The University of St. Thomas School of Law is a close-knit community that is dedicated to integrating faith and reason in the search for truth and justice, through a focus on morality and public service. Our mission is inspired by Catholic social thought, the Catholic Church’s historical commitment to advancing social justice, particularly helping those who are most in need of our assistance. Many of our faculty, staff and students are Catholic, but we are not, nor are we striving to become, exclusively Roman Catholic; many in our community come from other faith traditions.
Regardless of background, all of the School of Law’s faculty and staff and virtually all of our students have been drawn to the University of St. Thomas because of our distinctive mission. Moreover, we believe that now as well as in the future, our capacity to achieve and maintain a vibrant faith-based identity is linked to recruiting and retaining faculty and staff and attracting students who are all – each and every one – dedicated to this mission.
Inside and outside the classroom, our faculty and students study, teach and write about the law by employing all the methodologies common to the legal academy and profession – textual analysis, common law reasoning from precedent, clinical education, historical and interdisciplinary inquiry, and appeal to our ideals. But in addition to these methodologies, we expect our faculty, staff and students to bring a special insight, a perspective and voice not typically heard at other law schools. We expect our community to explore the spiritual side of our lives, the implication of religion for development of the law and legal profession, and, most profoundly, the extent to which our faith and core values should guide and shape our professional choices, actions and directions.
