Grand Canyon University President Brian Mueller said the proposed Christian law school would emphasize human dignity, compassion, justice and understanding.
Grand Canyon University
The Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday approved a new law school at Grand Canyon University. The school intends to begin enrolling students in 2027 in an effort to help ease Arizona’s attorney shortage, offer more options for students and serve the institution’s immigrant neighbors in the Phoenix area, leaders said.
GCU President Brian Mueller said the law school curriculum and culture would be infused with Christian values, such as human dignity, compassion, justice and putting others before oneself.
“We believe that if you want to really understand Western civilization, if you want to understand American culture and what’s become not a perfect country but the greatest country in the world, one that offers more prosperity than any place else in the world, you have to understand its biblical roots,” Mueller said. “The Old and New Testament provided much of the framework that undergirds our society, and not a lot of people know that today. I think it’s really important from a legal perspective.”
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Mueller added that the world is a “fallen place” and there’s a need for structure and justice, but that “government should be limited and everybody should be subject to the same law, including kings and people with power.” The law school would strive to train attorneys who—in the spirit of Jesus instructing his disciples to love their enemies—can disagree without demonizing their opponents, he said.
Arizona needs more attorneys, Christian or not. According to a 2024 survey from the American Bar Association, the state had 2.14 lawyers per 1,000 residents, compared to a national average of 3.81 lawyers for every 1,000 people.
In addition to the Arizona Supreme Court, the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education has approved the law school; now GCU is seeking approval from its national accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission. In a news release, a university spokesperson said leaders will pursue final approval from the American Bar Association once the school becomes eligible.
“Arizona faces a significant shortage of attorneys, and we are optimistic that GCU will provide an excellent legal education and help meet the need for more lawyers in communities throughout our state,” Arizona Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer said in a statement. “We look forward to getting to know the school’s faculty and students and watching the GCU College of Law grow and thrive.”
GCU hired local attorney James L. Williams as the law school’s first dean, and is working to hire faculty, Mueller said. The university is renovating space on campus and plan to teach students on an in-person basis at first, according to a university spokesperson.
At least initially, Mueller said, he expects that roughly 50 percent of the law school’s students would come through GCU’s undergraduate prelaw program. GCU is also recruiting undergraduates who are interested in an accelerated five-year program, with three years spent earning a bachelor’s degree and two years on a law degree, he said.
Grand Canyon’s main campus in Phoenix is situated in a socioeconomically disadvantaged community that includes many immigrants, Mueller said. Other GCU graduate schools offer free business advising or counseling to people in the surrounding community; Mueller said he hopes to form a similar community partnership in the law school, where he envisions third-year students offering free legal services to locals.
Mueller said GCU is committed to teaching from a perspective of biblical truth but will welcome those with other perspectives who want to engage in “respectful exchange” of views.
“We have a responsibility to teach students the full scope of state and federal law, including statutes and judicial precedents that may conflict with Christian teachings,” Mueller said. Doing so is essential to meeting accreditation standards and preparing students to pass the bar exam and practice law effectively, he added.
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“But we also have an opportunity to examine those legal issues through the lens of a Christian worldview, helping students understand where the law and biblical principles align or diverge,” he said. “Our goal is not simply to produce attorneys who understand the law, but to develop principled legal professionals who can think critically, exercise sound judgment, navigate complex ethical questions and serve others with wisdom, integrity and conviction.”
If approved by national accreditors, Grand Canyon will join the short list of Christian and other religiously affiliated law schools around the country. They include Regent University School of Law, a Christian institution in Virginia.
Brad Jacob, Regent’s associate dean of administration, said being a Christian law school requires imparting high-quality legal education above all: “If you’re doing it to honor God, you want to train young lawyers with all the knowledge and the skills they need to be excellent attorneys and to zealously represent their clients.”
At Regent, every class begins with 10 extra minutes of devotion and reflection. Jacob said that might include a short sermon, a professor strumming a guitar, prayer requests or videos of Christian hip-hop.
In cases when state law differs from Christian beliefs, Jacob said, “Of course I teach what the law is … Students have to understand the law as it is before attempting to critique it.” For example, if the topic was abortion, he would teach about the history of Roe v. Wade and then explain why, in his view, it was bad ruling, constitutionally speaking. And in the 10-minute devotional period before that class, he might discuss the sanctity of human life, he said.
Although faculty have to sign a statement of faith and agree with the “foundational principles” of Regent, Jacob said, students do not; they just have to agree to be taught from a Christian point of view.
“We start from a perspective that there is a God and that God has certain principles of truth and justice and human dignity and right and wrong that are eternal,” Jacob said. “Life is complicated and issues are complicated … We don’t have all the answers, but we’re asking a different set of questions than most law schools are.”