Cornell Law School
Cornell Law School is the law school of Cornell University, a private Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York. One of the five Ivy League law schools, it offers four law degree programs, JD, LLM, MSLS and JSD, along with several dual-degree programs in conjunction with other professional schools at the university. Established in 1887 as Cornell's Department of Law, the school today is one of the smallest top-tier JD-conferring institutions in the country, with around 200 students graduating each year. Since its inception, Cornell Law School has always ranked among the top  14 law schools in the nation, known as the T14. Cornell Law alumni include business executive and philanthropist Myron Charles Taylor, namesake of the law school building, along with U.S. Secretaries of State Edmund Muskie and William P. Rogers, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Samuel Pierce, the first female President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, federal judge and first female editor-in-chief of a law review Mary H. Donlon, former President of the International Criminal Court Song Sang-Hyun, as well as many members of the U.S. Congress, governors, state attorneys general, U.S. federal and state judges , diplomats and businesspeople. Cornell Law School is home to the Legal Information Institute (LII), the "Journal of Empirical Legal Studies", the "Cornell Law Review", the "Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy" and the "Cornell International Law Journal". History. The Law Department at Cornell opened in 1887 in Morrill Hall with Judge Douglass Boardman as its first dean. At that time, admission did not require even a high school diploma. In 1917, two years of undergraduate education were 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. Future Governor, Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the United States, Charles Evans Hughes, was a professor of law at Cornell from 1891 to 1893, and after returning to legal practice he continued to teach at the law school as a special lecturer from 1893 to 1895. Hughes Hall, one of the law school's central buildings, is named in his honor. 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 Law class of 1894. Hughes Hall was built as an addition to Myron Taylor Hall and completed in 1963. It was also funded by a gift from Taylor. Another addition to Myron Taylor Hall, the Jane M.G. Foster wing , was completed in 1988 and added more space to the library. Foster was a member of the class of 1918, an editor of the "Cornell Law Review" (then "Cornell Law Quarterly"), and an Order of the Coif graduate. In June 2012 the school embarked on a three-year, multi-phase expansion and renovation. The first phase created additional classroom space underground, adjacent to Myron Taylor Hall along College Avenue. The second phase will include the removal and digitization of printed materials from the library stacks so that the space can be converted to additional classroom and student space. The third  phase involves converting Hughes Hall into office space. 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 to 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. Myron Taylor Hall saw the addition of 40,000 square feet of underground classrooms in 2012–2014. Hughes Hall was renovated in 2017. Admissions. Cornell Law School is highly selective: for the class entering in the fall of 2021, there were 5,998 applicants, with an acceptance rate of 15.41% and 200 students enrolling. The median LSAT for the 2021 entering class was 171, with 25th and 75th percentiles of 169 and 173, respectively. The median undergraduate GPA was 3.86, with 25th and 75th percentiles of 3.74  and 3.95, respectively. In the LL.M. program, which is designed for non-U.S.-trained lawyers, 900 applications were received for the 50 to 60 openings. LL.M. students come from over 30 different countries. Along with consideration of the quality of an applicant's academic record and LSAT scores, the full-file-review admissions process places a heavy emphasis on an applicant's personal statement, letters of recommendation, community/extracurricular involvement, and work experience. The application also invites a statement on diversity and a short note on why an applicant particularly wants to attend Cornell. The law school values applicants who have  done their research and have particular interests or goals that would be served by attending the school versus one of its peer institutions. Reputation. Cornell Law School was ranked 12th in the 2023 "U.S. News and World Report" Law School rankings and 4th in the 2021 "Above the Law" rankings. The Master of Laws (LL.M.) program at Cornell Law School was ranked 1st in the 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2011 AUAP rankings. In 2017, the National Law Journal ranked Cornell 4th on its list of "Go-To" law schools that excel in placing graduates at the top 250 law firms . Cornell has one of the lowest student-to-faculty ratios at 5:1. Academics. Cornell has offered LL.M and J.S.D degrees since 1928. The joint JD/MBA (with Cornell's Johnson School of Management) has three- and four-year tracks, the JD/MILR program is four years, the JD/MPA is four years, and JD/MRP is four years. In addition, Cornell has joint program arrangements with universities abroad to prepare students for international licensure: The JD/Master en Droit lasts four-years and prepares graduates for admission to the bar in the United States and in France. The JD/M.LL.P  is three years and conveys a mastery of German and European law and practices. The JD/Master in Global Business Law lasts three years. Cornell Law School runs two summer institutes overseas, providing Cornell Law students with unique opportunities to engage in rigorous international legal studies. The Cornell-Université de Paris I Summer Institute of International and Comparative Law at the Sorbonne in Paris, France offers a diverse curriculum in the historic Sorbonne and Centre Panthéon (Faculté de droit) buildings at the heart of the . Coursework includes international human rights, comparative legal systems, and international commercial arbitration. French language classes  are also offered. In 2006, Cornell Law School announced that it would launch a second summer law institute, the new Workshop in International Business Transactions with Chinese Characteristics in Suzhou, China. In partnership with Bucerius Law School (Germany) and Kenneth Wang School of Law at Soochow University (China), Cornell Law provides students from the United States, Europe, and China with an academic forum in which they can collaborate on an international business problem. Employment. According to Cornell Law School's official ABA-required disclosures, 92% of the Class of 2021 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment within nine  months of graduation. According to Reuters, in 2021, Cornell Law placed a greater portion of its graduates in associate positions at big law firms than any other law school in the United States. Of the graduating class of 2021, 76% were employed at large firms with more than 250 attorneys, and 71% were employed at firms with more than 500 attorneys. In total, approximately 80% of that class obtained elite employment outcomes in the form of federal clerkships or employment at firms with more than 250 attorneys. In a comparative survey of all law schools, Cornell graduates earned the highest  average salaries in the United States from 2014 through 2019, with a mean salary of over $183,000. In 2021, Law.com ranked Cornell Law #3 on its ranking of the 50 best law schools for getting an associate position at the largest 100 law firms in the country. Costs. The 2021-2022 non-discounted tuition for the JD program was $71,522 per year. The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Cornell Law School for the 2021-2022 academic year was $95,114, bringing the total non-discounted cost of attendance for  the three-year program to $285,242. According to Cornell Law's 2021 509 ABA disclosures, 83% of its 578 students received grants or scholarships. Initiatives. Legal Information Institute. Cornell Law also is home to the Legal Information Institute (LII), an online provider of public legal information. Started in 1992, it was the first law site developed for the internet. The LII offers all opinions of the United States Supreme Court handed down since 1990, together with over 600 earlier decisions selected for their historic importance. The LII also publishes over a decade of opinions of the New York Court  of Appeals, the full United States Code, the UCC, and the Code of Federal Regulations among other resources. It recently created Wex, a free wiki legal dictionary and encyclopedia, collaboratively created by legal experts. And the LII Supreme Court Bulletin is a free email- and web-based publication that intends to serve subscribers with thorough, yet understandable, legal analysis of upcoming Court cases as well as timely email notification of Court decisions. Publications. The school has three law journals that are student-edited: the "Cornell Law Review", the "Cornell International Law Journal", and the "Cornell Journal of Law and Public  Policy". Additionally, the "Journal of Empirical Legal Studies" is a peer-reviewed journal that is published by Cornell Law faculty. Moot Court. Cornell Law students actively participate in myriad moot court competitions annually, both in the law school itself and in external and international competitions. The Langfan First-Year Moot Court Competition, which takes place every spring, traditionally draws a large majority of the first-year class. Other internal competitions include the Cuccia Cup and the Rossi Cup. Summer School with Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University. Cornell University holds since 1993 the "Cornell Law School-Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne  Summer Institute of Comparative and International Law". Campus. Cornell Law is housed within Myron Taylor Hall (erected 1932), which contains the Law Library, classrooms, offices, a moot court room, and the Cornell Legal Aid Clinic. Library. The law library contains 700,000 books and microforms and includes rare historical texts relevant to the legal history of the United States. The library is one of the 12 national depositories for print records of briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court. Also, there is a large collection of print copies of the records and briefs of the New York Court of Appeals . The large microfilm collection has sets of Congressional, Supreme Court, and United Nations documents, as well as a large collection of World Law Reform commission materials. Microfiche records and briefs for the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and D.C. Circuit, and the New York State Court of Appeals are also collected. The library also has a large collection of international, foreign, and comparative law, with the main focus being on the Commonwealth of Nations and Europe. Along with this, there are also collections of public international law and international trade law . A new initiative by the library is to collect Chinese, Japanese, and Korean resources to support the law school's Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture. Rare books in the library include the Samuel Thorne collection, which has 175 of some of the earliest and most rare books on law. Other significant collections include the Nathaniel C. Moak library and the Edwin J. Marshall Collection of early works on equity and the Earl J. Bennett Collection of Statutory Material, a print collection of original colonial, territorial, and state session laws and statutory codes. Among the library's special  collections are 19th Century Trials Collection, Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection, Scottsboro Collection, William P. and Adele Langston Rogers Collection and the Chile Declassification Project. People. Notable alumni. Political Federal Judiciary State Judiciary International Judiciary Law and Business Academia Other Fictional