Cornell Law School - History

History

The Law Department at Cornell opened in 1887 in Morrill Hall with Judge Douglas Boardman as its first dean. At that time, admission did not require even a high school diploma. In 1917, two years of undergraduate education was required for admission, and in 1924, it became a graduate degree program. The department was renamed the Cornell Law School in 1925. In 1890, George Washington Fields graduated, one of the first law-school-graduates of color in the United States. In 1893, Cornell had its first female graduate, Mary Kennedy Brown.

In 1892, the school moved into Boardman Hall, which was constructed specifically for legal instruction. The school moved from Boardman Hall (now the site of Olin Library) to its present-day location at Myron Taylor Hall in 1937. The law school building, an ornate, Gothic structure, was the result of a donation by Myron Charles Taylor, a former CEO of US Steel, and a member of the Cornell class of 1894. An addition to Myron Taylor Hall, the Jane M.G. Foster wing, was completed in 1988. Foster was a member of the class of 1918, and was the first woman to serve as Editor-in-Chief on an American law review.

In 1948, Cornell Law School established a program of specialization in international affairs and also started awarding LL.B. degrees. In 1968, the school began to publish the Cornell International Law Journal. In 1991, the school established the Berger International Legal Studies Program. In 1994, the school established a partnership with the University of Paris I law faculty to establish a Paris-based Summer Institute of International and Comparative Law. From 1999-2004 the school hosted the Feminism and Legal Theory Project. In 2006, the school established its second summer law institute in Suzhou, China. The Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture was established in 2002.