Ensuring you’ll succeed from day one

Brown.

Professor Todd Brown, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, says “In Buffalo, we don’t leave you on your own.”

As the Law School’s vice dean for academic affairs, Professor S. Todd Brown does a lot of deep thinking about top-quality legal education.

“The law and the legal profession are ever-changing,” he says, “and UB’s curriculum reflects those changes.”

But it’s not all about what’s on the course schedule. It’s also about making your first year the best it can be. That’s why the faculty have taken a series of steps to make sure that our students succeed from Day One.

It starts with our cutting-edge Legal Analysis, Writing and Research program, which is an intensive instruction in the tools that lawyers use every day.

In courses like torts and contracts, first-year students are guaranteed at least one small class section of around 20 students. That, Brown says, means “a pretty intensive amount of one-on-one work” and plenty of direct feedback to guide your way and answer your questions. “Students tend to come out of those classes feeling better about what they’ve learned, and appreciating what they need to work on,” says Brown.

The law school provides plenty of hands-on help. Teaching assistants augment classes, and every first year student is assigned a faculty adviser. Advisers meet with students at least four times during the year to check in on how things are going and guide our students as they look to their future as legal professionals.

Says Brown, “In Buffalo, we don’t leave you on your own.”