Pierce Law again ranks among top 5 schools in the nation for the study of IP law in U.S. News & World Report

For the ninth time in the past ten years, Franklin Pierce Law Center was ranked among the nation’s top 5 law schools for the study of intellectual property law by U.S. News & World Report. Pierce Law is joined in the 2009 edition of America's Best Graduate Schools by the University of California-Berkeley, Stanford University, George Washington University, and Columbia University.

“We have been very successful in maintaining our enviable position in intellectual property even as this fast-growing field has attracted the attention of many large, well-known law schools,” says Pierce Law President and Dean John D. Hutson.

Hutson points to the school’s small student-faculty ratios and cohesive atmosphere as foundational to the high ranking. “Our success over the years is due to two irreplaceable elements: great faculty and great students.”

Pierce Law offers the most extensive intellectual property law curriculum in the United States through its Germeshausen Center for the Law of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Home to the nation's largest IP faculty and IP law library, the Germeshausen Center provides students and scholars with unsurpassed opportunity for in-depth study of patent, trademark, trade secret, licensing, copyright, computer/internet law, and related fields.

Pierce Law’s long-time emphasis on practical legal skills and commitment to public interest law distinguish its IP and other law programs in ways that have a global reach and impact.

“Pierce Law’s students and faculty are taking their intellectual property knowledge around the world to improve the economies and lives of others,” says Associate Dean Susan Richey. "For example, our students are currently involved in a patent landscape project in Africa to improve the availability of HIV vaccine technologies.”

In addition, Pierce Law hosts two IP-focused summer educational institutes overseas, one in E-Law with University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, and the China Intellectual Property Summer Institute in Beijing, through a cooperative program with Tsinghua University.

Pierce Law is an independent, ABA-accredited law school offering JD, LLM, and Master's degrees with concentrations in intellectual property, commerce and technology, international criminal law and justice, business, criminal practice, and social justice.