The SettingThe James E. Rogers College of Law of the University of Arizona, founded in 1915, is a highly selective Research Institution consistently ranked among the top twenty public U.S. law schools.  The College has a full-time faculty of more than 30, many with national reputations, and a variety of visiting lecturers and scholars including for example, in February 1994 - 2005, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. The College degree programs provide a challenging legal education for 450 culturally diverse J.D. candidates (150 per class), LL.M. candidates (15-20 per class), and since 2005, S.J.D. candidates.

The University of Arizona is a diverse institution with more than 30,000 students, and consistently ranks among the top twenty public universities in the United States; it attracts graduate students from all over the world. Its library is one of the largest research libraries in the country. Of particular interest to LL.M. candidates are the Eller College of Management and the Department of Economics, both of which offer courses of interest to persons studying international trade law. There is also a well-respected graduate program in Latin American studies. The university's facilities include the Arizona State Museum; the University of Arizona Museum of Art; the Center for Creative Photography; and the Flandrau Planetarium. Support is provided for excellent inter-collegiate and intramural sports programs, and a student athlete center. The Center for English as A Second Language (CESL) provides excellent training in English for students whose English proficiency is otherwise inadequate for admission to the LL.M. Program.

The law library's 345,000 volumes and volume equivalents include one of the best Foreign/Latin American law collections in the Southwestern United States, and has recently been expanded. The foreign law librarian, Francisco Avalos, provides LL.M. students with specialized instruction in researching international and foreign law issues.

Major Law student publications include the Arizona Law Review and the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law    The Rogers College of Law periodically sponsors symposia in Tucson on a variety of domestic and international law topics. The University of Arizona is a member of the North American Consortium for Legal Education (NACLE) which is designed to facilitate faculty and student exchanges within North America.

Tucson, Arizona, located 62 (100km.) miles from the Mexican border, in the Sonoran high desert, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in North America. The metropolitan area, with approximately 950,000 persons, is the second-largest in Arizona. The high Sonoran desert locale, with mountains on three sides, provides spectacular mild winters and hot summers. Tucson's attractions include the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the San Xavier Mission, a wide variety of restaurants, a symphony, opera, chamber music series, a minor league baseball team and spring training for the major leagues, as well as excellent golf, tennis, hiking, cycling, fishing and other attractions.  

The unique beauty of the setting, along with its rich history and cultural diversity through its Native American, Mexican and Spanish forebears, have made Tucson a major "destination resort" particularly for winter visitors, as well as a near-ideal setting for research and graduate level study of NAFTA and other aspects of Western Hemisphere global trade and commerce. Students of diverse nationalities and culture will feel "at home" in Tucson, and the proximity to Northern Mexico and Arizona's leading role in U.S.-Mexican trade and investment provide excellent opportunities for student research. For example, dozens of Mexican "maquiladora" factories are located in the border cities of Nogales and San Luis, Sonora, Mexico. Businesses, farms and mines in the State of Arizona export not only to Mexico, but to Japan, the United Kingdom and many other nations of Asia, Europe and South America. State and local governments, as well as institutions of higher education, are committed to the expansion of international trade and commerce and the cultural interchange that international commerce generates. 

In 1999, the College of Law completed a two-year fund-raising, expansion and renovation program, with gifts and pledges totaling more than $100 million. Improvements include additional classrooms and faculty offices, additional funding for library acquisitions and provision of study carrels for LL.M. candidates and the acquisition of nearly 20,000 square feet of additional space for study and legal clinics.