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DePaul University College of Law

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DePaul University College of Law

DePaul University College of Law is a private law school in the Loop in downtown Chicago, Illinois, that enrolled a first-year class of 186 students in Fall 2025 — 157 full-time and 29 part-time — from 2,643 completed applications, with a median LSAT of 158 and a median undergraduate GPA of 3.61. It is ranked #131 (tie) in the 2026 U.S. News rankings and #35 (tie) of 78 for its part-time program, with #27 in Health Law, #45 in Intellectual Property Law, and #66 in Trial Advocacy in the 2027 edition, and its graduates have been named to the Illinois Super Lawyers list in greater numbers than any other school's in the publication's history. The central decision issue for admitted applicants is that DePaul pairs a genuine scholarship guarantee — 99% of students on grants, a $34,950 median award, zero conditional scholarships, and a three-year tuition freeze for full-time day students — against a bar-passage rate that trails the Illinois average and the second-highest non-tuition budget of its peer group, at a 2026–27 cost of attendance of $85,276 for full-time day students.

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DePaul Law at a Glance

Category Latest information
Founded 1912 (DePaul's acquisition of the Illinois College of Law, founded 1897)
Type Private
ABA approval or accreditation ABA approved (Council of the Section of Legal Education, approved since 1925)
Location Lewis Center, 25 East Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60604 (two blocks from state and federal courts)
Latest U.S. News rank #131 tie (2026 edition); #35 tie of 78 in Part-time Law; Health Law #27, Intellectual Property #45, Trial Advocacy #66 (2027 edition)
Latest completed applications 2,643 (Fall 2025, 2025 509 report)
Latest acceptance rate 34.81% (Fall 2025; 920 offers)
Latest LSAT median 158 (Fall 2025; 25th: 154, 75th: 160)
Latest GPA median 3.61 (Fall 2025; 25th: 3.17, 75th: 3.80)
Latest entering class 186 (Fall 2025; 157 full-time, 29 part-time)
Current tuition $56,436 full-time day package rate / $35,964 part-time package rate (2026–27); $55,328 / $35,946 plus $300 fees (2025–26, 509 report)
Current estimated cost of attendance $85,276 full-time day / $64,120 part-time (2026–27, school's official budgets)
Latest first-time bar passage 83.8% for the Class of 2025, +2.8 points over the average where its graduates sat (independent tabulation); 76.0% vs. Illinois 78.6% for the 2024 cohort (ILRG, #127 of 196)
Latest bar-required employment 81.3% of the Class of 2025 (126 of 155 graduates) in jobs requiring bar admission; 78.0% full-time long-term bar-required, #130 of 196, and 92.8% overall employment, #106 (Class of 2024, ILRG)
Current dean Geoffrey Rapp, 14th Dean and Professor of Law, since July 1, 2025

The admissions figures are drawn from DePaul Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (2,643 completed applications, 920 offers, a 34.81% acceptance rate, and 186 students in the first-year class as of October 2025), which also reports total J.D. enrollment of 510 and zero transfers in against two out. Tuition and cost data are from the 509 report and the school's 2026–27 tuition page, which publishes the full cost-of-attendance breakdown — one of the most transparent budgets in this profile series. Scholarship and retention terms are from the school's own scholarship page: Dean's Scholarships are guaranteed for all three years with no GPA requirement, and the school files no ABA conditional-scholarship retention chart because it awards none. Employment figures for the Class of 2025 are from an independent tabulation of the ABA data (155 graduates); bar figures appear in three vintages that this profile labels separately rather than blending.

Introduction

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DePaul University College of Law traces its origins to 1897, when Howard N. Ogden founded the Illinois College of Law as one of the first law schools in the country to offer evening classes — a deliberate channel into the profession for working Chicagoans. DePaul University acquired the school in 1912, doubling its enrollment to roughly 400 students; Ogden stayed on as dean and became the first non-Catholic trustee of the university, and DePaul obtained full ownership on his death three years later. The school is now the largest Roman Catholic law school in the country and, by its own framing, the most diverse — the Vincent G. Rinn Law Library, Leonard M. Ring Courtroom, and technology-enabled classrooms occupy the Lewis Center at 25 East Jackson Boulevard, two blocks from the state and federal courts and steps from the Loop's firms, corporations, and government agencies.

The school's identity rests on three pillars. The first is Chicago practice: DePaul Law has placed more alumni on the Illinois Super Lawyers list — 643 in 2026 alone, including 437 Super Lawyers and 206 Rising Stars — than any other law school in the publication's history, and its alumni include two mayors of Chicago (Richard J. and Richard M. Daley), a former mayor and Illinois Supreme Court chief justice (Michael Bilandic), Seventh Circuit Senior Judge William J. Bauer, and Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton. The second is a specialist portfolio — Health Law (#27 nationally, 2027 edition), Intellectual Property and Information Technology (#45), and the International Human Rights Law Institute founded by the late M. Cherif Bassiouni, the field's founding figure. The third is a financial structure unusual in this series: 99% of students on grants, a $34,950 median award, zero conditional scholarships, and a frozen three-year tuition package for full-time day students.

Rankings and Reputation

DePaul Law's overall rank sits in the lower-middle of the national table, but the school's reputation inside Illinois is materially stronger than the number implies — the Super Lawyers record, the specialty rankings, and the employment data all point to a school whose degree is genuinely fungible in its home market.

Overall ranking

Source Rank
U.S. News, 2026 edition #131 (tie) of 194
Wikipedia (2026 edition, same figure) #131 (tie)
ILRG, metric-by-metric (December 2025 ABA data) #95 in selectivity; #106 in overall employment; #130 in bar-required employment

U.S. News is the source used for the At-a-Glance table. U.S. News reports the school's part-time program at #35 (tie) of 78.

ILRG's metric-by-metric report, built on the December 2025 ABA disclosures, places the school as follows: #107 of 196 in LSAT composite (157.3); #128 in GPA composite (3.53); #95 in selectivity (34.8% acceptance rate); #145 (tie) in student-faculty ratio (15.0:1); #106 in overall employment at ten months (92.8%); #130 in bar-required employment (78.0%); #127 in first-time bar passage (76.0%); #227 in highest tuition ($55,328 — the cheapest third of the national table); tied #132 in female faculty (41.3%); and #83 in minority faculty (19.6%). The tuition rank, faculty-diversity rank, and selectivity rank are the school's best numbers; bar passage and the student-faculty ratio are its weakest.

Specialty rankings

Specialty U.S. News rank (2027 edition)
Health Law #27 (top 15% of all ranked schools)
Intellectual Property Law #45 (top 25%)
Trial Advocacy #66 (top 35%)
Constitutional Law; Contracts/Commercial Law; Criminal Law; Dispute Resolution Top 100 each

Health law is the school's flagship: the Health Law Institute and the DePaul Journal of Health Care Law anchor a program ranked #27 nationally and supported by Loyola- and Rush-adjacent clinical placements and Chicago's hospital systems. Intellectual property runs through the Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology (CIPLIT), founded by Raymond P. Niro Professor Roberta Kwall, one of the oldest IP centers in the country, alongside the DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law. preLaw Magazine has recognized the school with top-program badges in Business Law, Criminal Law, Family Law (A+), Health Law (A+), Human Rights Law (A+), International Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Tech Law Leaders, plus a Justice & Opportunity Honors designation and — notably — a Most Improved in Employment badge for 2026–27.

Admissions: What It Takes to Get In

Entering class (Fall 2025)

Admissions metric Fall 2025
Completed applications 2,643
Offers of admission 920
Acceptance rate 34.81%
Enrollees from applicant pool 185
Total in first-year class 186 (157 full-time / 29 part-time)
Yield (enrollees / offers) 20.11%
Enrollment rate from completed applications 7.00%
Total J.D. enrollment 510
Transfers in / out 0 in / 2 out

The 20.11% yield is modest and reflects the school's competitive position in Chicago: admitted applicants hold offers from Loyola Chicago, Chicago-Kent, and IIT-level peers, and DePaul converts them on scholarship terms. The one-transfer intake and two outgoing transfers indicate a stable, self-contained cohort.

LSAT and GPA

Statistic 25th percentile Median 75th percentile
LSAT (all enrollees) 154 158 160
Undergraduate GPA (all enrollees) 3.17 3.61 3.80
LSAT, full-time only 155 158 161
GPA, full-time only 3.20 3.65 3.81
LSAT, part-time only 152 155 158
GPA, part-time only 3.16 3.35 3.65

GRE acceptance was not confirmed in the sources reviewed; applicants should verify with the admissions office.

Interpreting the numbers

The six-year trend is one of the strongest in this profile series. Since 2019, the acceptance rate has fallen from 58.7% to 34.8% — a 24-point tightening — while the median LSAT rose five points (153 to 158, with the 25th percentile moving from 150 to 154) and the median GPA jumped from 3.20 to 3.61, with the 25th percentile climbing from 2.94 to 3.17. DePaul Law has effectively re-based its admissions: a school that admitted three of five applicants with a 3.20 median GPA now admits one in three with a 3.61 median. That improvement is the foundation beneath the specialty rankings, the employment record, and the school's Most Improved in Employment recognition — and it means the current medians, not the school's historical reputation, are the right benchmark for an applicant's chances.

The full-time/part-time split matters here as elsewhere: full-time entrants carry a 3.65 median GPA against 3.35 for part-time entrants, so applicants targeting the evening division should compare against the part-time percentiles rather than the aggregate.

Application timing

  • Application fee: $0 (2025 ABA 509 report)
  • Application deadline: April 1 (2025 ABA 509 report)
  • Financial aid deadline: not provided in the 509 report; applicants should confirm current dates with the Office of Law Admission at (312) 362-6831 or [email protected]
  • No separate scholarship application is required — all entering students are automatically considered, and scholarship eligibility is notified in the acceptance letter
  • No binding Early Decision program is reported in the sources reviewed
  • The J.D. requires 86 credit hours; both full-time (day) and part-time (evening) divisions are offered

Cost, Scholarships, and Debt

Tuition

Rate 2025–26 (509 report) 2026–27 (school)
Full-time day, tuition $55,328 $56,436 (three-year package rate)
Full-time fees $300 $300 (mandatory) + $150/semester comprehensive + $171/semester U-Pass
Part-time, tuition $35,946 $35,964 (package rate)
J.D./LL.M. per credit hour — $1,844
MLS per credit hour — $1,322 ($39,660 for the 30-credit program)
2019 full-time tuition (for comparison) $48,166 —

The package-rate structure is the distinctive feature: the 2026–27 full-time rate of $56,436 is locked for three years, so a student entering in 2026 pays the same tuition through 2029 regardless of increases — a genuine protection against the tuition inflation that drives most schools' cost growth (DePaul's tuition rose 15% from 2019 to 2025, modest by private-school standards). The U-Pass of $171 per semester applies only to JD day students registered for at least 12 credit hours or evening students at 9 or more, and the student health insurance of $1,245 can be waived with proof of other coverage. ILRG ranks the tuition #227 of 275 distinct national rates — the cheapest third of American legal education.

Cost of attendance

Expense (2026–27, full-time day) Amount
Tuition (package rate) $56,436
Mandatory fees $300
Books and supplies $1,650
Transportation $1,314
Estimated living expenses $18,766
Miscellaneous personal expenses $6,810
Total $85,276

Part-time budgets run $64,120 (tuition $35,964, books $990, transportation $1,290, plus the same living and personal lines). These are the school's official published figures, and two details deserve attention. First, the living-expense estimate of $18,766 is unusually low for Chicago — the 509 report lists $29,110 for every living category, and the school's own budget appears to price a shared or fringe-neighborhood arrangement rather than independent downtown housing. Applicants renting alone near the Loop should budget closer to the 509 figure, and the $9,000 gap between the two is the difference between a $76,000 and an $85,000 annual cost. Second, the miscellaneous line of $6,810 absorbs the health-insurance estimate and other personal costs without itemizing them. The 509 report prices living identically across all four arrangements — on campus, off campus, military base, and at home — which, as at other schools in this series, means the budget does not reward the at-home student even though Chicago's transit system makes that a realistic option.

Financial aid

Metric Value
Students receiving grants 491 (99%)
25th percentile grant $20,000
Median grant $34,950
75th percentile grant $35,000
Conditional scholarships None — the school does not award scholarships that may be reduced or eliminated based on law school academic performance other than failure to maintain good academic standing, and therefore files no conditional scholarship retention chart

DePaul Law's aid structure is the cleanest in this profile series, and each element deserves emphasis. Coverage is total: 99% of the 495-student J.D. population holds grants, with only a handful of students paying full price. Depth is real: the median award of $34,950 covers 63% of full-time tuition, and the 75th percentile of $35,000 sits right at the median — meaning the distribution is compressed, not winner-take-most, and the typical student's award is essentially the same as the strongest student's. The Dean's Scholarships range from a few thousand dollars to $45,000 per year, are guaranteed in the same amount for the student's remaining academic years, and carry no GPA requirement — the award renews automatically so long as the student remains enrolled in the division of admission. And the full-time day package rate freezes tuition at the first-year level for years two and three, so the net price is genuinely locked for the degree's duration.

Since 2013, no entering class at DePaul Law has been subject to conditional scholarships, which is why the school files no ABA retention chart. Against the 20–50% conditional-award attrition documented at several peers in this series, that guarantee is worth real money — and it makes the school's published grant figures the ones applicants can actually plan against.

The school also operates an LRAP through the Center for Public Interest Law: a loan-forgiveness program funded by student fees and private donations, distributing awards as forgivable loans to graduates in qualifying public-interest work. The comprehensive fee's consolidation of the LRAP fee into mandatory charges means every student contributes to the fund — a stable base for a program of this kind, though award amounts and eligibility thresholds should be requested directly.

Debt perspective

Average indebtedness and borrowing rates for 2025 J.D. graduates were not independently confirmed in the sources reviewed — the U.S. News profile did not return the indebtedness block in this session's retrieval, and no corroborating tabulation was available. An estimated three-year net cost of $167,769 after average aid is the best available proxy, and it should be treated as a planning figure rather than a verified debt number; applicants should read the indebtedness figures on the school's U.S. News profile directly and request the school's own borrowing data from financial aid.

What can be verified is structural. A full-time day student at the median grant pays roughly $21,500 a year in tuition ($56,436 minus $34,950), or about $64,500 across three years before living costs — and with the package rate frozen, that number does not move. Against a modeled Class of 2025 salary of $107,864 and Chicago's market, that is a serviceable debt load by national standards, and the LRAP provides a backstop for the 9.0% of the class entering public interest. The risk concentrates at the 25th percentile of grants ($20,000), where tuition gap rises to $36,000 a year and the three-year tuition burden approaches $110,000 — still manageable, but the difference between the median and the 25th percentile is the difference between a routine loan and a serious one.

Employment Outcomes

Employment (Class of 2025)

Employment status (Class of 2025, 155 graduates, ten months out) Share of class
Law firms — 501+ attorneys (Big Law) 8.4% (13 graduates)
Law firms — other sizes 55.5%
Judicial clerkships — all courts 1.3%
Public interest 9.0%
Government 7.7%
Business and academic 9.0%
Start date deferred 1.3%
Pursuing further study 1.3%
Unemployed — seeking 4.5%
Unemployed — not seeking 0.7%
Status unknown 1.3%
In jobs requiring bar admission 81.3% (126 of 155)

The modeled salary across covered categories is $107,864, with 82% of the class reporting. The detailed ABA category table — the school's official line items for bar-required versus J.D.-advantage positions, firm-size distribution, and employer detail — is published as the ABA Employment Summary Report on the school's consumer information page and was not machine-readable in this review; applicants should read it directly.

Employment metric Value
Overall employment at 10 months (Class of 2024, ILRG) 92.8% (#106 of 196)
Bar-required employment, full-time long-term (Class of 2024, ILRG) 78.0% (#130 of 196)
Employment score, LawHub (Class of 2025) 81.3%, with a 0% underemployment score
Underemployment score, LawHub (Class of 2025) 0%

What these numbers mean

The employment picture is solid and improving — the school's Most Improved in Employment recognition from preLaw Magazine for 2026–27 is a third-party acknowledgment of exactly the trend the Class of 2025 data shows. A 92.8% overall employment rate for the Class of 2024 and a sector distribution for the Class of 2025 with only 4.5% unemployed and seeking are respectable outcomes for a school at #131, and the 0% underemployment score means virtually no graduates landed in part-time, short-term, or non-professional positions.

The composition is the profile's constraint. At 81.3% bar-required, roughly one in five graduates is not in a conventional licensed-attorney position ten months out — consistent with the school's substantial J.D.-advantage business sector (9.0%) and its part-time evening population of working professionals. The Big Law share of 8.4% is respectable for the rank but not transformative, and the 1.3% clerkship rate (all courts combined) effectively forecloses the appellate and academic paths. The 55.5% share in firms of other sizes is the school's real signature: Chicago's small and mid-size practices, where DePaul's alumni network and location do the recruiting work, at a modeled salary of $107,864 that reflects the city's mid-market compensation rather than the large-firm top.

Bar passage

Bar statistic Value
First-time bar passage, Class of 2025 (independent tabulation) 83.8%, +2.8 points over the average where its graduates sat
First-time bar passage, Class of 2025 (LawHub) 83.8%
First-time rate and Illinois comparison (2024 cohort, ILRG) 76.0% vs. Illinois 78.6% (−2.5 points, #127 of 196)
First-time rate and Illinois comparison (2019, ILRG) 70.3% vs. 79.0% (−8.7 points)
Ultimate bar passage The school publishes an ABA First Time & Ultimate Bar Passage Report on its disclosures page; the figures were not machine-readable in this review

Bar passage is the school's clearest improving trend and, on the newest cohort, its most reassuring number. In 2019, DePaul Law graduates trailed the Illinois average by 8.7 points; the 2024 cohort cut that deficit to 2.5; and the Class of 2025 flipped the comparison entirely, passing at 83.8% — 2.8 points above the average of the jurisdictions where they sat. That is a fourteen-point swing against the state average in six years, achieved while the school's admissions profile was rising simultaneously, and it matches the pattern the school's Most Improved recognition describes.

Two caveats keep the number honest. First, the 2024 cohort's 76.0% still trailed Illinois, and a single cohort's outperformance — 83.8% — has not yet established a trend across two consecutive classes. Second, the ultimate-passage report, which matters more than first-time rate for licensure outcomes, was not machine-readable in this review and should be read directly. For an applicant, the practical statement is this: on the most recent evidence, a DePaul Law graduate passes the bar at or slightly above the average of their testing jurisdictions, which is exactly what a school's placement promises require.

Where graduates go

State-by-state employment counts for the Class of 2025 were not published in machine-readable form in the sources reviewed. The market is unambiguously Chicago: the school's Lewis Center sits two blocks from the state and federal courts, and the Illinois Super Lawyers record — 643 alumni named in 2026, more than any other school in the publication's history — is the single best proxy for where the degree lands. The firm mix (55.5% outside Big Law) reflects the Loop's small and mid-size practices, the government share (7.7%) the city, county, and state agencies within walking distance, and the public interest share (9.0%) the legal aid and nonprofit bar the school's clinics and CPIL feed. Graduates targeting New York, California, or other national markets should expect the degree to function as a regional credential.

Academics and Programs

The J.D. requires 86 credit hours and is offered full-time (day) and part-time (evening) — the evening tradition that dates to the school's 1897 founding. The school also awards four LL.M. degrees (Health Law; Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology; International Law; U.S. Legal Studies), a Master of Legal Studies, and seven formal dual degrees: J.D./M.B.A., J.D./M.S. in Computer Science, J.D./M.A. in International Studies, J.D./Master of Nonprofit Management, J.D./Master of Public Administration, J.D./M.S. in International Public Service, and J.D./M.S. in Public Service Management.

Curriculum and special strengths

Three strengths define the academic program. The first is health law: the Health Law Institute, the DePaul Journal of Health Care Law, and the #27 national rank make DePaul one of the premier health law schools in the country, with clinical placements and coursework spanning hospital governance, bioethics, health care compliance, and the business of medicine — a specialty that matches Chicago's hospital economy.

The second is intellectual property and technology: the Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology (CIPLIT), founded by Roberta Kwall (the Raymond P. Niro Professor), is one of the oldest IP centers in the United States, and the school's preLaw Tech Law Leaders badge extends the claim to the technology side. The DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law is one of the field's longest-running student publications.

The third is public interest and human rights: the International Human Rights Law Institute, founded by the late M. Cherif Bassiouni — the field's founding architect and a Nobel nominee — and the Center for Public Interest Law anchor a human rights portfolio that earned the school A+ grades in Human Rights Law and Family Law from preLaw Magazine, alongside the Schiller Ducanto & Fleck Family Law Center.

Journals: DePaul Law Review, DePaul Business and Commercial Law Journal, DePaul Journal of Art, Technology & Intellectual Property Law, DePaul Journal of Health Care Law, and DePaul Journal for Social Justice — five student-edited journals covering each of the school's specialist strengths.

Academic profile per the 2025 ABA 509 report: 34 full-time faculty, 104 non-full-time faculty, and six librarians. The large practitioner roster — three non-full-time faculty for every full-time professor — is the school's Chicago-bar network in the classroom, and ILRG's 15.0:1 ratio (#145 tie) across 138 total faculty reflects it, against U.S. News's full-time-only count. Faculty diversity is solid: 41.3% female (tied #132) and 19.6% minority (#83 of 196).

Clinics and experiential learning

Eight in-house and field clinics span the school's specialist strengths: Asylum & Immigration Law, Business Law, Civil Litigation & Health Law, Criminal Appeals, the Croak Community Legal Clinic, Family Law, International Human Rights Law, and Technology/Intellectual Property. The clinic roster is unusually well-matched to the school's ranked specialties — health, IP, family, and human rights each have a clinic — and the Criminal Appeals Clinic gives students appellate litigation experience rare at this tier. The Center for Public Interest Law administers the clinics' public-service infrastructure and the LRAP described above. Applicants should request current clinic seat counts and the selection process, since demand at a school of 510 students typically exceeds capacity in the highest-demand clinics.

Student Life and Location

Living in Chicago

DePaul Law occupies the Lewis Center at 25 East Jackson Boulevard in the Loop — the heart of Chicago's legal district, two blocks from the Dirksen Federal Building, the Daley Center, and the state courts, and steps from the Loop's firms, corporations, and government agencies. No school in this series is closer to its actual employment market, and the location converts directly into externships, clerkship interviews, and a working professional's commute. The school's budget prices living expenses at $18,766 — an estimate that assumes shared or outer-neighborhood housing, against the 509's $29,110 flat allowance; students renting independently in the Loop or South Loop should budget closer to the higher figure. The VENTRA U-Pass ($171/semester) covers CTA transit for eligible full-time students, and the health insurance ($1,245) is waivable with proof of other coverage. The practical trade is the standard Chicago one: a world-class legal market at a cost of living well below the coasts — though the school's published budget understates what an independent renter will actually pay.

Student body

Total J.D. enrollment was 510 as of October 5, 2025. ILRG's demographic tabulation reports 60.6% women, 37.8% men, and 1.8% non-binary or other — among the most female-skewed student bodies in this series. The 29-student part-time division and the school's evening heritage give the community a working-professional dimension, and the class profile — 157 full-time entrants from a 2,643-application pool — is a selective, Chicago-centric cohort. The culture is practical, urban, and mission-driven: students come to DePaul Law to practice in Chicago, and the alumni network, the clinics, and the Loop location all function as career infrastructure rather than campus amenities. Applicants seeking a residential campus experience will not find it here; applicants seeking a professional school embedded in its market will find few closer.

How DePaul Compares

Choose DePaul Law if

  • You want to practice in Chicago and value a campus two blocks from the courts that hire its graduates — the Lewis Center location is a genuine structural advantage, not a marketing line.
  • You want scholarship certainty: 99% of students on grants, a $34,950 median, a $35,000 75th percentile, zero conditional scholarships, no GPA requirement, and a three-year tuition freeze — the most predictable net price in this profile series.
  • You are targeting health law (#27 nationally), IP and technology (CIPLIT, #45), or family law and human rights (A+ preLaw grades), where the school's centers and journals are specialist infrastructure.
  • You need a part-time evening J.D. (#35 of 78 nationally) — the school's founding tradition and its evening percentiles are built for working Chicagoans.
  • You want a real LRAP for public-interest work, funded through student fees and private donations.
  • You value faculty diversity and a large practitioner faculty: 19.6% minority faculty (#83), 41.3% female, and 104 non-full-time instructors drawn from Chicago's bench and bar.

Consider alternatives if

  • You are targeting federal clerkships or the appellate path: a 1.3% all-court clerkship rate and no confirmed federal clerkship rank in the 2024 tabulation effectively foreclose it.
  • You want a bar-required rate above eighty percent: at 78.0% (#130 of 196) for the Class of 2024, roughly one in five graduates is outside a conventional licensed-attorney position ten months out.
  • You are comparing on sticker: $85,276 a year against a #131 rank requires the scholarship arithmetic to work — and at the $20,000 25th-percentile award, the three-year tuition burden approaches $110,000.
  • You need verified debt data before depositing: average indebtedness and borrowing rate were not independently confirmed in this review, and the U.S. News indebtedness block should be read directly.
  • You want a small, selective, cohort-driven school: 186 per class, a 15.0:1 ratio by ILRG's count, and 104 non-full-time faculty define a large professional school.
  • You want to practice outside Illinois, where the degree functions as a regional credential — the Super Lawyers record is an Illinois record.

The TLS Verdict

DePaul University College of Law is the most financially predictable school in this profile series, and that predictability is the core of its value case. Every element of the net price is locked or guaranteed: the tuition package rate freezes for three years, the Dean's Scholarship renews automatically with no GPA requirement, 99% of students hold grants with a compressed distribution around a $34,950 median, and no conditional scholarships exist to shrink. A full-time day student at the median grant pays roughly $21,500 a year in tuition and knows, at deposit, what all three years will cost — a statement almost no other school in this series can make. Layer on the location (two blocks from the courts), the specialty strength (Health Law #27, IP #45, five specialist journals), the improving employment record (Most Improved in Employment, 2026–27), and the bar-passage reversal (from −8.7 against Illinois in 2019 to +2.8 for the Class of 2025), and the case for the Chicago-bound applicant is strong.

The constraints are structural and should be named plainly. The bar-required rate of 78.0% (#130) means a fifth of each class lands outside conventional licensed-attorney work at ten months — a function of the school's large J.D.-advantage and evening populations, real to the applicant who wants the associate track. Clerkships are effectively absent (1.3% across all courts). Big Law is respectable but not the school's identity at 8.4%. The debt figures were not verifiable in this review — an unusual gap that applicants must fill directly from the U.S. News profile and the financial aid office. And the living-expense budget ($18,766) understates what an independent Loop renter will pay by roughly $9,000 against the school's own 509 allowance.

The verdict is geographic and financial at once. For an applicant committed to Chicago practice — firms, government, health law, IP, public interest — DePaul Law offers the most certain price and the strongest home-market network in its peer group, and the Class of 2025's bar results suggest the school's improving trajectory is real. For an applicant targeting clerkships, national markets, or a small-collegiate experience, the same data points elsewhere. Ask for the debt numbers, confirm the living budget against actual rents, and read the school's Ultimate Bar Passage Report — then let the guaranteed scholarship arithmetic, which is genuinely favorable, make the decision.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is DePaul Law's acceptance rate?

34.81% for Fall 2025, with 920 offers extended to 2,643 completed applications and 186 students in the first-year class — a yield of 20.11%. Source: the 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report. The rate has fallen from 58.7% in 2019.

What LSAT and GPA do I need?

The Fall 2025 medians were 158 LSAT and 3.61 GPA, with middle-50% ranges of 154–160 and 3.17–3.80. Full-time entrants carried medians of 158 and 3.65; part-time entrants, 155 and 3.35.

How much does DePaul Law cost?

$56,436 full-time day and $35,964 part-time in tuition for 2026–27 (package rates, frozen for three years for full-time day students), plus $300 in mandatory fees, the $150/semester comprehensive fee, and $171/semester for the U-Pass transit pass. Total cost of attendance is $85,276 full-time and $64,120 part-time per the school's official budgets; note that the school's living-expense estimate of $18,766 is below the 509 report's $29,110 allowance.

Does DePaul Law have a part-time program?

Yes — the part-time evening division dates to the school's 1897 founding, enrolls 29 of the 186 Fall 2025 entrants, ranks #35 (tie) of 78 nationally, and bills at the $35,964 package rate.

What percentage of students receive scholarships?

491 students, or 99%, received grants in the most recently reported year, with a median of $34,950 and a 25th-to-75th range of $20,000 to $35,000. Dean's Scholarships range from a few thousand dollars to $45,000 per year, are guaranteed in the same amount for all remaining years, and carry no GPA requirement. The school awards no conditional scholarships and files no ABA retention chart.

What is DePaul Law's bar passage rate?

83.8% for first-time takers among the Class of 2025 — 2.8 points above the average of the jurisdictions where they sat. The 2024 cohort passed at 76.0% against an Illinois average of 78.6% (−2.5, #127 of 196), and the 2019 cohort trailed by 8.7 points; the six-year swing is roughly fourteen points in DePaul's favor. The school publishes an ABA First Time & Ultimate Bar Passage Report on its disclosures page.

Where do graduates work?

Primarily in Chicago: 55.5% of the Class of 2025 joined law firms (8.4% at 501+ firms), 9.0% went to business and academia, 9.0% to public interest, 7.7% to government, and 1.3% to judicial clerkships, with 4.5% unemployed and seeking. The modeled salary is $107,864 (82% reporting). The school has placed more alumni on the Illinois Super Lawyers list than any other law school in the publication's history — 643 in 2026 alone.

Is DePaul Law good for BigLaw?

Respectably, for its rank: 8.4% of the Class of 2025 entered firms of 501+ attorneys. But the school's core strength is Chicago's small and mid-size market, and federal clerkship placement (1.3% across all courts) is not a realistic path here.

Does DePaul Law offer an LRAP?

Yes — the Center for Public Interest Law administers a loan-forgiveness program funded by student fees and private donations, distributing awards as forgivable loans to graduates in qualifying public-interest employment. Award amounts and eligibility thresholds should be requested directly. Average indebtedness and borrowing rates for 2025 graduates were not independently confirmed in this review.

Who is the dean?

Geoffrey Rapp, the 14th Dean and Professor of Law, effective July 1, 2025. He succeeded interim Dean Julie Lawton (2024–25), who followed Jennifer Rosato Perea (2015–24).

What is DePaul Law best known for?

Health law (#27 nationally), intellectual property and technology law (CIPLIT, #45), a 99% grant-recipient rate with zero conditional scholarships and a frozen three-year tuition package, the Illinois Super Lawyers record (more alumni named than any other school in the publication's history), and its Loop location two blocks from the state and federal courts. Notable alumni include Mayors Richard J. and Richard M. Daley, Chief Justice Michael Bilandic, Seventh Circuit Judge William J. Bauer, civil rights leader Benjamin Hooks, and Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton.

Contact and Key Links

DePaul University College of Law
Lewis Center, 25 East Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, IL 60604

Main Phone: (312) 362-8701

Office of Law Admission: (312) 362-6831

Admissions Email: [email protected]

Application Fee: $0

Application Deadline: April 1

Official links

Key documents

TLS Forum Links

Sources

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