EUGENE, Ore. -- (Aug. 19, 2013) -- While most University of Oregon students still have more than a month to savor the remaining vestiges of summer, UO School of Law students are busy preparing their first assignments.

The UO School of Law operates on a semester system, which makes its academic calendar different from the rest of the UO campus. Students arrive in the late summer for the beginning of the academic year and round out the year in May with finals and commencement.

The law school welcomes its newest and returning law ducks Monday, Aug. 26, for the first official day of law school classes. First-year law students will participate in an orientation week prior to the first day of classes, from August 19-23. The academic year for the rest of the university begins Monday, Sept. 30.

"We are excited to welcome our new law students," said Michael Moffitt, dean of the UO School of Law. "They bring a wealth of experience and energy, and they will be joining a community of talented students and world-class faculty, all of whom are committed to learning about how to engage the law to make a difference."

Two additional programs housed at the School of Law, the Conflict and Dispute Resolution Master's Program and the LL.M. (master of laws) in Environmental Law, also begin classes on August 26.

About Oregon Law

For more than 125 years, the University of Oregon School of Law has served the state, the nation and the world through a constantly renewed commitment to excellence in scholarship, classroom teaching and public service. Oregon Law is an American Bar Association accredited law school and the only public law school in the state of Oregon.

About the University of Oregon

The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.

MEDIA CONTACT: Erick Hoffman, director of communications, UO School of Law, 541-346-1665, erickh@uoregon.edu; Ali Wayner, communications manager, UO School of Law, 541-346-7355, agreen@uoregon.edu.

Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. In addition, there is video access to satellite uplink, and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.