University of Oregon School of Law - History

History

Oregon Law was founded in 1884 in Portland, Oregon. Richard R. Thornton organized the department that began as a two-year program with three classes per week. In 1906, the course of study was expanded to three years, and in April 1915, the school's board of regent's ordered that the program be moved to Eugene as part of a consolidation program within the university. Though the school moved, some of the faculty remained in Portland and started the Northwest College of Law, now the Lewis & Clark Law School. In 1923, the school was approved by the American Bar Association (ABA), one of the first 39 schools to earn that distinction in the initial year of the ABA approval of law schools.

In 1931, Wayne Morse became dean. Three years later, the law school organized a chapter of the national law school honor society, the Order of the Coif. In 1938, the law school moved to Fenton Hall. In 1939, the law school graduated Minoru Yasui, who later took his challenge to the military curfew on Japanese Americans during World War II all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

In 1941, Orlando John Hollis became acting dean. His appointment became permanent in 1945 when Morse resigned to run for the U.S. Senate. During the war years, many law students were called to service. In 1944, there were no graduating students; in 1945, only one student graduated. After the war's conclusion, the school admitted every returning veteran who sought a legal education: out of 26 students who graduated in 1948, 25 had served in World War II.

The post-war era was marked by the Oregon legislature's adoption of law professor Kenneth O'Connell's Oregon Revised Statutes. Professor O'Connell was appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court in 1958, and later became its chief justice.

During the 1960s, Professor (and later dean) Chapin Clark offered the school's first courses in environmental and natural resources law. Later that decade, Professor Jon Jacobson founded the school's Ocean and Coastal Law Center. In 1968, Eugene Scoles became dean.

In 1970, the law school moved into a new building, the Law Center. In 1974, the Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics was established as a "living memorial" to former dean and U.S. Senator Wayne Morse. In 1977, Professor Hans A. Linde was appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court. In 1978, the school established the first-in-the-world Environmental Law Clinic.

During the 1980s, the Environmental Law Clinic doubled in size and was renamed the Pacific Northwest Natural Resources Clinic. In 1981, Professor Dave Frohnmayer became Oregon Attorney General. In 1982, students organized the first Public Interest Environmental Law Conference. In 1987, the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation began publication.

In the new century, the school opened the Appropriate Dispute Resolution Program. In 2003, the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program opened a fully staffed office. In 2004, the Center for Law and Entrepreneurship opened a Small Business Clinic to assist small and micro-businesses. The school also has started a program in Portland, which moved into Portland's White Stag Building in 2008. The Portland Program focuses on business law and related externships.