Elon University School of Law: An Overview of Innovation and Experiential Learning
Elon University School of Law, established in 2006 and located in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, stands out as an innovative institution dedicated to engaged and experiential learning in law. Occupying the former downtown public library building, Elon Law is one of nine graduate programs offered by Elon University.
History and Development
The genesis of Elon Law began in October 2004 when Elon University trustees approved the establishment of a law school in the former Greensboro Central Public Library. Jim Melvin, former Greensboro mayor, spearheaded fundraising efforts, securing $10 million in just eight months. Renovation of the 84,000-square-foot facility commenced in spring 2005, with plans for a law library, courtroom, and study areas. The H. Michael Weaver Building was toured by donors, trustees, and faculty on June 29, 2006.
Leary Davis served as the founding dean, followed by George R. Johnson Jr. In 2015, Elon Law implemented a two-and-a-half-year trimester schedule, believed to be the first law school in the United States to do so. Joint programs with Guilford College and N.C. A&T were also introduced, providing accelerated paths to legal education.
Expansion to Charlotte: The Flex Program
In September 2023, Elon University announced plans to expand Elon Law's presence into Charlotte, North Carolina, through a part-time program tailored for working professionals. This initiative recognizes the demand for legal education in the largest American city without a law school. The Elon Law Flex Program launched in Fall 2024, offering in-person classes in Charlotte’s South End, a vibrant neighborhood near Uptown. The state-of-the-art Charlotte center is located at 330 West Tremont Avenue, conveniently accessible via the LYNX Blue Line light rail system and with ample parking shared with Hi-Wire Brewing Co.
The Flex Program allows students to take many of the same elective courses as the full-time program, along with courses tailored to the Charlotte market, such as banking law, health law, and sports and entertainment law. Students also participate in extracurricular and experiential learning programs. Elon Law has a strong connection to Charlotte through residencies-in-practice and internships with the city’s law firms, judges, and corporations. The Flex Program is designed for career professionals, caregivers, and others unable to commit to full-time legal education. For those seeking to complete their undergraduate studies or begin their legal careers quickly, the established full-time 2.5-year program in Greensboro remains an ideal option.
Read also: Elon's Notable Graduates
Innovative Curriculum and Experiential Learning
Elon Law is committed to integrating traditional classroom instruction with practical experience. The school was the first to offer a two-and-a-half-year curriculum, allowing students to move at an accelerated pace while completing all required courses. This shortened curriculum provides opportunities for hands-on experience in the field.
A required, full-time residency-in-practice field placement with a judge or attorney is a cornerstone of Elon Law’s curriculum. Students can influence their placements based on their interests, choosing to work in judicial clerkships, government, corporate, nonprofit, or private law offices, or one of the school's legal clinics, including the Wills Drafting Clinic and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Clinic.
Legal practice labs are implemented for first-year students, exposing them to case simulations led by attorneys. Every student is assigned an attorney-mentor for shadowing opportunities, including observation of trials, interviews, depositions, and mediations. The school shares a space with the North Carolina Business Court, allowing students to observe trials and interact with courtroom figures regularly.
The curriculum emphasizes legal writing, oral advocacy, and broader professional competencies. Experiential learning opportunities are integrated throughout the curriculum, and the 86-credit, seven-trimester model enables students to spend more time in the classroom while completing their course of study in less time than traditional law schools.
Academic Program and Curriculum Details (Flex Program)
The Flex Program curriculum is designed to be completed in four years, though students have up to six years to finish all requirements. To graduate in four years, students must take the required courses and the specified number of credit hours of core and elective courses each term. Students must seek administrative approval to take less than the full course load for a term. Required courses are typically offered only once per academic year, so missing a course may present scheduling challenges. While most courses are offered in person at the Elon Charlotte facility, students can take several online courses, particularly in the Flex 3 and Flex 4 years.
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Students must successfully complete 86 credit hours for graduation. The standard program graduation date is at the end of the winter trimester of the Flex 4 year, allowing graduates to take the bar exam in July. The 2024-25 Flex Program Student Handbook provides additional information about the academic program and curriculum.
Core courses, while not required, are tested on the bar exam and include Family Law, Wills & Trusts, Criminal Procedure, Sales, Secured Transactions, Real Estate Transactions, and Remedies. Students must take at least 8 credit hours of core courses. Electives are not required and not typically tested on the bar exam. In the spring trimester of the Flex 3 year, at least one course taken must be a core course.
Seven credit hours must involve experiential learning, including Residency, Externships, Moot Court, Mock Trial, and Clinics. Bar Exam Foundations must be taken no more than one trimester before graduation, typically in the winter trimester for students graduating at the end of the winter or spring trimester.
Summer School
Each summer, there are two sessions of summer school ranging from four to five weeks in length. Many summer school courses are offered asynchronously online, but some may be in person. Students must take a minimum of 6 credit hours over the course of the first three summers, with a maximum of 6 credit hours per summer session. If a student is required to take Mastering Legal Analysis (MLA), 3 of the required 7 credit hours will be MLA. Students can also take required, core, and elective courses during the summer, which may reduce the number of credits needed in subsequent trimesters. Summer school courses are subject to availability and prerequisites.
Tuition, Fees, and Financial Aid
Flex Program tuition is charged per credit hour. The 2025-26 academic year tuition rate will be $1,581 per credit hour. Additional (indirect) expenses, such as living expenses, are not charged by Elon Law. The estimated additional expenses assume that Flex Program students will be relying on employment income or other financial resources aside from financial aid for most of their living expenses.
Read also: Academics at Elon
Some scholarship assistance is available to accepted applicants based on a review of their admission files. The law school is often contacted by other institutions making scholarships available to prospective and current law students.
Many students borrow funds to finance their legal education. To be eligible for Unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loans, applicants must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Elon’s federal school code is 002927. Law students may be eligible to borrow additional funds through the Federal Grad Plus loan program. The FAFSA should be completed as soon as possible after it is made available by the federal Department of Education each year. The Financial Aid office determines a student’s financial need based on the cost of attendance (tuition and living allowance) and the student aid index (SAI). A student must be enrolled in at least 5 credit hours during a trimester to be eligible for federal loans. For summer school, students must enroll in at least 2 credit hours in a session to be eligible for federal loans for the session.
Admissions and Application Process
Elon University School of Law accepts applications through the Law School Admission Council (LSAC). Applications are reviewed and admissions offers extended on a rolling basis. Elon Law is one of the few law schools to interview applicants prior to admission as part of its holistic approach to evaluating candidates.
The law school offers an Early Decision option. Scholarships ranging from a few thousand dollars to full tuition are awarded based on academic abilities, potential for the study of law, demonstrated commitment to service and leadership, and other considerations. All accepted applicants are considered for scholarships. Over 80 percent of students in the class of 2019 received merit-based scholarships. Each scholarship may be renewed for each year of law school, assuming satisfactory academic progress. Elon Law has one of the highest conditional scholarship retention rates in the nation.
In addition to scholarships, Elon Law invites applicants to apply for Advocacy, Business, and Leadership Fellows programs, which provide additional scholarships and stipend-supported externships.
Dual-Degree Programs
Elon Law students can apply after their first year to one of two dual-degree programs: a JD/MBA program with Elon University's Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, or a JD/Master of Environmental Law & Policy (JD/MELP) in coordination with Vermont Law School.
In the JD/MBA program, students take courses at both the law school’s downtown Greensboro campus and at the Ernest A. Koury Sr. Business Center located on Elon University's main campus in Elon, N.C. In the JD/MELP program, students complete courses at Elon Law and live in Vermont during their second summer to work in Vermont Law's Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic.
Fellows Programs
Elon Law’s competitive Leadership Fellows program recruits students who demonstrate exceptional leadership in all aspects of life, in addition to academic excellence. Candidates complete a separate application during the admissions process, though a limited number of enrolled students are accepted into the program following their first year. Leadership Fellows complete summer externships that allow them the opportunity to serve within the public sector while also earning course credit.
Elon Law's Business Fellows take part in a summer externship in a corporate or business setting, such as an in-house legal department. They receive a stipend covering the tuition cost and living expenses for the summer corporate or business externship, as well as a Business Fellows Scholarship toward tuition during the academic year. Business Fellows also have the opportunity to counsel businesses through the law school's Small Business & Entrepreneurship Clinic.
Clinical Law Center and Experiential Opportunities
Elon Law opened its Clinical Law Center in 2009 to support legal services provided by law school students. The center provides a facility for students, under the supervision of law faculty and attorneys, to work with clients referred by nonprofit organizations and government agencies in the greater-Greensboro region. Students obtain in-depth legal experience working with clients through four law clinics at Elon:
- Constitutional Law Appellate Advocacy Clinic: Gives students an opportunity to work on a pending case before a state or federal appellate court with significant public policy implications.
- Guardian ad Litem Appellate Advocacy Clinic: Represents abused and neglected children in the North Carolina appellate courts.
- Humanitarian Immigration Law Clinic: Serves international refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war and conflict.
- Small Business & Entrepreneurship Clinic: Provides legal services to start-up companies in the central North Carolina region.
In addition to robust clinical and work-placement opportunities, Elon Law fields a nationally competitive moot court program and a mock trial program. Elon teams have won numerous best brief awards and regularly finish among the top teams in national competitions. Elon Law’s Moot Court Board annually hosts the Billings, Exum & Frye National Moot Court Competition, named for the three former Chief Justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court who served as founding members of the law school’s national advisory board.
North Carolina Business Court
Elon University School of Law houses the North Carolina Business Court. The court hears cases involving complex commercial and corporate law disputes in the law school's Robert E. Long Courtroom. The courtroom includes three large flat screen monitors to display motions, briefs and other documents, wireless technology and videoconferencing capabilities. All Business Court cases are assigned by the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Faculty and Student Life
Elon Law’s faculty are known for being approachable, interested in teaching, and helpful in crafting the legal learning process. They take time to listen to students and want them to have successful law careers. The small class sizes, with a 9:1 student-to-faculty ratio, give students the chance to participate in numerous extracurriculars. Classrooms are new and multifunctional, and the library is large with many areas to study. The librarians are passionate, patient, and precipitant in academic success. The Office of Academic Success is devoted to helping students, and the responsive administration is constantly seeking insight on improvement by listening to the students.
Elon Law students have formed and lead more than 30 organizations and cocurricular programs.
Employment Outcomes
Many Elon Law graduates enter into private practice in small and medium size law firms in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic regions, but also in large firms regionally and nationally. Graduates also work in corporate legal departments, consulting firms, and in other business and industry sectors. Within government, Elon graduates have accepted federal-level positions in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) through the United States Military, Presidential Management Fellows program, and offices of the US Congress. State and local government placements include positions within district attorneys and public defenders offices, as well as judicial clerkships, often with the North Carolina Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals.
Recognition and Rankings
Elon Law’s innovations in legal education have earned the school recognition from The National Jurist, which has twice named Elon Law one of “America’s 20 most innovative law schools.” Elon Law made the Top 10 of PreLaw Magazine’s “Best Schools for Practical Training” and scored an A+ for hands-on learning in the widely read publication’s annual feature in 2023, 2024 and 2025. In 2013, Elon Law’s leadership program won the ABA’s E. Smythe Gambrell Award, the top national award for excellence in legal professionalism education. Also in 2013, Elon Law was featured for “getting serious about business skills” by the National Law Journal.
The Princeton Review features Elon Law in its “Best Law Schools for 2025” guidebook, with rankings drawn from surveys of law school administrators and law students nationwide. Elon Law again made The Princeton Review’s top 10 list of “Most Competitive Students.”
Leadership
Elon Law is led by Dean and Professor of Law Zak Kramer. He was preceded by Interim Dean Alan Woodlief, Dean Emeritus and Professor Luke Bierman, Dean Emeritus George R. Johnson, Jr., and Founding Dean Leary Davis.
Non-Discrimination Policy
Elon University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin (including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics), sex (including sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy or related conditions), age, disability, genetic information, religion, veteran’s status, or any other protected basis under applicable law in the recruitment and admission of students, the recruitment and employment of faculty and staff, or the operation of any of its programs and activities.
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