CUNY School of Law is the premier public interest law school in the country. It trains lawyers to serve the underprivileged and disempowered and to make a difference in their communities.

CUNY Law pioneered the model of integrating a lawyering curriculum with traditional doctrinal study. The school has been praised in a study by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, "Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law," for being one of the few law schools in the country to prepare students for practice through instruction in theory, skills, and ethics.