George Mason University School of Law was authorized by theVirginia General Assembly in March 1979 and was founded on July 1, 1979. The school started as the International School of Law (ISL), which opened in 1972 in a classroom at the Federal Bar Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.[5][6] In 1973, it moved into the home of former United States Chief JusticeEdward Douglass White on Rhode Island Avenue, and in 1975 purchased the old Kann's Department Store in Arlington. Despite the growth, ISL could never obtain accreditation.
In 1976, ISL discussed a merger with George Mason University, which expressed interest in setting up a law school.[7] In 1978, the Virginia State Council of Education denied GMU's proposal to start a law school and encouraged a merger with ISL instead.[8] Later that year, the Council advised against allowing that merger, but the Virginia state legislature nonetheless approved the merger in early March 1979.[9][10]
The law school became fully accredited by theAmerican Bar Association in 1980.[11] Since then, its ranking among U.S. law schools has risen rapidly, being ranked 31st in the United States in 2025, according toU.S. News & World Report.[12][13]
In 2016, the school received $30 million to rename itself forAntonin Scalia, the lateUnited States Supreme Court justice. TheCharles Koch Foundation provided $10 million of the donation, with the remaining $20 million coming from an anonymous donor.[14] On March 31, 2016, Mason's Board of Visitors approved the renaming. The initially approved name was announced as "Antonin Scalia School of Law",[15] which quickly received attention when the public began to note the acronym would spell outa profanity.[16] To remedy the situation, school officials soon announced a new name: Antonin Scalia Law School,[17] a decision ratified by theState Council of Higher Education for Virginia on May 17, 2016.[18][19] In 2022,ProPublica reported that the anonymous donation made in 2016 was allegedly fromBarre Seid, a businessman and philanthropist known for his donations to conservative causes.[20]
In 2019, the law school received a gift of $50 million, the largest ever received by the university, from the estate of Allison and Dorothy Rouse to "fund a chair or chairs that will promote the conservative principles of governance, statesmanship, high morals, civil and religious freedom and the study of the United States Constitution".[3]
For theJuris Doctor (J.D.) class entering in 2023, the law school received 2,303 applications and admitted 14%, of which 97 law students enrolled.[21] In 2024,U.S. News & World Report listed George Mason University School of Law as the 12th hardest law school to get into out of 198 ABA accredited law schools in the United States.[22] The total enrollment of all J.D. students in 2023 was 546 law students.[23] The medianLSAT score among incoming J.D. students in 2024 was 168, and the medianGPA was 3.92.[24] The passage rate for first-time takers of the Virginia bar exam in July 2023 was 90.7%, third among Virginia's eight law schools.[25]
The school also offers variousMaster of Laws (LLM) programs such as the Flex-LLM program which focuses on training and qualifying foreign law graduates to take bar exams in various U.S. states.[26] In addition, the school offers in-residence and online LLMs that specialize in subjects such as cybersecurity, global antitrust, and intellectual property.[27]
In 2024,U.S. News & World Report ranked the George Mason University School of Law (Scalia) at 28th in the United States.[28] That same year,U.S. News & World Report ranked the school as the 11th-best public law school in the United States.[29]
Thetotal cost of attendance (tuition, fees, and living expenses) for the 2023–24 academic year at Mason Law is $62,196 for in-state students attending full-time; the total cost of attendance for non-resident students attending full-time is $78,044.[30] According toThe National Jurist, the school was ranked second among all U.S. law schools for lowest debt-to-earnings ratio, surpassed only byHarvard Law School.[31]
The George Mason Law Library has a collection of electronic and print materials providing access to legal treatises, journals, and databases. Non-legal materials are available through the GMU University Libraries. It is aselective depository for U.S. Government documents and it providesinterlibrary lending services with other academic libraries.[37]
The library occupies four levels of the law school building. It has 14 study rooms, 70 carrel seats, and 196 table seats. The library also operates two computer labs with a variety of software.[38] The library employs 16 full-time staff members, including 6 librarians with degrees in law and library science and 3 technology specialists.[39] Access is limited to university faculty, students, staff, alumni and members of the bar.[40]
The law school is known for its conservative ideological leaning in law and economics.[2][3] In addition, the school is known for tilting towardsconservative principles, a perception that increased with the renaming in 2016 to honor U.S. Supreme Court JusticeAntonin Scalia, a constitutionaloriginalist.[41][2][3]
A 2023New York Times report detailed the school's effort to cultivate ties to theRepublican-appointedU.S. Supreme Court justices. The author described the school as "a Yale or Harvard of conservative legal scholarship and influence".[4]
The law school is also home to the National Security Institute (NSI), a think tank dedicated to research innational security, especially the relevance of legal issues pertaining to national security issues in the global context.[42]
Antonin Scalia Law School also houses the Global Antitrust Institute (GAI), a think tank mainly concerned withantitrust andcompetition policy.[43] In 2021,Bloomberg reported on the "revolving door" between members of the GAI's faculty who later held positions at theFederal Trade Commission, a government agency tasked with regulating many of the companies that make significant donations to the GAI and the law school at large.[44][45][46]
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