Texas Law is home to some of the nation’s leading centers in legal education. From our newest center, the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, to the longstanding Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, these subject-driven hubs of scholarship and activity offer Texas Law’s students access to talented faculty from the law school and across campus, and to work opportunities in the school and across the globe. Through our centers, students are surrounded by networks to support their varied interests and professional futures.
Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center
The Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, founded in 2020, is dedicated to advancing the discussion, education and scholarship of the First Amendment. The rights secured by the First Amendment include the liberties of religion, speech, and the press, as well as the freedoms to peacefully assemble and petition the government. The Center, led by Director Steven T. Collis, provides opportunities for deliberation about these rights and the controversies related to them, in forms that include conferences, scholarship, lectures, conversations, and debates. Among the center’s main projects will be a new experiential education opportunity, the Law and Religion Clinic.
Visit the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center website
Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice
The Rapoport Center serves as a focal point for critical, interdisciplinary analysis and practice of human rights and social justice. Its growing network of affiliated faculty from various disciplines provides the center with the academic energy and ideas to advance human rights work, and its graduate scholars and undergraduate interns support the center through their varied contributions to its programs.
Visit the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice website
Budd Innocence Center
The Budd Innocence Center was created in 2017 to improve the criminal justice system by helping prevent injustice and protect the innocent. The Center sponsors events to highlight issues related to wrongful convictions and, as its main project, supports the education of students through the Actual Innocence Clinic.
Visit the Budd Innocence Center website
Capital Punishment Center
The Capital Punishment Center brings together scholars, students and practitioners interested in the death penalty and its administration. The law school has long been committed to educating students about capital punishment. The Capital Punishment Clinic has been offered every semester since the fall of 1987, and the center was created in 2006 to expand the law school’s academic focus on the issue.
Visit the Capital Punishment Center website
Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution
The Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution provides effective conflict resolution assistance and services including education and training. The center is a nonprofit organization of professionals who focus on state and local government and are dedicated to the stewardship of conflict resolution in state and local government, the UT community and the public. The center seeks to bridge resolution with conflict using alternative dispute resolution methods.
Visit the Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution website
Center for Women in Law
The Center for Women in Law is the premier educational institution devoted to the success of the entire spectrum of women in law, from first-year law students to the most experienced and accomplished attorneys. It combines theory with practice, identifying and addressing the persistent issues facing individual women and the profession as a whole. The center serves as a national resource to convene leaders, generate ideas and lead change.
Visit the Center for Women in Law website
David J. Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing and Appellate Advocacy
The Beck Center provides all students at The University of Texas School of Law with a foundation for excellence in legal research, oral presentation, oral argument and, most importantly, legal writing. The center is the organizational focal point for the required first-year courses in legal research and legal writing as well as advanced courses available to upper-class students.
In addition, the Beck Center sponsors the law school’s interscholastic moot court teams, which travel to national and international competitions.
Visit the David J. Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing and Appellate Advocacy website
Institute for Transnational Law
The Institute for Transnational Law was established by the University of Texas School of Law to enhance the teaching of international and comparative law, to support research into international and comparative law, to build international contacts for the law school, and to increase student exchanges between Texas Law and the best foreign law schools around the world.
Visit the Institute for Transnational Law website
Kay Bailey Hutchison Energy Center for Business, Law, and Policy
The KBH Energy Center’s mission is to be the pre-eminent energy center at the intersection of energy, policy, law and business. As a joint endeavor of the University of Texas School of Law and the McCombs School of Business, the KBH Energy Center will achieve this mission by leveraging the resources and talents of the two schools and by collaborating with the many other schools, centers and areas of study that comprise the unparalleled collection of energy-related talent, expertise and knowledge at the University of Texas. The Center will:
- Strengthen the business and legal education of future leaders in the energy industry
- Convene leaders and experts for discussion, study and analysis of the business, economic and legal issues surrounding the production, transportation, distribution, and consumption of energy
- Create professional networks for effective collaboration among energy professionals, scholars, and government officials, and connect University of Texas students to such networks
Visit the Kay Bailey Hutchison Energy Center for Business, Law, and Policy website
Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law
The Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law integrates expertise from across The University of Texas at Austin, as well as from the private and public sectors, in pursuit of practical solutions to emerging international challenges. Towards that end, the center sponsors a wide array of research programs and educational initiatives.
Visit the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law website
William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law
The University of Texas School of Law joined with Judge William Wayne Justice’s former law clerks and many admirers in 2004 to create the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law in his honor. A resource for students, faculty, alumni and the community, the Justice Center promotes equal justice for all through legal education, scholarship and public service.
Visit the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law website