On 19 June 1981 the Minister of Education of the Netherlands at the time, Dr Arie Pais, allowed the Rijksuniversiteit Limburg to start a new study programme on Dutch law.

In the forty subsequent years, the Faculty of Law of (what is now) Maastricht University developed into a prominent institution for legal education and research in both the Netherlands and Europe. In 2021, this was again confirmed by the Times Higher Education subject ranking, in which the Faculty ranks 23rd worldwide and 3rd in the European Union.

In 2021, the Faculty has 3200 students and 320 staff members. Although much has changed in the past four decades, at least two things remained the same: the pioneering spirit that haunted the Faculty in its early days never disappeared, and the Faculty very much remains one community in which divides between departments, between academic and support staff, and between students and staff, have no big role to play in daily academic life. Both these characteristics of the Faculty are cherished. Innovation and the realisation that only together we can get the job done are inextricable parts of Faculty culture – and of Maastricht University as a whole.