Our Vision

Campbell Law is a highly demanding, purposely small, intensely personal community of faculty and students whose aim, guided by transcendent values, is to develop lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion and professional competence, who view the practice of law as a calling to serve others and to create a more just society.

View our Strategic Plan

 

The Campbell Law Difference

  • We have an academic program that is highly demanding.
  • We bring together the theoretical and practical to produce thoughtful, talented lawyers.
  • We have a faculty that is profoundly committed to students and teaching.
  • We present the practice of law as a way to make a difference by serving others.
  • We offer a Christian perspective on law and justice.

Our vision manifests itself in the following distinctives:

We have an academic program that is highly demanding.

The School of Law provides a liberal arts legal education designed to assist talented students in developing strong moral character, disciplined and creative minds, and superb professional skills for purposeful lives of leadership and service to their communities. We intend that all students think, speak, and write sensibly, make relevant and valid judgments, discriminate among values, and maintain the highest standards of professional excellence. In short, we seek to produce graduates ready to deliver the best possible legal services to their clients and communities. To accomplish this goal, our course of instruction is unusually rigorous and demanding. Our faculty holds students to the highest expectations in thinking, preparation, and application. Success comes only as students are fully engaged in learning to analyze the law, construct and evaluate legal arguments, and resolve legal problems.

Our small class sizes help foster an intellectual community that is focused and determined, yet personal and supportive. Students have to work hard here, but they develop a sense of community with their professors and classmates and they appreciate the academic demands as they enter the practice of law confident that they’re fully prepared.

We bring together the theoretical and practical to produce thoughtful, talented lawyers.

Part of Campbell’s demanding nature comes from our conviction that legal education must be a genuinely “professional” education, combining theoretical inquiry with practical skills. Whether engaged in litigation, transactions, or any other type of practice or public service, a good lawyer must have extensive knowledge and exceptional professional skills. Not only is the Campbell program academically challenging, but it also provides students with comprehensive skills training in planning, counseling, negotiation, legal drafting, trial and appellate advocacy, and alternative forms of dispute resolution.

No law school in North Carolina has had greater success in preparing its students for the bar examination and few schools in the United States or elsewhere can equal Campbell’s effectiveness in providing students with practical skills.

We have a faculty that is profoundly committed to students and teaching.

The faculty of the School of Law is a community of scholars who make teaching their priority and are readily accessible to students. They devote substantial time to serving students as mentors, coaches, and professional role models. All faculty have open-door office policies and are willing to consult regularly with students one-to-one. Our professors are deeply committed to the search for knowledge through meaningful legal scholarship, but never at the expense of their devotion to the academic success and professional development of each student.

We present the practice of law as a way to make a difference by serving others.

The School of Law strives to produce highly competent, deeply compassionate lawyers who see the practice of law as a calling to serve others. We want our graduates not only to be successful but also to live unselfishly, considering the needs of others as more important than their own and understanding that reconciling differences is as important as winning cases. Particular emphasis therefore is given to practicing the highest ideals of integrity and civility, seeking transformative justice, promoting reconciliation, and helping those who are most in need of our assistance. In this way, our graduates can become effective advocates for legal and social justice, both in their local communities and in other parts of the world.

We offer a Christian perspective on law and justice.

Our vision is inspired by a perspective not typically heard at other law schools. As part of the Campbell University community, the School of Law shares in the University’s purpose and mission to educate students from a Christian perspective in a caring Christian community. This perspective guides our professional choices, actions, and directions.

We believe that laws and legal institutions are subject to a moral order which transcends human authority and judgment. A central premise of this moral order is that all human beings are created in the image of God and are endowed by God with certain natural rights and obligations. These rights and obligations are the cornerstone of true human dignity and must be respected by every political order.

We encourage students to examine the relationship between spiritual and legal issues, to explore the theological foundations for law, to think differently about justice and the legal system, and to consider how we can help achieve a more just and merciful society. We intend our faculty and graduates to engage the larger academic, professional, and social communities as thoughtful persons of conscience and conviction who humbly bring a faith perspective to legal and cultural issues with the power of skillful argument and an unfailing commitment to human flourishing.

Because we recognize the immeasurable dignity and worth of every person that follow from our creation in the image of God, we seek to preserve a congenial academic environment where everyone is treated with kindness, civility, and respect, and students from all faiths or secular moral traditions are welcome. While the School of Law embraces an intellectual perspective rooted in Christian tradition, it is committed to free and open discussion of ideas and students are under no obligation to embrace any particular way of thinking.