William S. Richardson School of Law

The William S. Richardson School of Law is the professional graduate law school of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Located in Honolulu, Hawaii, the school is named after its patriarch, former Hawaii State Supreme Court Chief Justice William S. Richardson, a zealous advocate of Hawaiian culture,[1] and is Hawaii's only law school.[2]

Richardson's regime of legal studies places special emphasis on fields of law of particular importance to Hawaii and the surrounding Pacific and Asian region, including Native Hawaiian Law, Pacific-Asian Legal Studies, Environmental Law, and maritime law.[3]

A member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), the school is accredited by the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association (ABA).[4] It offers a Juris Doctor, with certificates available in Native Hawaiian Law, Pacific-Asian Legal Studies, and Environmental Law, with students able to matriculate either full-time or part-time. It also offers an Advanced Juris Doctor, for foreign students who have earned a law degree abroad, and a LLM.

For 2021, U.S. News & World Report ranked Richardson 96th among American law schools.[5] Richardson's part-time program was ranked 30th.[6] The establishment of the Law School in 1973, was considered the achievement of former Hawaii State Supreme Court Chief Justice, William S. Richardson.[2] For many years he had pressed the Hawaii State Legislature for its creation, arguing that the state would benefit by providing a legal education for its residents that enveloped its cultural customs—because they had the greatest stake in constructing the state's legal traditions going forward as such. At his retirement, the Law School was named in his honor. The spirit of Richardson's culture as a community devoted to the study of law is manifested in Kānāwai Māmalahoe, the fundamental precept of Hawaiian law.

Originating in a royal edict by King Kamehameha I in 1797, galvanizing the Kingdom of Hawai'i's legal system, Kānāwai Māmalahoe, or Law of the Splintered Paddle, was enshrined later in the Hawaii State Constitution, Article 9, Section 10.[7]