Last updated: October 5, 2026

University at Buffalo School of Law

The University at Buffalo School of Law is the public law school of the State University of New York system, located in Buffalo, New York, that enrolled a first-year class of 167 students in Fall 2025 from 977 completed applications, with a median LSAT of 157 and a median undergraduate GPA of 3.71. It is ranked #82 (tie) in the 2026 U.S. News rankings, a 12-place jump from the prior year, and it posted its highest documented first-time New York State bar passage rates in school history in both July 2024 (87.41%) and July 2025 (87.39%). The central decision issue for admitted applicants is that UB Law pairs the lowest tuition of any law school in New York State — $26,430 for residents — with a record of placing roughly 95% of graduates within ten months, at a 2026–27 cost of attendance of $54,784 for New York residents and $61,094 for non-residents.

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University at Buffalo Law at a Glance

Category	Latest information
Founded	1887
Type	Public (State University of New York)
ABA approval or accreditation	ABA approved (Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar)
Location	Buffalo, New York
Latest U.S. News rank	#82 tie (2026 edition; #94 in 2025)
Latest completed applications	977 (Fall 2025, 2025 509 report)
Latest acceptance rate	42.37% (Fall 2025)
Latest LSAT median	157 (Fall 2025)
Latest GPA median	3.71 (Fall 2025)
Latest entering class	167 (Fall 2025; all full-time, no part-time division)
Current tuition	$26,430 resident / $32,740 non-resident (2026–27, full-time J.D.)
Current estimated cost of attendance	$54,784 resident / $61,094 non-resident (2026–27)
Latest first-time bar passage	87.39% (July 2025 New York bar exam); 85.7% (U.S. News profile)
Latest bar-required employment	95.62% employed within 10 months of graduation (Class of 2025, school-reported)
Current dean	S. Todd Brown (21st dean, since May 2024)

The admissions figures are drawn from UB Law's 2025 ABA Standard 509 Information Report (977 completed applications, 414 offers, 42.37% acceptance rate, 167 in the first-year class as of October 5, 2025). The school's own class-profile page is published as a state-and-county composition table rather than a full admissions table, so this profile uses the standardized 509 figures throughout. Tuition and cost data are from the school's Financing Your Education page, which reflects the 2026–27 rates approved by SUNY pending administrative finalization, and from UB Student Accounts. S. Todd Brown was appointed the 21st dean of the School of Law in May 2024.

Introduction

The University at Buffalo School of Law was established in 1887 and is the only law school in the State University of New York system. It occupies 319 O'Brian Hall on UB's North Campus in Buffalo, New York, and reports a total J.D. enrollment of 430, with a first-year class of 167. The school is accredited by the American Bar Association's Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar.

UB Law's identity rests on three pillars: public-university value, at the lowest tuition of any law school in New York State; an unusually broad clinical program, with ten in-house clinics spanning animal law, civil rights, environmental advocacy, health justice, and border and disaster-recovery work; and a research-university setting that supports interdisciplinary degree programs and the only post-professional LL.M. in criminal law in the United States. Roughly 85% of the entering class comes from New York State, and the school draws applicants from a wide band of the Northeast and, increasingly, from outside New York.

Rankings and Reputation

UB Law is ranked #82 (tie) in the 2026 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings, a 12-place improvement over the prior edition and the school's third consecutive year of ascent. Its reputation among value-oriented evaluators is stronger than its overall rank position: National Jurist ranked the school No. 18 in the nation for Best Value — the only law school in the Northeast in the top 20 and the only New York State law school on the full 58-school return-on-investment list — and preLaw Magazine awarded an "A" grade on its Justice and Opportunity Honor Roll. Times Higher Education, whose methodology emphasizes faculty research and teaching rather than admissions selectivity, ranked UB Law No. 56 among U.S. law schools.

Overall ranking

U.S. News edition	UB Law rank
2026	82 (tie) of 194
2025	94 (tie)

The 2025 figure is derived from the school's own statement that the 2026 ranking represents a 12-spot jump "from last year." Prior-year ranks other than 2025 and 2026 were not independently confirmed in the sources reviewed. Third-party aggregators place the school differently on their own metrics — ILRG's 2026 report, built on December 2025 ABA 509 disclosures, lists a 42% acceptance rate with a 157 median LSAT and 3.71 median GPA, and ranks the school #71 nationally for first-time bar passage — so applicants should treat movement of a few places within the 80–95 band as immaterial to UB Law's practical career outcomes, which are driven by bar passage, employment rates, and tuition rather than overall rank position.

Specialty rankings

The school's U.S. News profile and specialty-rank entries were not retrievable in machine-readable form in the sources reviewed — the U.S. News URL retrieved for this profile returned a different institution's data, and UB Law's own 2026 rankings announcement lists only the overall rank. Specific specialty rank numbers for the current edition are therefore not listed here.
The school's programs and courses of study and joint-degree offerings are not enumerated in machine-readable form on the pages reviewed; consult the school's academic program pages.

Admissions: What It Takes to Get In

Entering class (Fall 2025)

Admissions metric	Fall 2025
Completed applications	977
Offers of admission	414
Acceptance rate	42.37%
Enrollees from applicant pool	167
Total in first-year class	167 (all full-time; no part-time division)
Yield (enrollees / offers)	40.3%

Transfers in for Fall 2025 numbered 0. The school's published class-profile page reports the entering class's geographic composition — 85% New York State residents and 15% out of state, including international students — with states and countries represented including Connecticut, Florida, Ghana, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ontario, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. Erie County (Buffalo) supplied 61 of the class, followed by Monroe County (Rochester) with 18 and Niagara County with 10. The class includes speakers of 27 languages and students who have lived, worked, or studied in 36 countries. In April 2026 the school reported that applications for the current cycle were up 25% overall, including a 59% increase from applicants outside New York State, against a national average increase of 11%.

LSAT and GPA

Statistic	25th percentile	Median	75th percentile
LSAT	155	157	161
Undergraduate GPA	3.51	3.71	3.88

Interpreting the numbers

UB Law's profile sits in the upper-middle of the accredited-school distribution: a 157 median LSAT and 3.71 median GPA place the school above most of its SUNY and upstate New York peers and roughly comparable to schools ranked in the 70–90 band nationally. The 42.37% acceptance rate means the school admits a deliberately broad band of applicants, with a 25th-percentile LSAT of 155. No LSAT or GPA guarantees admission given holistic review.

Application timing

The application fee is $85, and the application deadline is March 1, 2026, with a financial aid deadline of the same date. The J.D. requires 90 credit hours over three years for the standard full-time track. The school also offers an Advanced Standing Two-Year J.D., through which appropriately qualified students may be granted advanced standing for up to 30 credits, and a 3+3 B.A./J.D. program. No part-time or evening J.D. division is offered; the Fall 2025 first-year class contained 0 part-time students, and the 2025 ABA 509 report lists no part-time tuition or fee structure.

Cost, Scholarships, and Debt

Tuition

Item	New York State Resident	Non-Resident
Full-time J.D. tuition, 2026–27	$26,430	$32,740
Full-time LL.M. tuition, 2026–27	$26,430	$32,740
Full-time J.S.D. tuition, 2026–27	$11,310	$26,510
ABA 509 tuition and fees, 2025–26	$26,430 + $3,320 fees	$32,100 + $3,320 fees
U.S. News reported tuition and fees	$29,750	$35,420

Annual fees for 2026–27 comprise a $2,474.00 comprehensive fee, a $626.00 academic excellence fee, a $220.00 student activity fee, and a $220.00 direct loan origination fee, totaling $3,540. Successful in-state applicants are required to provide proof of New York State residency after admission. The school notes that tuition rates are subject to change, and that the Fall 2026 rates were approved by SUNY pending final administrative action. U.S. News reports tuition and fees at $29,750 resident and $35,420 non-resident, a difference from the school's own schedule that likely reflects different fee treatment.

Cost of attendance

Expense	NYS Resident 2026–27	Non-Resident 2026–27
Tuition	$26,430.00	$32,740.00
Academic Excellence Fee	$626.00	$626.00
Student Activity Fee	$220.00	$220.00
Comprehensive Fees	$2,474.00	$2,474.00
Direct Loan Origination Fees	$220.00	$220.00
Living Expense — Room	$13,500.00	$13,500.00
Living Expense — Meals	$4,564.00	$4,564.00
Course Materials	$1,500.00	$1,500.00
Personal Expenses	$2,172.00	$2,172.00
Transportation	$3,078.00	$3,078.00
Total	$54,784.00	$61,094.00

The student budget represents the estimated annual cost of attending the School of Law as a full-time student and caps maximum financial-aid eligibility, including loans and scholarship. For comparison, the Wikipedia entry for the school lists 2023–24 tuition of $26,170 for in-state residents plus a $3,078 comprehensive fee, with combined tuition, fees, and living expenses of $52,010 for residents and an additional $4,990 for out-of-state students — figures consistent with the current budget's trajectory but superseded by the 2026–27 numbers above.

Financial aid

UB Law's grant program is comparatively modest in dollar terms but broad in reach, which is the arithmetic consequence of a low public tuition rather than a small program. Per the 2025 Standard 509 report, 212 students received grants — roughly 51% of the J.D. student body — with a median grant of $7,500, a 25th percentile of $3,500, and a 75th percentile of $11,500. Against resident tuition of $26,430, the median grant brings net resident tuition to roughly $18,930 per year.

Scholarships are non-conditional: the school states that it 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 does not publish an ABA conditional-scholarship retention worksheet. The financial aid deadline is March 1, 2026. The school emphasizes debt avoidance as a strategic advantage, arguing that its graduates "work at the same law firms and earn the same starting salaries as those who attend costly law schools" while retaining the freedom to choose public-interest and government careers.

Debt perspective

Average indebtedness of 2025 J.D. graduates who incurred law school debt: not available in the sources reviewed.
Proportion who borrowed: not available in the sources reviewed.
Loan repayment assistance program (LRAP): not confirmed in the sources reviewed; the school's disclosures page does not list one.
Approximate three-year full-price cost (tuition and fees only): ≈ $89,910 for New York State residents, ≈ $108,840 for non-residents. On the full 2026–27 student budget, three years would total ≈ $164,352 resident and ≈ $183,282 non-resident before any grant.

The absence of confirmed debt and LRAP figures is a material gap for applicants weighing public-interest careers; the school's 2025 ABA 509 report and consumer-information page should be consulted directly for the loan summary tables.

Employment Outcomes

Employment (Class of 2025)

The school reported record employment results for the Class of 2025: 95.62% were employed within 10 months of graduation, essentially matching the 95.63% recorded for the Class of 2024. The school describes these as record-high levels for its documented history.

Employment metric	Class of 2024	Class of 2025
Employed within 10 months of graduation	95.63%	95.62%

The detailed ABA category table — bar-passage-required versus JD-advantage counts, firm-size distribution, clerkship and government counts, school-funded positions, and unemployment figures — is published in the school's ABA Employment Summary for 2025 graduates (es25.pdf) and was not machine-readable in the sources reviewed; it is therefore not reproduced here. Applicants should consult that summary and the ABA Employment Outcomes portal for those line items.

What these numbers mean

A ten-month employment rate above 95% is a strong result at any rank, and it is the outcome the school most emphasizes in its messaging. The context that matters for applicants is composition rather than the aggregate: UB Law is a regional public school whose graduates cluster in upstate New York, the New York City metropolitan area, and the Northeast, and it does not function as a national BigLaw pipeline in the way that a T14 school does. The school's own framing — that graduates reach the same firms and salaries as peers from higher-cost schools, but without the debt burden that forces salary-driven choices — is the honest statement of its value proposition, and it depends on the tuition differential holding.

Bar passage

Bar statistic	Value
First-time, July 2025 New York State bar exam	87.39% (school-reported, highest in documented history)
First-time, July 2024 New York State bar exam	87.41% (school-reported, prior record)
First-time bar passage (U.S. News profile)	85.7%
Average first-time passage among U.S. states (U.S. News profile)	86.2%
Ultimate bar passage (2-year average, U.S. News profile)	86.8%
First-time rate, 2023 New York administrations	85.48% (87.41% in July 2024, up 1.93 points from July 2023)
ILRG national bar-passage rank, first-time takers	#71 nationally; 0.5 points below the New York State average

The different first-time figures reflect differing methodologies (school-reported single-state cohorts versus U.S. News's composite versus ILRG's state-weighted calculation). The most meaningful internal comparison is year over year: UB Law posted its two highest documented first-time New York rates in consecutive administrations, 87.41% in July 2024 and 87.39% in July 2025. The school attributes the gains to sustained investment in bar preparation, citing its Rally the Pass initiative, which provides free bar-preparation support, meals, and study spaces.

Where graduates go

UB Law graduates practice predominantly in New York State, with concentrations in the Buffalo and Rochester metropolitan areas and in the New York City region, along with placements across the Northeast. Exact state-by-state counts for the Class of 2025 were not published in machine-readable form in the sources reviewed; the ABA Employment Summary for 2025 graduates contains the geographic distribution table.

Academics and Programs

The J.D. requires 90 credit hours over three years on the standard full-time track, with an Advanced Standing Two-Year J.D. available for qualified students with up to 30 credits of advanced standing, and a 3+3 B.A./J.D. pathway. The school's placement within a large public research university supports interdisciplinary work and joint programs that a stand-alone law school could not offer. The 2025 ABA 509 report lists 65 full-time and 62 non-full-time faculty members.

Curriculum and special strengths

UB Law offers the only post-professional LL.M. program in criminal law in the United States, along with a general LL.M. designed exclusively for international students and a J.S.D. The Neil D. Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce is a joint program of the law school with UB's business school. The school's stated curricular aims are doctrinal depth, practical coursework, and preparation for practice, delivered through a flexible upper-level curriculum.

Student scholarship is published in three journals: the Buffalo Law Review (the general law journal), the Buffalo Environmental Law Journal, and the Buffalo Human Rights Law Review.

Clinics and experiential learning

UB Law operates ten in-house clinics, an unusually large clinical footprint for a school of its size:

Animal Law Clinic
Civil Rights and Transparency Clinic
Community Justice Clinic
Environmental Advocacy Clinic
Entrepreneurship Clinic
Family Violence and Women's Rights Clinic
Health Justice Clinic
Mediation Clinic
Puerto Rico Recovery Assistance Legal Clinic
U.S.-Mexico Border Clinic

The school also runs the Rural Justice Initiative, which preLaw Magazine cited as a model for widening access to the legal profession, and Jump Start, an orientation and support program cited by National Jurist Magazine alongside embedded financial and wellness counseling and peer mentoring.

Faculty

Metric	Value
Full-time faculty	65
Non-full-time faculty	62
Students per library staff	35.8 (U.S. News profile)

The near-parity between full-time and non-full-time faculty reflects the school's location in a substantial legal market that supplies practicing attorneys and judges as adjunct professors while the tenure-track faculty remains comparatively large for the student body.

Student Life and Location

Living in Buffalo

UB Law occupies O'Brian Hall on the University at Buffalo's North Campus in the town of Amherst, a suburban setting north of the City of Buffalo in Erie County. Buffalo is a metropolitan area of roughly 1.1 million residents with one of the lowest costs of living of any major Northeastern legal market — reflected in the school's student budget, where room and meals together total $18,064 against tuition of $26,430 for residents. The legal market is anchored by Buffalo's courts, regional firms, and a growing concentration of financial-services and health-care legal work, with Rochester, Albany, and Syracuse as secondary in-state markets and New York City the largest destination for graduates who leave the region. Winters are long and snowy; the school's proximity to Toronto (roughly two hours) and to the Niagara region gives it a binational dimension that few U.S. law schools share.

Student body

With a first-year class of 167 and a total J.D. enrollment of 430, UB Law is a mid-sized public law school with a strongly in-state student body: 85% of the entering class comes from New York State, and 61 of the 167 students come from Erie County alone. Other in-state concentrations include Monroe County (18) and Niagara County (10), with the balance drawn from Albany, Bronx, Kings, Nassau, New York, Onondaga, Ontario, Orange, Queens, Suffolk, Tompkins, Ulster, Warren, and Westchester counties. Out-of-state and international students make up 15% of the class, with students from Ghana, Ontario, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. The class speaks 27 languages and includes students who have lived, worked, or studied in 36 countries. Wikipedia lists total enrollment at 462, while the Fall 2025 ABA 509 report states 430 J.D. students; this profile uses the 509 figure.

How UB Law Compares

Choose UB Law if

Cost is the controlling factor: resident tuition of $26,430 is the lowest of any law school in New York State, and the school's three-year resident tuition-and-fees total of roughly $89,910 is a fraction of what private New York schools charge.
You want an unusually wide clinical menu for a school of this size — ten clinics covering animal law, civil rights and transparency, environmental advocacy, health justice, family violence, immigration-adjacent border work, and disaster recovery.
You intend to practice in upstate New York or the Buffalo–Rochester corridor, where the school's alumni network and regional reputation are strongest and the cost of living is low.
You want a public research university setting with interdisciplinary and joint-degree options, including the only post-professional LL.M. in criminal law in the United States.
You want a shorter or accelerated path — the Advanced Standing Two-Year J.D. and the 3+3 B.A./J.D. both compress time to degree.

Consider alternatives if

You want a part-time or evening J.D. — UB Law does not offer one; the Fall 2025 entering class contained zero part-time students. The University at Buffalo's cross-town private options and other New York schools operate evening divisions.
Your goal is large-firm practice in New York City at the highest volume — Columbia Law School, New York University School of Law, and Cornell Law School place far more graduates into BigLaw, and Fordham University School of Law and Brooklyn Law School are stronger BigLaw pipelines with New York City location advantages.
You want a large national alumni network and coast-to-coast portability.
You need a loan repayment assistance program or confirmed average-debt figures, neither of which could be verified for UB Law in the sources reviewed.
You are targeting federal clerkships or a research-intensive academic career.

The TLS Verdict

The University at Buffalo School of Law is the clearest value proposition in New York legal education. As the only law school in the SUNY system, it charges $26,430 to New York residents — the lowest tuition of any law school in the state — while posting consecutive record first-time New York bar passage rates (87.41% in July 2024, 87.39% in July 2025) and ten-month employment rates above 95% for both the Class of 2024 and the Class of 2025. Add ten in-house clinics, three journals, the only post-professional criminal-law LL.M. in the country, a No. 18 national Best Value ranking, and a 12-place rise to #82 (tie) in the 2026 U.S. News edition, and the school's trajectory is genuinely strong.

The trade-offs are structural rather than symptomatic. UB Law is a regional public school: 85% of the entering class comes from New York State, placement clusters in upstate New York and the Northeast, and the school is not a national BigLaw pipeline. It offers no part-time or evening division. Its grant program is broad but small in dollar terms — 212 recipients with a $7,500 median — which is the arithmetic consequence of low tuition rather than a lack of generosity, but it means the cost advantage comes from the sticker price rather than from scholarship. And debt and LRAP figures could not be confirmed in the sources reviewed, which applicants weighing public-interest careers should resolve before committing.

Target applicant: a New York State resident or someone committed to practicing in the Northeast, who prioritizes low debt and a large clinical menu over national reach and large-firm volume, and who is prepared to compete for BigLaw from a regional position rather than entering it by default.

Frequently Asked Questions

How hard is it to get into UB Law?

Moderately selective: for Fall 2025, UB Law admitted 42.37% of applicants (414 offers from 977 completed applications). The application fee is $85 and the deadline is March 1, 2026.

What LSAT score is competitive for UB Law?

The median LSAT for the Fall 2025 entering class was 157, with a middle-50% range of 155 to 161. Scores at or above 157 are competitive; no score guarantees admission given holistic review.

What GPA do UB Law applicants typically have?

The median undergraduate GPA for the Fall 2025 entering class was 3.71, with a middle-50% range of 3.51 to 3.88.

Does UB Law give scholarships?

Yes, but at modest dollar levels relative to private schools: per the 2025 ABA 509 report, 212 students — roughly 51% of the J.D. student body — received grants, with a median grant of $7,500 and a 25th-to-75th percentile range of $3,500 to $11,500. Against resident tuition of $26,430, the median grant brings net resident tuition to roughly $18,930. Scholarships are non-conditional; the school does not reduce or eliminate awards based on academic performance beyond maintaining good academic standing.

What is UB Law's bar passage rate?

UB Law posted its two highest documented first-time New York State bar passage rates in consecutive years: 87.41% on the July 2024 exam and 87.39% on the July 2025 exam. The U.S. News profile reports a slightly different composite first-time figure of 85.7%, against an 86.2% average first-time rate across U.S. states, with an 86.8% ultimate (two-year) passage rate. ILRG ranks the school #71 nationally for first-time bar passage at 85.7%, 0.5 points below the New York State average.

Is UB Law good for BigLaw?

Not as a default pipeline. UB Law is a regional public school whose graduates cluster in upstate New York and the Northeast; it does not deliver large-firm placement in the volume of Columbia, NYU, Cornell, Fordham, or Brooklyn. The school's own argument is that its graduates reach the same firms and starting salaries as peers from higher-cost schools, but without the debt that forces salary-driven career choices.

Does UB Law offer a part-time J.D.?

No. The Fall 2025 entering class contained zero part-time students, and the 2025 ABA 509 report lists no part-time tuition or fee structure. The school does offer an Advanced Standing Two-Year J.D. with up to 30 credits of advanced standing and a 3+3 B.A./J.D. program, both full-time tracks.

What is UB Law best known for?

Its position as the only law school in the SUNY system and the lowest-tuition law school in New York State; its record first-time New York bar passage rates; a ten-clinic clinical program; the only post-professional LL.M. in criminal law in the United States; and a No. 18 national Best Value ranking from National Jurist Magazine.

Contact and Key Links

University at Buffalo School of Law
319 O'Brian Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260

Admissions Phone: 716-645-2907

Admissions Email: [email protected]

Switchboard: (716) 645-2052

Official links

TLS Forum Links

Sources

SUNY Buffalo Law School

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