page_title: Stanford Law School
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Stanford Law School / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Stanford Law School in June 2019.
context_page_description: Stanford Law School is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, Stanford Law has been ranked one of the top three law schools in the United States, with Yale Law School and Harvard Law School, every year since 1992. Since 2016, Stanford Law has been ranked second. Stanford Law is consistently regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world, and its median undergraduate GPA of 3.93 is the highest of any U.S. law school. It also has the highest percentage of recent graduates clerking for federal judges.
  Stanford Law School employs more than 90 full-time and part-time faculty members and enrolls over 550 students who are working toward their Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. Stanford Law also confers four advanced legal degrees: a Master of Laws, a Master of Studies in Law, a Master of the Science of Law, and a Doctor of the Science of Law. Each fall, Stanford Law enrolls a J.D. class of approximately 180 students, giving Stanford the smallest student body of any law school ranked in the top fourteen.
context_section_description: Stanford first offered a curriculum in legal studies in 1893, when the university hired its first two law professors: former U.S. president Benjamin Harrison and Nathan Abbott. Abbott headed the new program and assembled a small faculty over the next few years. The law department primarily enrolled undergraduate majors at this time and included a large number of students who might not have been welcome at more traditional law schools at the time, including women and students of color, especially Hispanic, Chinese and Japanese students.
  In 1900, the department moved from its original location in Encina Hall to the northeast side of the Inner Quadrangle. These larger facilities included Stanford's first law library. Beginning to focus more on professional training, the school implemented its first three-year curriculum and became one of 27 charter members of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). In 1901, the school awarded its first professional degree, the Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.).
  Starting in 1908, the law department began its transition into an exclusively professional school when Stanford's Board of Trustees passed a resolution to officially change its name from Law Department to Law School. Eight years later, Frederic Campbell Woodward became the first dean of the law school, and in 1923, the law school received accreditation from the American Bar Association (ABA). In 1924, Stanford's law program officially transitioned into a modern professional school when it began requiring a bachelor's degree for admission.
  The 1940s and 1950s brought considerable change to the law school. After World War II caused the law school's enrollment to drop to fewer than 30 students, the school quickly expanded once the war ended in 1945. A move to a new location in the Outer Quadrangle, as well as the 1948 opening of the law school dormitory Crothers Hall (the result of a donation by Stanford Law graduate George E. Crothers), allowed the school to grow, while the 1948 inaugural publication of the Stanford Law Review (helmed by future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher '49) helped to augment the law school's national reputation. The decision that Stanford should remain a small law school with a very limited enrollment emerged during this period. For the third time in its history, the law school relocated in the 1970s, this time to its current location in the Crown Quadrangle.
  In the 1960s and 1970s, the law school aimed to diversify its student body. During this period, students established a large number of new and progressive student organizations, including the Women of Stanford Law, the Stanford Chicano Law Student Association, the Environmental Law Society, and the Stanford Public Interest Foundation. Additionally, in 1966, the school sought to academically diversify its student body by collaborating with the Stanford Business School to create its first joint-degree program. A year earlier, in 1965, the law school enrolled its first black student, Sallyanne Payton '68, and in 1972, the school hired its first female law professor, Barbara Babcock, and its first professor of color, William Gould. In 1968, Stanford appointed Thelton Henderson, future judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, as the first assistant dean for minority admissions. Henderson expanded minority enrollment from a single student to approximately a fifth of the student body. Stanford Law's commitment to diversity continues today, and The Princeton Review currently ranks Stanford Law as one of the ten best law schools for minority students.
  Earning national recognition in the 1980s and 1990s, the law school embarked on innovating its curriculum. Stanford offered new courses focusing on law and technology, environmental law, intellectual property law, and international law, allowing students to specialize in emerging legal fields. In 1984, it launched its first clinical program, the East Palo Alto Community Law Project. By the 21st century, a new focus on interdisciplinary education emerged. In 2009, it transition
caption: Stanford Law School building
exif: {"Image Make": "Motorola", "Image Model": "Moto G (4)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "athene-user 7.0 NPJS25.93-14.7-8 6 release-keys", "Image DateTime": "2019:06:21 11:43:56", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[37, 25, 273003/10000]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[122, 10, 39981/10000]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "1", "GPS GPSAltitude": "2", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[18, 43, 55]", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "GPS GPSProcessingMethod": "ASCII", "GPS GPSDate": "2019:06:21", "Image GPSInfo": "3350", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3694", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "40942", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/519", "EXIF FNumber": "2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:06:21 11:43:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:06:21 11:43:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "901/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-1", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "91/25", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4160", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3120", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3320", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Bracket", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Soft"}