For over 150 years, Drake Law School has helped launch successful careers, providing a legal education that emphasizes experiential learning backed by a solid foundation in legal theory. As the only law school in the capital city of Des Moines, our students gain unparalleled access to internships, externships, and clerkships.

3rd PlaceInaugural ABA Competitions

Championship

National Champions2018 ABA Arbitration Competition

Best Brief Overall2019 National Environmental Law

Moot Court Competition

89%Bar Exam

Passage RateJuly 2019

#2for employment at firms

with 100 or fewer attorneyspreLaw Magazine

Top 20Legal Writing ProgramU.S. News and World Report

Top SchoolCriminal LawTrial Advocacy Family LawpreLaw Magazine

315Drake Law

Student Body

8Clinicial

Programs

Constitutional Law CenterOne of only four such centers established by Congress, the Drake Constitutional Law Center hosts lectures and symposiums featuring the nation’s leading constitutional scholars. Recent guests have included Jack Balkin (Yale), Justin Driver (Yale), Ken Kersch (Boston College), Sanford Levinson (UT Austin), Franita Tolson (USC) and Deborah Pearlstein (Cardozo). Mark Kende, the James Madison Chair in Constitutional Law, is director of the center.

Agricultural Law CenterDrake Law School was the first law school in the United States to o�er a specialization in agricultural law. Founded in 1983, the Drake Agricultural Law Center focuses on food and agricultural law. Jennifer Zwagerman is the current director of the center, succeeding Neil Hamilton who retired this year. Hamilton is one of the nation’s leading authorities on the role of law in shaping agriculture and our food system. He has lectured in more than 20 countries. Zwagerman serves on the board of directors of the Academy of Food Law Professors and previously served as president of the American Agricultural Law Association.

Institute for Justice Reform and InnovationThe Honorable Judge Mark Bennett (retired) is the first director of the Institute for Justice Reform and Innovation at Drake Law School. In his decades-long career as a lawyer, academic, magistrate judge, and district judge, Judge Bennett has authored more than 1,400 opinions and 24 law review articles, presented at more than 500 CLE programs, and trained over 2,500 state and federal judges on implicit bias. The institute works to enhance e�ciency, fairness, accountability, and trust in our justice systems though empirical research, education, scholarship, training, and policy advocacy.

Centers of Excellence at Drake Law School

Drake Law School has proven its dedication to diversity and inclusion since its inception.

Alumnus Charles P. Howard (LW’22) co-founded the National Bar Association in 1925 after African

Americans were excluded from membership in the American Bar Association. Our library now

houses the archives of the National Bar Association.

Drake Law School’s clinical programs and legal clinic are located in the 40,000 SF state-of-the-art Neal and Bea Smith Law Center on

campus, supported by a $4.5 million federally-funded endowment.

Our campus is just minutes from the capitol, Iowa’s appellate courts, and the county’s district court. Des Moines is ranked the #5 Best Place

to Live by U.S. News and World Report.

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Drake Law School has 6,000+ alumni who use their law degrees in the U.S. and around the globe in every facet of the legal profession.

Leadership and Recognition Drake Law School Faculty

American College of Environmental Lawyers | Fellow American College of Trust and Estate Counsel | FellowAmerican Law Institute | MemberAmerican Civil Liberties Union of Iowa | Louise Noun AwardAssociation of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing InstituteThomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Legal WritingCouncil on Legal Education Opportunity, Inc. (CLEO) | EDGE Award for Greater EquityEducator Members of the International Masters of Gaming LawPrevious Vice PresidentNational Association of State Boards of Education | ChairPrincipal Financial Group | Global Citizenship AwardWilliam A. Blakey Diversity Pipeline Architects | HonoreeUniversity of Oregon School of LawEnvironmental & Natural Resource Distinguished Visitor

Jerry AndersonMartin Begleiter

Anthony Gaughan | David McCord | Allan Vestal | Martin BegleiterThe Honorable Mark Bennett

Melissa Weresh

Erin LainKeith Miller

Brooke AxiotisEllen YeeErin Lain

Jonathan Rosenbloom

Ambassador Stephen J. RappClass of 1974Former Prosectuor of theSpecial Courts for Sierra Leoneand Senior Trial Attorney and Chief of Prosecutions at theInternational Tribunal for Rwanda

Karen Sha�Class of 1979Executive Vice President,General Counsel, andSecretary of Principal Financial Group

Ambassador Terry Branstad Class of 197439th Governor of Iowa United States Ambassador to China

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. Class of 1992President and Chief Executive O�cer of SHRMChair of the President’s Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Marsha Ternus Class of 1977First woman to serve asChief Justice of the IowaSupreme Court

Beyond Zero-Sum Environmentalism (ELI Press 2019) (co-editor).Dwight D. Opperman Distinguished Professor of Law Jonathan Rosenbloom

Expert Evidence (Carolina Academic Press, 2019).Associate Dean, Clemens J. Smith Faculty Research Scholar, and Professor of Law Andrew Jurs

The Law of Gambling and Regulated Gaming (2nd edition, Carolina Academic Press, 2016) (co-author).Ellis and Nelle Levitt Distinguished Professor of Law Keith Miller

Comparative Constitutional Theory (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) (co-editor).Drake Constitutional Law Center Professor of Law Miguel Schor

Property Law: Practice, Problems and Perspectives (2nd edition, Wolters Kluwer, 2019) (co-author).Dean and Richard M. and Anita Calkins Distinguished Professor of Law Jerry Anderson

Recent PublicationsDrake Law School Faculty Books

Drake Law School Faculty ArticlesOur faculty’s latest articles appear in the law reviews of Baylor Law School, Cardozo School of Law, Emory University School of Law, Fordham University School of Law, Indiana University School of Law, Ohio State University College of Law, Arizona State University College of Law, University of Texas Austin School of Law, UC Davis School of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law, University of Iowa College of Law, and University of Minnesota Law School.

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