University of Chicago Law School

View of the University of Chicago from the Midway Plaisance

When the University of Chicago was founded in 1892, its president William Rainey Harper expressed a desire to establish a law school for the university that would improve democratic government.[7] At the time, Harper observed that, "[t]hus far democracy seems to have found no way of making sure that the strongest men should be placed in control of the country's business."[8] Harper took advice from a number of his contemporaries. One such adviser, a professor at the University of Cambridge, suggested that the object of the new law school should be to train students to become "leaders of the bar and ornaments of the bench, inspiring teachers, scientific writers and wise reformers" and emphasising public law and comparative law.[9] Another adviser, a member of the Chicago bar, suggested that Harvard Law School, led by Christopher Columbus Langdell and influenced by the casebook method at the time, had "lost touch with great leaders among jurists and lawyers" and that the new law school in Chicago should focus on "social economics" or "principles of statesmanship" for lawyers.[9] Noted legal scholar Ernst Freund suggested that the law school promote an interdisciplinary approach to legal education, offering elective courses in subjects such as history and political science.[10] Ultimately, Harper settled with the view that the study of law should not occur in a vacuum, and that it should take into account "the whole field of man as a social being".[9]

In 1901, Harper announced that the new law school would be established the following year. He requested assistance from the faculty of Harvard Law School, whose dean at the time, James Barr Ames, granted professor Joseph Henry Beale a two-year leave of absence to serve as the first dean of the law school in Chicago. He did so on the condition that Chicago "have ideals and methods similar to [those of] the Harvard Law School".[9] However, Ames objected to the proposed curriculum, which contemplated close affiliation with social science departments in the university and subjects that were not found in a traditional first-year law curriculum. He insisted that the faculty comprise "solely of persons who teach law in the strict sense of the word" and using the casebook method.[9] Harper agreed to these terms, and together with Beale assembled the faculty and designed the curriculum. Harper departed from the understanding he had reached with Ames and hired Freund to teach property law, and the law school's curriculum was influenced by Freund's interdisciplinary approach. The founding faculty members were Blewett Harrison Lee and Julian Mack, who had both taught at the law school of Northwestern University; James Parker Hall, who had taught at Stanford Law School and turned down an offer to teach at Harvard Law School; Clarke Butler Whittier, who had also taught at Stanford; Harry A. Bigelow, a notable scholar at Boston University who recognized limitations in the casebook method;[11] and Freund.[7]

On October 1, 1902, the law school opened for classes in the University Press Building (currently the Bookstore Building). John D. Rockefeller paid the $250,000 construction cost, and President Theodore Roosevelt laid its cornerstone.[12] At the time of its opening, the law school consisted of 78 students (76 men and two women). It offered courses in contract law, torts, criminal law, property law, agency, and pleading, with electives in administrative law, corporations law, federal jurisdiction, Roman law, international law, and legal ethics.[9] The law school invented the J.D. degree,[13][7] and was just one of five law schools in the U.S. that required a college degree from its applicants as a prerequisite to admission.[14] Its library, which was established in short order, housed some 18,000 volumes of law reports. In 1903, a year after the law school opened, enrolment at the law school grew rapidly as its student body increased to 126. Floyd R. Mechem, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and pioneer in empirical legal studies at the time, joined the faculty and remained at the law school for 25 years until his death in 1928.[15][9]

President Theodore Roosevelt laying the cornerstone for the law school on April 2, 1903, after receiving the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws[16]

The law school prospered in its early years and fostered relationships with scholars in other fields, including economics, political science, psychology, and history.[9] It also developed ties with members of the Chicago bar, who served as part-time faculty members and taught legal procedure and other practical courses. The law school's academic standards were recognized as at least equal to those of Harvard.[7] In 1904, the law school moved to Stuart Hall on the main university campus. In the same year, Sophonisba Breckinridge became the first woman to graduate from the law school––a feat that had not yet been achieved at Yale Law School, Columbia Law School or Harvard. In her autobiography, Breckinridge noted that "the fact that the law school, like the rest of the University ... accepted men and women students on equal terms was publicly settled".[17] The law school also established its first alumni association in this period.[18]

The law school faced considerable change in the years leading up to World War I and shortly thereafter. Beale returned to Harvard after his two-year leave of absence. In 1909, the eminent jurist Roscoe Pound taught at the law school for a year.[7] The law school established a chapter of the Order of the Coif in 1911 and the Edward W. Hinton Moot Court program in 1914. During World War I, enrollment declined: in Spring 1917, 241 students were enrolled; this number dropped to 46 by Fall 1918. In 1920, Earl B. Dickerson became the first African-American to graduate from the law school. The law school's Black Law Students Association is named in his honor.[19] Following the war, in 1926, enrollment reached 500 students for the first time. In 1927, the law school began to offer its first seminars. Its longest-serving dean, James Parker Hall, who played a significant role in recruiting numerous distinguished faculty members to the law school, died in office in 1928.[20]

The law school, depicted in a postcard from the 1910s

In the 1930s, new dean Harry A. Bigelow built on the interdisciplinary foundations laid by Freund and introduced classes in accounting, economics, and psychology. The law school's curriculum was shaped by the emerging influence of the law and economics movement. Aaron Director and Henry Simons began offering economics courses in 1933.[21] Faculty member Edward Levi also introduced economics in the antitrust course, permitting Director to teach one of every five classroom sessions.[22] The first volume of the University of Chicago Law Review was also published in 1933.[23] The law school established a legal writing program in 1938 and the Law and Economics Program in 1939. The LL.M. program was established in 1942, while Harry A. Bigelow Teaching Fellowships were established in 1947. As was the case during World War I, enrolment at the law school, like at many of the other top law schools in the country, declined and its academic calendar was adjusted to meet military needs.[24]

In the 1950s and 1960s, the law school experienced a period of profound growth and expansion under the leadership of Edward Levi, who was appointed Dean in 1950. In 1951, Karl Llewellyn and Soia Mentschikoff joined the law school, the latter being the first woman on the faculty. Other notable scholars, widely regarded as institutional figures and leading thinkers in their respective areas,[25] were Walter J. Blum and Bernard D. Meltzer, who studied and taught at the law school for their entire academic careers. Between 1953 and 1955, Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens taught antitrust at the law school. In 1958, Director founded the Journal of Law and Economics. In 1959, the law school moved to its current building on 60th Street, designed by Eero Saarinen. In 1960, constitutional law scholar Philip Kurland founded the Supreme Court Review. Levi later served as the Provost (1962–1968) and the President (1968–1975) of the University of Chicago, before becoming the United States Attorney General under President Gerald Ford. During his time at the law school, Levi also supported the Committee on Social Thought graduate program.[26]

By the 1970s and 1980s, the law and economics movement had attracted a series of scholars with strong connections to the social sciences, such as Nobel laureates Ronald Coase and Gary Becker and scholars Richard A. Posner and William M. Landes. In 1972, Posner founded the Journal of Legal Studies. The law school also established joint degree programs with the Committee on Public Policy Studies and the Department of Economics, complementing Max Rheinstein's Foreign Law Program, which was established in the 1950s with a bequest from the Ford Foundation. The Legal History Program was established in 1981.[27] In 1982, the Federalist Society was established by a group of students at the law school, together with students from Harvard Law School and Yale Law School. In 1989, the D'Angelo Law Library exceeded 500,000 volumes.[18]

Nobel laureate Ronald Coase taught at the law school from 1964 to 2013

In the same period, many scholars who would later become leaders in their field joined the law school faculty at an early stage in their careers. Richard A. Epstein, identified in a Legal Affairs poll as one of the most influential legal thinkers of modern times,[28] joined the faculty in 1973 and continues to serve as emeritus professor and senior lecturer. Geoffrey R. Stone, a leading First Amendment scholar and alumnus and former dean of the law school, joined the faculty in the same year. Douglas G. Baird, a luminary in bankruptcy law, has been on the faculty since 1980 and served as dean between 1994 and 1999. Cass Sunstein, regarded as "the most cited legal scholar in the United States and probably the world",[29] began his teaching career at the law school in 1981 and served as a faculty member for 27 years. Former U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia served as a professor between 1977 and 1982.[30] His future colleague on the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, began her career at the law school too, as did noted legal scholars Lawrence Lessig and Adrian Vermeule. The 44th President of the U.S. Barack Obama taught at the law school between 1992 and 2004 in the areas of constitutional law, racism and the law, and voting rights before he was elected to the U.S. Senate.[31]

Laird Bell Quadrangle fountain in front of the D'Angelo Law Library.

The D'Angelo Law Library is part of the greater University of Chicago library system. Renovated in 2006, it features a second-story reading room. The Law Library is open 90 hours per week and employs 11 full-time librarians and 11 additional managers and staff members. It has study space for approximately 500 people, a wireless network and 26 networked computers. It contains over 700,000 volumes of books, with approximately 6,000 added each year, including materials in over 25 languages, and primary law from foreign countries and international organizations.[49]

In 2018, the law school was ranked first in the U.S. for overall employment outcomes by the National Law Journal[55] and second in the U.S. for best career prospects by Forbes.[56] According to the law school's official 2020 ABA-required disclosures, 98.5% of the Class of 2019 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment within ten months of graduation.[51] The median salary for its graduates in the Class of 2019 was $190,000, and 75% of graduates earned starting salaries of $190,000 or greater upon graduation.[51] For the same cohort, 50.2% of graduates secured positions at law firms with more than 500 lawyers.[51] The law school is ranked first in the U.S. by the National Law Journal for placing the highest percentage of recent graduates in law firms of 100 or more lawyers.[57] It also had the highest first-time Bar pass rate (98.9%) of all law schools in the United States.[51]

A recent study reported that the law school has the third-highest gross and third-highest per capita placement of alumni in Supreme Court of the United States clerkships among all law schools since 1882.[58] Between 1992 and 2017, it placed 88 alumni in Supreme Court of the United States clerkships. During the 2021-2022 Term alone, nine different Chicago alumni clerked for nine different justices on the Supreme Court of the United States.[59] In the Class of 2019, 27.6% of its graduates secured clerkships (with 87.3% of those graduates in federal clerkships).[51]

The law school produces seven professional journals. Four of those journals are student-run: the University of Chicago Law Review, the Chicago Journal of International Law, the University of Chicago Legal Forum, and the University of Chicago Business Law Review.[69][70] The University of Chicago Law Review is among the top five most cited law reviews in the world.[6] The other three are overseen by faculty: the Supreme Court Review, the Journal of Law and Economics and the Journal of Legal Studies.[71]

The law school produces several series of academic papers, including the Kreisman Working Papers Series in Housing Law and Policy, the Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics, the Fulton Lectures, and the Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers, in addition to a series of occasional papers.[72]

There are approximately 60 student-run organizations at the law school which fall under the umbrella of the Law Students Association.[73] It is home to one of the three founding chapters of the Federalist Society. As a professor, former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia helped to organize the Chicago chapter of the society.[30] Chicago is also home to a large chapter of the progressive American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.[74]