and Communication, a J.D./Pharm.D. and a J.D./MPH, offered in conjunction with UAMS, and its one-of-a-kind J.D./MPS offered through a partnership with the UA Clinton School of Public Service. In these programs, students attend graduate school and law school simultaneously, and their studies in each program enrich the other.
Bowen has also worked with UALR’s Department of Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Studies to create a 3+3 Early Admissions Program, which admits intellectually engaged and academically mature undergraduates into the Bowen School of Law after their third year of undergraduate study (or 94 credit hours).
Bowen law students also are reaching out to UALR’s undergraduate students who are interested in law school. Bowen’s chapter of Delta Theta Phi (DTP) is working with UALR’s pre-law club to create a program which will help students bridge the gap between college and law school. This is a pilot program which DTP hopes will grow to other chapters nationwide.
Further collaborations are coming soon. Bowen assisted the College of Social Sciences and Communication in developing a second undergraduate major in law. The degree will be designed to help prepare undergraduates for success in law school, and Bowen students will be teaching one of the courses in the major.
“We are lucky,” said Dean Schwartz. “UALR has recognized the need for a law school in Little Rock and has offered us an incredible opportunity to expand our educational offerings to make sure Bowen students, as well as UALR students as a whole, have the tools to pursue careers they love.”
