The law school was originally housed in Stuart Hall, a Gothic-style limestone building on the campus's main quadrangles. Since 1959, it has been housed in an Eero Saarinen-designed building across the Midway Plaisance from the main campus of the University of Chicago. The building was expanded in 1987 and again in 1998. It was renovated in 2008, preserving most of Saarinen's original structure.
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.[5] 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."[6] 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.[7] 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.[7] 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.[8] 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".[7]
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".[7] 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.[7] 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;[9] and Freund.[5]
Founding and early period
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.[10] 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.[7] The law school invented the J.D. degree,[5] 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.[11] 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, enrollment 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.[12][7]
The law school prospered in its early years and fostered relationships with scholars in other fields, including economics, political science, psychology, and history.[7] 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.[5] 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".[14] The law school also established its first alumni association in this period.[15]
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.[5] 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.[16] 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.[17]
Growth in interdisciplinary approach and the leadership of Edward Levi
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.[18] Faculty member Edward Levi also introduced economics in the antitrust course, permitting Director to teach one of every five classroom sessions.[19] The first volume of the University of Chicago Law Review was also published in 1933.[20] 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, enrollment 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.[21]
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,[22] 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.[23]
Late 20th century
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 laureatesRonald 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.[24] 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.[15]
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,[25] 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",[26] 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.[27] 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.[28]
The law school's professors use the Socratic Method to facilitate learning in lectures and seminars. This method includes calling on students without prior notice, presenting hypotheticals, and continuously questioning them to test their knowledge and application of the material and to flesh out underlying assumptions in their responses.[32] It is one of the few law schools in the United States that employs this mode of teaching, which is assisted by its low student-to-professor ratio.[33]
Clinics
The law school offers seven legal clinics, in which students earn course credit while practicing law under the direction of the clinic's independent faculty:[34]
Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, including:
Abrams Environmental Law Clinic
Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project
Criminal and Juvenile Justice Project Clinic
Employment Law Clinic
Federal Criminal Justice Clinic
Housing Initiative Transactional Clinic
Immigrants’ Rights Clinic
Global Human Rights Clinic
Exoneration Project Clinic
Innovation Clinic
Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship
Jenner & Block Supreme Court and Appellate Clinic
Kirkland & Ellis Corporate Lab Clinic
Research centers
The law school has six research centers and projects. Each center hosts events, activities, and guest speakers throughout the academic year. They are as follows:[35]
The law school has five current and past policy initiatives:[41]
Animal Law Policy Initiative (2004–2007)
Court Reform in the Juvenile Justice System
Federal Tax Conference
Foster Care to Adulthood (2005–2008)
International Best Standards for Guest Worker Programs (2015–2017)
Kanter Project on Mass Incarceration (2013)
Court Reform in the Juvenile Justice System
International Best Standards for Guest Worker Programs (2015-2017)
Bilateral Labor Agreements Dataset
Animal Law Policy Initiative (Concluded)
Foster Care to Adulthood (2005-2008)
Kanter Project on Mass Incarceration (2013)
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.[46]
Admissions and cost
Admission to the J.D. program is highly competitive. In 2021, the law school enrolled 175 students from an applicant pool of 6,514. Overall, the acceptance rate was 11.91% [2] For the entering class of 2024, the 25th and 75th LSAT percentiles were 169 and 175, respectively, with a median of 172. The 25th and 75th undergraduate GPA percentiles were 3.82 and 3.98, respectively, with a median of 3.91.[2]
Admission into the LL.M. program is also competitive. In 2020, the law school reported that it had received approximately 1,000 applications for 80 positions.[47]
The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees and living expenses) at the law school for the 2017–18 academic year was $93,414.[48]
Grading
The law school employs a grading system that places students on a scale of 155–186. The scale was 55–86 prior to 2003, but since then the law school has used a prefix of "1" to eliminate confusion with the traditional 100 point grading scale. For classes of more than 10 students, professors are required to set the median grade at 177, with the number of grades above 180 approximately equaling the number of grades below a 173.[49]
In an article published in The New York Times in 2010, business writer Catherine Rampell criticized other schools' problems with grade inflation, but commended Chicago's system, saying that Chicago "has managed to maintain the integrity of its grades."[50]
Students graduate "with honors" by attaining a final average of 179, "with high honors" upon attaining a final average of 180.5, and "with highest honors" upon attaining a final average of 182. The last of these achievements is rare; typically only one student every few years will attain the requisite 182 average. Additionally, the law school awards two honors at graduation that are based on class rank. Of the students who earned at the law school at least 79 of the 105 credits required to graduate, the top 10% are elected to the Order of the Coif.[51] Students finishing their first or second years in the top 5% of their class, or graduating in the top 10%, are honored as "Kirkland and Ellis Scholars."[51]
Employment
Outcomes and career prospects
In 2018, the law school was ranked first in the U.S. for overall employment outcomes by the National Law Journal[52] and second in the U.S. for best career prospects by Forbes.[53] 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.[48] 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.[48] For the same cohort, 50.2% of graduates secured positions at law firms with more than 500 lawyers.[48] 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.[54] It also had the highest first-time Bar pass rate (98.9%) of all law schools in the United States.[48]
Judicial clerkships
In 2023, University of Chicago Law School alumni comprised the third-highest percentage of recent graduates clerking for federal judges, after Stanford Law School and Yale Law School.[55] Data compiled from the previous 12 years by Brad Hillis in 2017 indicates 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.[56] 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.[57] In the Class of 2019, 27.6% of its graduates secured clerkships (with 87.3% of those graduates in federal clerkships).[48]
Rankings
The law school is included in the T14, a classification of consistently high ranking U.S. law schools. Recent rankings include:
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.[71]
Organizations
There are approximately 60 student-run organizations at the law school which fall under the umbrella of the Law Students Association.[72] 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.[27] Chicago is also home to a large chapter of the progressive American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.[73]
Architecture
The law school was originally housed in Stuart Hall, a Gothic-style limestone building on the campus's main quadrangles. Needing more library and student space, the law school moved across the Midway Plaisance to its current, Eero Saarinen-designed building (next to what was then the headquarters of the American Bar Association) in October 1959. The building contains classrooms, the D'Angelo Law Library, faculty offices, and an auditorium and courtroom, arranged in a quadrangle around a fountain (mimicking the college Gothic architecture of the campus's main quadrangles). The year saw a number of celebrations of the law school's new home, including a filming of The Today Show and appearances by Chief Justice Earl Warren, Governor (and later Vice President) Nelson Rockefeller and Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld.[74]
In 1987, and over the objections of the Saarinen family, the building was expanded to add office and library space (and the library renamed in honor of alumnus Dino D'Angelo). In 1998, a dedicated space for the law school's clinics, the Arthur Kane Center for Clinical Legal Education, as well as numerous additional classrooms, were constructed.[74] Renovation of the library, classrooms, offices, and fountain was completed in 2008, notable for the preservation of most of Saarinen's structure at a time when many modernist buildings faced demolition.[75][76]
^Schneider, Jack (December 2013). "Remembrance of Things Past: A History of the Socratic Method in the United States". Curriculum Inquiry. 43 (5): 613–640. doi:10.1111/curi.12030. S2CID42448911.