History | Texas A&M Law

Celebrating Ten Years of Aggie Excellence!

"Aggieversary"

On August 13, 2023, Texas A&M University School of Law began our “Aggieversary” — our commemoration of a decade producing the next generation of lawyers and professionals poised to change the legal landscape.

A Journey of Growth and Achievement

Frank Elliott - A Founding Figure

In 1989, the Dallas/Fort Worth School of Law was established in Irving, Texas as an evening law school program with only 93 students in the first entering class. Two years later, the law school added a day program, and in 1992, Texas Wesleyan University acquired the DFW School of Law, moving to its current location in downtown Fort Worth. Frank Elliott, a former University of Texas Law professor and former dean of Texas Tech Law School, was a key player in the founding of the original Dallas/Fort Worth School of Law. He served as dean and professor of the school throughout its initial years and during the transition to Texas Wesleyan University School of Law until 1994, continuing his service to the changing landscape of the program as dean emeritus and professor at Texas A&M Law until his retirement in 2019.

Judge Joe Spurlock II - A Founding Faculty Member

Judge Joe Spurlock II ‘60 also played a major role in the success of Texas A&M School of Law, serving as a founding faculty member. His love of and dedication to Texas A&M and the legal industry was instrumental in his belief that the law school would be a force to reckon with, and his foresight proved correct as the law school has experienced a meteoric rise in both the rankings and the public perception.

John Sharp - Transformative Leadership

After John Sharp’s appointment as chancellor of Texas A&M University in 2011, his first act was to work on the acquisition of at-the-time unranked Texas Wesleyan School of Law, lending it immense credibility with the Texas A&M University name attached. His goal became a reality in 2013 when the university acquired Texas Wesleyan and officially added a law school to its repertoire of excellence. Since 2016, the law school has climbed a whopping 120 places in the U.S. News & World Report’s rankings — an unprecedented, historical rise — landing at #29 for 2023-24. Ranked the #2 law school in Texas only behind the University of Texas School of Law, the past decade has been one of tremendous progress and development for Texas A&M Law with no end in sight.

Driving Forces Behind Our Remarkable Growth

The growth is largely attributed to the school’s intentional investing in world-class faculty, recruiting high-caliber students from all across the nation, building centers of excellence, establishing a dozen new clinical programs, procuring university funding, focusing on research excellence, providing a second-to-none education, and employing a multifaceted approach to student success on the bar exam and in the job market, among unfailing alumni and community support.

Notable

Here’s a visual of what’s happened over the past ten years.

Texas A&M’s Rise in the Rankings

rankings

	Rising from 46th in the nation to 29th in the most recent rankings, Texas A&M Law saw the biggest increase among schools ranked in the top 50 in 2022.
	Texas A&M School of Law now ranks second in Texas only to The University of Texas School of Law, closing the gap to only 13 spots between the two schools. (The long-standing Aggie-Longhorn rivalry lives on!)
	The law school placed in the top 10 nationally in two specialty rankings: Dispute Resolution program — 7th Intellectual Property Law program — 9th
	Since 2019, enrollment has more than doubled.
	For the class of 2022, the employment rate was 98.3% and they had the highest placement in gold standard jobs (those that are full-time, long-term, and either require bar passage or are J.D. advantage jobs) of any law school in the nation.

With a faculty and staff singularly committed to our mission of advancing human knowledge — both through scholarship and training of the next generation of lawyers and leaders — the rankings were bound to follow.

- Dean Bobby Ahdieh

Texas A&M School of Law: A Proud Chapter in Aggie History

Part of the worth of a degree from Texas A&M rests in the storied history of our university — including the law school.

Anchored by the Texas A&M University system name — a well-respected academic and research powerhouse — Texas A&M School of Law made its debut on August 13, 2013, after acquiring the ongoing operations of Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in downtown Fort Worth, and a new chapter began as a new class of students embarked on their journey as Aggie Lawyers.

Texas A&M - Fort Worth Bolsters Tier One Status

As part of our commitment to becoming a top-ranked law school, Texas A&M University — along with the city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County — began construction downtown on the groundbreaking Texas A&M-Fort Worth urban research and innovation campus in June 2023. This project will continue A&M’s legacy of being a Tier One research institution and will focus on education, workforce development, research, technology, and service programs in conjunction with Texas A&M University and its engineering, agriculture, emergency management, and health sciences programs, Tarleton State University, and of course, Texas A&M School of Law.

As part of Fort Worth’s proposed new downtown innovation district, this 3.5-acre campus spanning four city blocks will feature three distinct buildings as well as a campus greenspace, classrooms, laboratories, event spaces, flexible research spaces, and makerspaces to encourage innovation, growth, education, and development of workforce skills.

Most notably for Texas A&M School of Law, the Law and Education building, which is phase one of construction, will feature an eight-story, $150 million-dollar structure that will focus on offering law, medical technology, nursing, engineering, and other programs structured to meet the needs of the rapidly growing DFW metroplex. Our new law school campus, the anchor of the project, is expected to be completed in December 2025 — meaning the class of 2026 (for its final semester) and beyond will experience law school like never before, helping Texas A&M School of Law shape history.

Read more about this unique, first-of-its-kind public-private collaboration here, here, and watch the groundbreaking video here.

As we prepare to break ground on Texas A&M-Fort Worth — with the law school as its academic anchor — the new rankings offer a further reason to celebrate. Looking ahead to our next ten years as Texas A&M Law, the sky is indeed the limit.

- Dean Bobby Ahdieh

Timeline

1989

The Dallas/Fort Worth School of Law begins in August as an evening law school in Irving, Texas. The school’s first class has 93 students.

1991

The law school opens its day program.

1992

Texas Wesleyan University acquires the Dallas/Fort Worth School of Law.

1997

The law school moves to its current location in downtown Fort Worth at 1515 Commerce St.

1999

The ABA grants full accreditation to Texas Wesleyan School of Law.

2012

The law school becomes a member of the Association of American Law Schools.

2013

Texas A&M University acquires Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, which then becomes Texas A&M University School of Law.

2018

U.S. News & World Report ranked Texas A&M Law in its top 100 law schools.

2023

Texas A&M Law breaks into the top 30 ranked law schools in the nation, coming in at #29 for the 2023-24 U.S. News & World Report rankings.