Fordham Law School

Part-Time
Evening
Program

Fordham Law School Seal
Part-Time Evening Program at Fordham Law

Your Law School—
for Your Life

For more than 100 years, Fordham Law’s part-time evening program has been welcoming students who want to pursue the best possible legal education while continuing to work and/or tend to family responsibilities. These students enrich our Lincoln Center campus with their unique perspectives and life experiences.

Prior to enrolling at Fordham as an evening student, Casey Adams ’19 worked for both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns—in 2008 as a field organizer in Clay County, Florida, and in 2012 as the regional field director in Nevada. He then went on to work in New York City government and at the City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. His commitment to public service is what sparked his interest in pursuing a law degree.

“I wanted to get a better understanding of the junction point between the political work I had been doing and the actual consequences of the legislation,” he says. “The school does a great job at helping evening students feel that they are an integral part of the community. I studied the law at night, and I participated in the actual process of lawmaking during the day.”

Adams credits the support he received from his professors for his success. “They knew I had a unique schedule,” he says. That schedule did not hold him back. On the day he graduated, Adams, an associate editor of the Fordham Law Review, was honored with a Law360 Burton Award for Distinguished Legal Writing, then went on to clerk for three different judges.

Native New Yorker Akilah Browne ’19 selected Fordham Law School to acquire the legal skills necessary to fight for a cause that she is deeply passionate about: housing justice. As part of her two-year Skadden fellowship, Browne worked with New Economy Project, a nonprofit, to advocate for affordable housing in low-income communities such as the South Bronx and Washington Heights.

“I came to [a Fordham Law professor] and said, ‘I’m interested in affordable-housing work; is it possible for me to do this through the clinic?’ He connected me with mentors outside the school and enabled me to bring work directly into the clinic.”

Browne’s passion for law stems from personal experience. Her father was evicted from their long-time family apartment along with the other tenants in the building. At the time, Browne was working at Cleary Gottlieb, an international law firm in New York City, managing their pro bono cases. “I didn’t ask enough questions—I don’t think anyone asked enough questions,” Browne says of what happened to her family home. “No one caught on until it was too late.”

Quickly, though, Browne turned to her pro bono network for guidance, helping her father get a settlement from the landlord. She also enrolled at Fordham Law as an evening student, working with clinical associate professor Brian Glick. Professor Glick founded the Community Economic Development (CED) Clinic to fight for social justice in low-income communities and for low-wage workers. “I came to him and said, ‘I’m interested in affordable-housing work; is it possible for me to do this through the clinic?’ He connected me with mentors outside the school and enabled me to bring work directly into the clinic,” says Browne. “My friends have lost all hope in the city and some have chosen to leave. I’ve turned my frustration into action.”

Part-Time Evening Program Quick Facts

  • Fordham’s evening program is #2 in the nation according to U.S. News & World Report‘s 2024 ranking of law schools, making it the top-ranked part-time J.D. program in New York.
  • Evening students can complete the J.D. program in eight semesters.
  • In the first three semesters, students attend classes four days a week (Monday through Thursday), but one day each week all curriculum will be taught virtually to allow for greater flexibility.
  • The part-time evening program offers many of the same electives as the full-time day program. Part-time students have the opportunity to complete a concentration, with specialized courses offered during the evening.
  • Each semester, condensed upper-level courses are available, stretching over either several weekends or a seven-week period.
  • One- and two-credit courses are offered on evenings, over weekends, and during our one-week condensed January term.
  • Most administrative offices have extended hours to accommodate evening students.

Part-Time Evening Program Course Offerings

  • Evening program courses are taken over four years with classes held Monday to Thursday evenings (with optional Saturday classes available after the first three semesters). Fordham also offers hybrid courses that alternate between online and in-person meetings to meet the needs of working students and/or those with family obligations.
Required first- or second-year courses
  • Civil Procedure
  • Constitutional Law
  • Contracts
  • Criminal Law
  • Legal Process and Quantitative Methods
  • Legal Writing and Research
  • Legislation and Regulation
  • Property
  • Torts
Upper-level requirements
  • Corporations
  • Experiential Courses
  • Professional Responsibility
  • Writing Requirement (prior to last semester)
A representative sampling of electives
  • Administrative Law
  • Antitrust Law
  • Banking Litigation
  • Bankruptcy
  • Compliance
  • Copyright Law
  • Corporate Governance
  • Criminal Procedure: Investigative or Adjudication
  • Entrepreneurial Law
  • Environmental Law
  • Evidence
  • Family Law
  • Fashion Law
  • Federal Courts
  • Fundamental Lawyering Skills
  • Immigration Law
  • Income Taxation
  • Information Law
  • Intellectual Property
  • International Law
  • Internet Law
  • Land Use Law
  • New York Practice
  • Securities Regulation
  • Trademark Law
  • Trial Advocacy
  • Trusts & Wills