Customize Your Legal Education with UBalt Law's Centers
The UBalt School of Law’s centers are designed to help you customize your legal education
and allow you to pursue work you’re passionate about while enriching your knowledge
of the law. Our centers foster academic leadership, community engagement and advocacy
for innovative legal policy.
By participating in a center’s work, you will help effect change in the legal system.
The Center on Applied Feminism works to apply the insights of feminist theory to create
social change and to reform law. In addition to holding conferences and regular colloquia
on emerging legal areas that intersect with feminism, the center sponsors the Special
Topics in Applied Feminism course and helps students plan for careers in feminist
advocacy.
The center co-sponsored with the UBalt Law Review the March 2025 symposium "States
and the Battle to Secure Reproductive Freedoms Post-Dobbs." The symposium consisted
of four panels of experts from across the country with a focus on democracy, family
planning, specific states, and calls to action, providing an enlightening look into
the ongoing battle for reproductive freedom across the country.
The Center for Criminal Justice Reform supports community-driven efforts to improve
public safety and address the harm and inequity caused by the criminal legal system,
bringing together diverse voices and decision-makers to examine how the criminal legal
system currently functions, and to collaborate on strategies that promote justice
throughout the country and in Baltimore. Launched in January 2022, the center has
hosted several impactful events, including “Innocence Isn’t Enough: The Intentionally
High Bar to Exoneration,” a panel discussion on racial disparities in prosecution
in Baltimore, a panel on juvenile justice reform in Maryland, and a discussion with
the author of the investigative report on the Baltimore Police Department’s corrupt
Gun Trace Task Force.
The Center for International and Comparative Law studies human rights, democratic
institutions, international trade, international courts and the legal basis of international
relations. It also sponsors learning opportunities involving a broad range of international
law topics for students, staff and faculty at the law school. The center houses the
Secretariat of the American Society of Comparative Law and directs the publication
of its book series, ASCL Studies in Comparative Law. The center also directs the publication
of the series ASIL Studies in International Legal Theory for the American Society
of International Law.
The Center for the Law of Intellectual Property and Technology promotes research,
education and legal practice in three intertwined areas of law. One aspect of the
center’s focus is intellectual property law, including copyright law, patent law,
trade secret law and trademark law. The center examines and publicizes legal issues
stemming from the use of cutting-edge technologies and supports the use of technology
to understand the law.
The Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts promotes
child and family well-being while inspiring the next generation of attorneys to prioritize
the power, voice, and needs of families. We engage communities in all that we do and
work tirelessly to transform systems that create barriers to family well-being. The
center is committed to creating a society where children and families thrive without
unnecessary involvement in the legal system. The center presents an annual symposium.
The 2024 symposium, "Keeping Youth in Community: Policies, Practices, and Programs
to Promote Youth Justice," featured keynote speaker Nate Balis, from the Annie E.
Casey Foundation.
CFCC’s Tackling Chronic Absenteeism Project (TCAP) -- launched in 2005 as the Truancy
Court Project -- is a voluntary, non-punitive, holistic and data-driven intervention
that works to identify and address the root causes of truancy for each child, improve
behavior and student and family attitudes toward school, and build a foundation for
long-term academic success.
