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UDC law employment statistics: government took 16 graduates, public interest 11 and state and local clerkships 9, being 36 of 61 employed against 17 in law firms of every size. UDC is a public-interest school with a mandatory two-clinic requirement, and its outcomes read that way by design.
Where the Class of 2025 went: government 16, public interest 11, and state and local clerkships 9. That is 36 of the 61 graduates who found work, out of a class of 80, from UDC's own ABA employment reporting (https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdf).
Law firms of every size took 17 from the same report, of which 3 were at firms over 100 lawyers, or 3.8% of the class. More graduates went into government and public interest than into law firms of every size combined.
That ordering is the school's design, and the school states it plainly: âBeing the heart and mission of UDC Law, Clinic is not only guaranteed at UDC Law but mandatory in order to graduate.â? (https://law.udc.edu/clinicintro/)
So the large-firm column is the wrong instrument for this school. It measures a route UDC has never pursued, and reading it as the headline tells you nothing about whether UDC does the thing it was built to do.
Where the Class of 2025 wentGraduatesSourceGovernment16https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdfPublic interest11https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdfState and local clerkships9https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdfPublic sector and public interest combined36 of 61 employedhttps://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdfLaw firms, all sizes17https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdfOf which firms over 100 lawyers3https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdfBusiness and industry7https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdfEducation1https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdfTotal employed61 of 80 graduateshttps://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdf
UDC's clinic page, quoted verbatim: âWe place such value on experiential education that all full-time students earn at least fourteen clinic credits by participating in two seven-credit clinics, and all part-time students earn at least ten clinic credits by participating in a ten-credit clinical semester offered in the evening.â? And on scale, again in the school's words: âCurrently, we offer nine clinics where students obtain their student attorney certification to represent individuals and organizations facing real legal challenges.â? (https://law.udc.edu/clinicintro/)
On whether any of it is optional, verbatim: âBeing the heart and mission of UDC Law, Clinic is not only guaranteed at UDC Law but mandatory in order to graduate.â? (https://law.udc.edu/clinicintro/)
That is not an enrichment program bolted onto a JD. Fourteen credits is close to a full semester of supervised practice for a full-time student, and it is a graduation requirement rather than an option.
It is also the honest explanation for the placement pattern above. A school that puts every student through two clinics produces graduates whose demonstrated experience is in direct client representation, and the employers who hire for that are public defenders, legal services organizations and government offices.
If you want a large-firm corporate career, this is the wrong school and it is not pretending otherwise. If you want to be in a courtroom or a legal services office in your first year out, very few schools in the country prepare you more directly.
0.0% (0 of 80; state and local clerkships a separate 9) took federal clerkships, from the same report (https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ABAEmpSumm_2025Grads.pdf). State and local clerkships are a separate row at 9 of 80, which is the more relevant number for a school placing into the District's own courts.
Federal clerkship rates track faculty relationships with federal judges more than they track anything a student controls, and they are the outcome most concentrated at the very top of a class at every school.
The state and local figure is where a UDC candidate should look, and it is nine times the federal one here.
Top markets are DC 26, MD 16, VA 7, from the same reporting. That is close to total concentration in the District and its immediate suburbs.
For most schools that would be a limitation worth flagging. For this one it is the design: UDC's stated purpose is serving the District, and a graduate cohort that stays in the District is the intended outcome rather than a failure to travel.
The practical consequence for you is straightforward. If you intend to practice in Washington, Maryland or Northern Virginia, this network reaches exactly where you are going. If you intend to practice anywhere else, it does not.
Salary. The ABA summary reports status and employer type, not pay, and our verified fact set holds no salary figure for UDC. Public interest and government salaries are lower than large-firm salaries, and this school's cost structure is built around that.
The 19 graduates not employed at the ten-month date. Overall employment was 76.3% (61 of 80), which is below the schools this site covers generally, and that is a real number rather than one to explain away.
Durability. Ten months is an early snapshot of a job held on one day. It is the standard because it is comparable, not because it is complete.
UDC publishes tuition of $12,438 DC resident / $24,874 non-resident full-time; part-time $422 and $843 per credit and a total cost of $46,473 DC resident / $58,909 non-resident (509-derived: tuition plus the 509 living line; the 509 prints no total and no 2025-2026 mandatory fee), against a median grant of $8,292 reaching 70% (172 of 247) of students, all from its own 509 (https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025_Std509InfoReport.pdf).
That resident figure is the lowest in our entire verified set of 59 schools, and it is the number that makes a public-interest career financially survivable. A public defender salary against resident UDC debt is a different life from the same salary against private law school debt.
Which is the honest way to evaluate this school: not placement rate against placement rate, but whether the career you want is payable on the debt you would take.
Georgetown's 2025 ABA Standard 509 report shows 120 students transferring in, and 51 of them came from schools in the DC market (https://www.law.georgetown.edu/admissions-aid/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2025/12/Std509InfoReport-63-12-17-2025-13-38-17.pdf). Close to half its transfer intake is drawn from one metro.
UDC sent 1 of them. One is a small number and it is a published one, which is more than can be said for almost anything else written about transferring.
It is on this page because it is the least-discussed route out of a regional DC school and because neither end of it has any reason to advertise. Georgetown does not market its transfer intake and no feeder school markets its outflow.
DC-market schoolTransfers into Georgetown, 2025 509Maryland Carey5Howard3Catholic1UDC1All DC-market schools51All schools120
Against 80 graduates in the Class of 2025, a single transfer is a route for the very top of a first-year class rather than a plan available to most students. We are not going to inflate it into a strategy.
Transfer admission runs on first-year class rank above everything else, and no school publishes a transfer GPA band, Georgetown included. Anyone quoting you a cutline has made it up.
What the 51 of 120 figure does establish is that the pathway is real and structurally regional. Being in this market is itself part of the qualification, and it is the part you cannot acquire later.
The cost is rarely priced: you leave the class you know, possibly a journal cycle you already competed for, and the faculty who would write your clerkship letters. None of that is on a 509.
Our master admissions file carries detailed committee texture for 31 schools: what the essay has to do, how hard the school protects yield, how it uses interviews, and how it behaves on scholarship. UDC is not one of the 31.
So this page makes no claim about how UDC's committee reads a file. Everything here comes from what UDC itself publishes: its ABA Standard 509 report and its own admissions pages.
A page that filled that gap with plausible-sounding advice would be indistinguishable from one that knew something, which is exactly why we would rather leave the hole visible. If you want committee-level read on this school, the honest source is the admissions office.
Put your own numbers beside the bands first. UDC publishes 148 to 153 on the LSAT and 3.12 to 3.68 on GPA, from its 2025 509 (https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025_Std509InfoReport.pdf), and everything else follows from where you land in those.
Then price it against the 509 again: total cost of $46,473 DC resident / $58,909 non-resident (509-derived: tuition plus the 509 living line; the 509 prints no total and no 2025-2026 mandatory fee) against a median grant of $8,292 reaching 70% (172 of 247) of students. Three years of the gap is the number that will still matter in a decade.
Then decide what you would do with the degree, because a school's value is mostly a statement about a market rather than about a ranking, and the market is the part you cannot change from inside.
If any of those three is unresolved, that is the work to do next, and it is more useful than reading another page about this school.
Open https://law.udc.edu/apply/ and confirm every deadline, prompt and requirement against the live application, because everything on this page carries a date for a reason.
Place yourself against the published bands rather than the acceptance rate: 148 to 153 on the LSAT and 3.12 to 3.68 on GPA, from the 2025 509 (https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025_Std509InfoReport.pdf). Your position there decides what the rest of the application has to do.
Decide what this school is to you before drafting anything: a reach where the file must argue, a match where it must not get in the way, or a safety where the real question is how much money you can extract. Those are three different applications.
Every UDC figure on this page was read from UDC's own 2025 ABA Standard 509 Required Disclosure Report at https://law.udc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025_Std509InfoReport.pdf, and recorded in our data sheet with that URL against each individual field rather than as a single citation at the bottom.
Application mechanics come from UDC's own admissions pages at https://law.udc.edu/apply/. Where our sheet holds a field as unverified, this page says so instead of presenting it as settled.
The 509 refiles every December, so every number here has a known expiry date. We would rather you knew that date than trusted the page indefinitely.
Every LSAC figure on this page was taken from LSAC's own pages and last checked on July 26, 2026. Prices, dates and policies move without notice, so the source link sits next to each number rather than in a bibliography at the bottom.
Where LSAC has not published something, this page says so in those words rather than filling the hole with a plausible number. That is the difference between a gap and a guess, and only one of them is safe to plan around.
Government took 16 graduates, public interest 11 and state and local clerkships 9, being 36 of the 61 of 80 employed. Firms of every size took 17, of which 3.8% (3 of 80; bands 101-250 1, 251-500 1, 501+ 1) were at firms over 100 lawyers.
No federal clerkships in the Class of 2025, and 9 of 80 graduates in state and local clerkships, which is the relevant figure for a school placing into the District's own courts.
Top markets are DC 26, MD 16, VA 7. Near-total concentration in the District and its suburbs is the school's design rather than a limitation it failed to overcome.
As a description of the school's design. UDC is a public-interest school with a mandatory two-clinic requirement, and it sends more graduates into government and public interest than into law firms of every size combined.
Georgetown's own 2025 509 shows 120 transfers in with 51 from DC-market schools, and UDC sent 1. It runs on first-year class rank, and no school publishes a transfer cutline.
Written by Ali, Georgetown Law, founder of Lovare Institut.
August 5, 2026
August 5, 2026