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Concentrations with Certification

Your Guide to Concentrations with Certification at Dayton Law

What are the benefits to students?

  • Concentrations allow students to develop their skills and knowledge in a specific area of law without requiring additional time or tuition, making them more practice-ready upon completion.
  • A concentration makes students more marketable to employers by providing a credential attesting to their competency, commitment and training.  
  • The concentration gives students a road map for curriculum planning.
  • Concentrations are available in Business Law & Compliance, Civil Advocacy & Dispute Resolution, Criminal Law, Human & Civil Rights Law, Law & Sustainability, Law & Technology and Personal & Family Law.

We know that planning your years of law studies is not an easy task.

While the first year of required courses provide vital building blocks for future curricular choices, the large number of legal topics and the many areas of modern law practice make planning the second and third year of legal studies difficult. In order to assist students in planning, we have prepared the following guide to our upper-level curriculum.

Interested students are encouraged to decide early in their legal education whether they want to concentrate in a particular field of law. A student who successfully completes a concentration will receive a certificate at graduation. Students must submit a request to the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for approval prior to beginning their concentration coursework. 

Request Your Concentration

Business & Compliance Law Concentration

“At the most pragmatic level, lawyers are society's professional problem solvers.”
- Rennard Strickland & Frank T. Read,
The Lawyer Myth

The Business & Compliance Law Concentration will prepare you for a wide range of occupations in today’s rapidly changing business environment. You can develop the skills and knowledge necessary to excel as a compliance officer in a heavily regulated field, such as banking, education, insurance, or healthcare; an in-house counsel for a corporation or nonprofit organization; or a business lawyer in a private law firm, providing representation and advice not only to businesses, but also to their founders, investors, and management teams. 

The Business & Compliance Law Concentration exemplifies the University and School of Law’s commitment to serving the common good by equipping graduates to succeed and make a difference in the global marketplace due to their education in critical thinking and innovation, and their experience in building community. We designed this concentration to prepare you for the complex demands of today’s business environment. The concentration courses will provide you with a solid grasp of the core legal principles relating to the formation, operation, and dissolution of business entities as well as regulatory compliance and risk management.

In addition, you will acquire the practical skills necessary to succeed. Along with capstone experiences, you will have the opportunity to work on actual cases in our Externship course . In the Externship course, our students have gained real-world experience with administrative law judges, law firms, corporate counsel, and compliance offers in locations across the country. Students have externed at offices such as CareSource Management Group Company, Dayton Public Schools, Focus Care Enterprises, the University of Dayton Office of Legal Affairs, Clopay Building Products, Grange Mutual Insurance Company, and the Marshall University Executive Affairs Office.

View the Business & Compliance Law Concentration Checklist to see the courses required.

Civil Advocacy & Dispute Resolution Concentration

"I want you to open the case, and when you are doing it, talk to the jury as though your client's fate depends on every word you utter. Forget that you have any one to fall back upon, and you will do justice to yourself and your client."
- Abraham Lincoln,
Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln

The Civil Advocacy & Dispute Resolution Concentration will prepare you to help your clients find the most effective means of resolving their conflicts with others. The best advocates are not only accomplished trial attorneys, but also exceptional negotiators with formidable reasoning and oral and written communication skills. This concentration will ready you for a wide variety of careers in the litigation field, including as a trial lawyer in court cases, negotiations, arbitrations, mediations, and administrative law proceedings; a mediator or other neutral; and even, in time, a judge.

The Civil Advocacy & Dispute Resolution Concentration highlights the University and School of Law’s commitment to serving the common good by equipping graduates to be servant-leaders with the skills needed to create a more just world. We designed this concentration to prepare you for the roles of advocate and problem solver. The concentration courses will provide you with a solid grasp of the processes and procedures involved in civil litigation and allow you to focus on specialized areas of interest, such as alternative dispute resolution, civil rights litigation, and tort litigation.

In addition, you will acquire the practical skills necessary to succeed. Along with trial practice and capstone experiences, you will have the opportunity to work on actual cases through our Civil Law Clinic and/or our Externship course. In the Externship course, our students have gained real-world experience with federal and state judges, law firms, and public interest agencies in locations across the country. Such externship offices have included the United States District Court Southern District of Ohio, Coolidge Wall Company LPA, the Ohio and Indiana Attorney General Offices, the City of Dayton Law Department - Civil Division, and Advocates for Basic Legal Equality. 

View the Civil Advocacy & Dispute Resolution Concentration Checklist to see the courses required.

Criminal Law Concentration

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Letter from a Birmingham Jail

The Criminal Law Concentration prepares you to serve society by ensuring a just and speedy prosecution of those accused of endangering the health, safety, property, and wellbeing of members of the community and ensuring that our justice system treats those accused of such wrongdoing with respect, affording them the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. This concentration will prepare you for a wide variety of careers in the criminal justice field, including as a prosecutor; criminal defense attorney, public defender; policymaker; and even, in time a judge.

The Criminal Law Concentration highlights the University and School of Law’s commitment to serving the common good by equipping graduates to be servant-leaders with the skills needed to create a more just world. We designed this concentration to provide you with a broad-based exposure to criminal law concepts. You will expand you substantive knowledge of criminal law to include examining topics such as white-collar crime, criminal procedure, cybercrime, and trial advocacy.

In addition, you will acquire the practical skills necessary to succeed. Along with trial practice and capstone experiences, you will have the opportunity to work on actual cases through our Criminal Law Clinic and/or our Externship course. In the Externship course, our students have gained real-world experience with federal and state judges, state and federal prosecutors, and public and private defense counsel in locations across the country.

View the Criminal Law Concentration Checklist to see the courses required.

Human & Civil Rights Law Concentration

“Where after all do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt,
"The Great Question,” remarks delivered at the United Nations on March 27, 1958.

The Human & Civil Rights Law Concentration exemplifies the University and School of Law’s conviction that our human dignity draws us into community and we called to serve the common good. This concentration will help you obtain the skills and knowledge necessary to become a voice for the voiceless. It will prepare you for a wide range of roles as an advocate in the field of human rights and civil liberties, including as a civil rights litigator, immigration law attorney, international human rights monitor or advocate, or prosecutor in an international criminal tribunal. You may work at a private law firm, NGO, government agency, or think tank.

We designed this concentration to provide you with a broad-based exposure to the substantive law relating to human rights and civil liberties as well as the institutions responsible for creating, administering and enforcing that law. You will have the opportunity to explore topics ranging from Civil Rights Enforcement to International Human Rights Law to Children & the Law to Disability Rights Law to Employment Discrimination to Immigration Law Process and Policies.

In addition, you will acquire the practical skills necessary to succeed. Along with trial practice and capstone experiences, you will have the opportunity to work on actual cases through our Immigration and Civil Law clinics and/or our Externship course. In the Externship course, our students have gained real-world experience with public interest agencies, such the State of Illinois Human Rights Commission, Catholic Charities of Southwestern Ohio, KIND (Kids in Need of Defense), the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law.

View the Human & Civil Rights Law Concentration Checklist to see the courses required.

Law & Sustainability Concentration

To make the changes we need to make and to reach a safer future, we will need the resources of everybody here - the scientists, the policy makers, and the industrialists - all working together towards a common goal. And that goal is a planet that can continue to support life.
- Dr. Piers Sellers (1955-2016), American astronaut

The Law & Sustainability Concentration can provide opportunities for you to do work conserving and protecting our planet and the life on it. A wide variety of jobs and careers exist for lawyers with training in sustainability working for agencies or advising clients on legal issues related to clean technology, clean air and water, climate change, and land ownership and management.

The Law & Sustainability Concentration highlights the University's deep committment to identifying and promoting sustainable solutions to reduce environmental impacts and advance equity. We designed this concentration to provide you with a broad-based exposure to sustainability and environmental law. You will explore topics such as litigation, criminal prosecution, corporate compliance, land use, riparian protection, animal rights, and community, rural, and wilderness conservation.

In addition, you will acquire the practical skills necessary to succeed. Along with trial practice and capstone experiences, you will have the opportunity to work across campus with institutional and community partners trying to advance sustainability. The School of Law partners with the University of Dayton Hanley Sustainability Institute to provide educational programs and fellowships for graduate students to further their study and experience in this field.

View the Law & Sustainability Concentration Checklist to see the courses required.

Law & Technology Concentration

"There is only one thing stronger than all the armies of the world: and that is an idea whose time has come."
- Victor Hugo

The explosion of new technologies during the information age has drastically changed the way we communicate, the way we learn, the way we think, the way we work, and the way we play. Lawyers are fighting to keep pace with the demands this change places on the legal system.  What are the bounds of privacy in the information age? How can the law combat cyber threats? The new questions and challenges are never ending. Dayton Law is at the forefront of preparing students to practice in the new technological landscape. Law and Technology Concentration will prepare you for a wide variety of careers intersecting the law, innovation, creativity, business and technology, including working for top corporate and IP firms, within government agencies such as the Patent & Trademark Office, or as in-house counsel for innovative technology corporations and entertainment companies in the creative fields of music, film, sports, and publishing.

The Law & Technology Concentration reflects the University and School of Law’s commitment to serving the common good by providing a distinctive, integrated student experience that fosters a spirit of life-long learning, and adaptability for changing times. We designed this concentration to provide you with a solid foundation in several areas: patent and trade secret law, copyright and trademark law, sports and entertainment law, business dimensions of intellectual property law (particularly the development, maintenance, and licensing of intellectual property), cyberspace law, data privacy and protection, the Internet of Things, and the overall impact of technology on the practice of law.

In addition, you will acquire the practical skills necessary to succeed. Along with trial practice and capstone experiences, you will have the opportunity to work on actual cases through our Intellectual Property Clinic and/or our Externship course. In the Externship course, our students have gained real-world experience with offices such as the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, the University of Dayton Research Institute, the IP divisions of law firms like Thompson Hine, LLP and Dinsmore & Shohl, LLP as well as IP boutique firms, and the Virginia Poverty Law Center’s Access to Justice Tech Fellows Program.

View the Law & Technology Concentration Checklist to see the courses required.

Personal & Family Law Concentration

“The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life--to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.”
- Archibald MacLeish,
Apologia, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 1505, 1508 (1972).

Everyday life is filled with legal challenges, and students in our personal and family law concentration are committed to helping their clients meet those challenges. The challenge might involve adopting a child, obtaining a divorce, coping with the needs of an elderly family member, or dealing with a bankruptcy.  Attorneys achieving success in small and solo practices are typically “Renaissance Attorneys,” well versed in multiple practice areas. The Personal & Family Law Concentration will provide you with the knowledge and expertise to assist your clients in a variety of matters, large and small.

The Personal & Family Law Concentration reflects the University and School of Law’s commitment to serving the common good by preparing professionals who make a difference in their fields and in the world. We designed this concentration to prepare you to make a positive difference in the lives of your clients. It will allow you to build a solid foundation in multiple areas, including family law, trusts and estates, healthcare law, and creditors’ rights.

In addition, you will acquire the practical skills necessary to succeed. Along with trial practice and capstone experiences, you will have the opportunity to work on actual cases through our Civil Law Clinic and/or our Externship course. In the Externship course, our students have gained real-world experience with probate, bankruptcy, juvenile, and domestic relations judges, law firms, health care providers, child support enforcement agencies, and Legal Aid and other non-profit organizations in locations across the country.

View the Personal & Family Law Concentration Checklist to see the courses required.

CONTACT

Registrar's Office

Keller Hall
300 College Park
Dayton 45469 - 2772
937-229-4187
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