The American Bar Association (ABA) has approved Elon University School of Law’s full-time, 2.5-year law school program, set to launch in the fall of 2027, and to be housed at Queens University campus in Charlotte.
The inaugural class of the program will consist of up to 75 students, with applications opening on Sept. 1, alongside Elon’s part-time Law Flex Program, launched in 2024, which will offer evening classes.
This approval comes after Elon announced plans in January of this year to expand its legal education to Charlotte.
“For the longest time, Charlotte has been the largest city in the United States without a law school, so we’ll be launching a full-time program in fall 2027 because Charlotte needs lawyers who are educated as part of the community,” Zak Kramer, dean of Elon University School of Law, said.
Starting small
Kramer explains that this new law school program, in part, was built upon lessons learned from the closure of the Charlotte School of Law back in 2017.
Charlotte School of Law faced closure after losing ABA accreditation for multiple reasons, including probation for failing to meet ABA disclosure standards and a citation by the U.S. Department of Education for “substantial misrepresentations to students.”
“We are staying small intentionally,” Kramer said. “It will be a slow growth model as we scale up over the years, making sure that we do this as effectively and community-minded as we possibly can.”
As the new program gears up for launch, new faculty and staff are being recruited to “deliver high-quality legal education.”
Kramer explains that the program is modeled after Elon’s existing law school in Greensboro, which is around 2.5 years, compared to traditional law schools, which are typically three years. The program will operate on a trimester calendar, dividing the academic year into three 10-week terms, allowing students to graduate sooner while saving on the cost of their education.
Experiential learning
The program consists of a residency, where law students spend time out of class applying what they learn in real-world settings, such as law firms, government agencies, judges’ chambers, legal departments or businesses.
The residency program is set up to benefit students beyond traditional classroom learning, allowing them to engage with the city’s needs, especially those who either reside or plan to practice in the city.
“If a lawyer is starting a career in Charlotte, they have to come from somewhere else, and legal education is at its best when it’s fully embedded in a community, and we want a long tradition of investing in and throwing our students into the community,” Kramer said.
The full-time law program will also benefit the city of Charlotte, as Kramer explains that North Carolina ranks high among states with a significant number of legal deserts.
“Even though Charlotte isn’t a legal desert, there are significant swaths of the community who don’t have access to legal services,” Kramer said. “The whole state genuinely needs lawyers; we want to make sure that our students are able to live out their dreams of being an attorney, but also help the community get stronger.”
Legal accessibility
At UNC Charlotte, attorneys Amber Creft and Ashley McAlarney from Student Legal Services (SLS) operate the non-profit corporation that is a separate legal entity from the University and its Office of Legal Affairs.
Creft and McAlarney, who were born and raised in the Charlotte-Concord area, offered similar opinions regarding the city’s need for legal services, especially as UNC Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central University (NCCU) law graduates.
Creft said criminal defendants have access to court-appointed attorneys, but people facing civil legal issues often struggle to find affordable representation.
“There are more people who need those services than there are attorneys who provide them,” Creft said.
Sawyer Hook, a third-year pre-law student at UNC Charlotte who is currently working at the Charlotte district attorney’s office, raised similar concerns, believing that the civil side of the law suffers from inaccessible legal assistance.
“There’s a lack of affordability for those who may be victims or may have been falsely accused, and if they’re not going to public defenders or the DA’s office, where they get appointed an attorney, it’s not very feasible for someone who may be low income to go hire a private attorney for a case that really matters to them,” Hook said.
Aside from civil matters, Creft explained that Charlotte’s growing population faces more than increased crime but also a growing homelessness problem.
Cities such as those in The Triangle, which includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, have law schools that provide legal access for issues like these, among others that Creft believes Charlotte needs.
“At least in the RDU area, [they] have law schools, which means they have student attorneys or people who can do pro bono work, whereas in the city of Charlotte, we do not have that, and while we have attorneys, we don’t have the student attorneys who are more willing and have access to do the pro bono kind of work,” Creft said.
Pro bono work refers to free legal services that are aimed toward low-income populations or non-profit organizations, done by law students who volunteer, essentially what Elon’s residency program is aiming for.
McAlarney, a UNC-Chapel Hill law graduate, also spoke about the student ambassador program SLS offers, inviting the idea of collaborating with Elon’s residency program to connect students with the city.
Connections
In addition to the SLS student ambassador program at UNC Charlotte, pre-law students can engage with a pre-law society and the legal studies minor before heading to law school.
However, without a law school in the city, students miss opportunities to build on existing connections, a gap Hook believes Elon can bridge, as he hopes to leverage the connections he’s made thus far.
“When you go to a law school in the same city, you still have the same connections that are within distance where you can meet with, and actively maybe be employed by,” Hook said.
Following Hook is Layla Sayah, a second-year student at UNC Charlotte and president of the pre-law society, who hopes to establish a connection between the new law program and the club.
“It would be great to have a connection within [Elon’s] law school and UNCC, or at least the pre-law society within UNCC, to give our students more information on what programs might work for them and give them another opportunity to reach out for,” Sayah said.
Both students have expressed anticipation about how Elon’s program can open various doors for students and the Charlotte community, as attorneys Creft and McAlarney look forward to providing pre-law students opportunities they couldn’t have at home.
Kramer hopes to connect with prospective students and believes this new law program will be a success and a benefit for the entire Charlotte community.
“The biggest feedback that young lawyers give consistently is that law school doesn’t teach them how to be lawyers,” Kramer said. “The Elon Law grad will never say that; the heart of an Elon Law education is the practice of law.”