Columbia Law School

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Columbia Law School
Established	1858
Type	Private
Postgraduates	1,300
Location	New York, New York, USA
Dean	David Schizer
Website	www.law.columbia.edu

Columbia Law School, located in the New York City borough of Manhattan, is one of the professional schools of Columbia University, a member of the Ivy League, and one of the leading law schools in the United States. According to The Princeton Review, 1,229 students, pursuing J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees, are enrolled at the school.^[1] David Schizer is the dean.

Columbia is and has historically been one of America's premier law schools. For the past decade, Columbia has consistently been ranked among the top five law schools and is currently ranked 5th by U.S. News & World Report. [1].

Columbia Law School has a large number of distinguished alumni including two Presidents of the United States and six Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Furthermore, Columbia Law School has graduated a number of prominent figures in the business world, with more current members of the Forbes 400 having attended Columbia than any other law school.[2].

Contents 1 History 2 Columbia Law School Today 3 Columbia Law School in Popular Culture 4 Columbia Law School People 4.1 The Supreme Court 4.2 Politics and Government 4.3 Business & Philanthropy 4.4 Arts & Academia 4.5 Private Legal Practice 4.6 Athletics 4.7 Faculty (Non-Alumni) 5 References 6 External links

[edit] History

Columbia College appointed its first professor of law, James Kent, in 1793, but the formal instruction of law was suspended for some time before a revival of interest and the formal establishment of the law school in 1858. The first law school building was a Gothic Revival structure located on Columbia's Madison Avenue campus. Thereafter the college became Columbia University and moved north to the neighborhood of Morningside Heights.

The law school soon became known for the development of the legal realism movement, which flourished during the 1920s and 1930s. Among the major realists affiliated with Columbia Law School were Karl Llewellyn, Felix S. Cohen and William O. Douglas.

In September 1988, Columbia Law School founded the first AIDS Law Clinic in the country, taught by Professor Deborah Greenberg and Mark Barnes.^[2]

[edit] Columbia Law School Today

Today, Columbia Law School is well regarded in the areas of Business Law, (John C. Coffee, Jr., Ronald J. Gilson, Harvey Goldschmid, Jeffrey Gordon), Criminal Law (Debra Ann Livingston, Harold Edgar, George Fletcher, Jeffrey Fagan, James Liebman, Gerard Lynch), International and Comparative Law (Michael Doyle, Jose Alvarez, George Bermann, Louis Henkin, Petros Mavroidis, Katharina Pistor), Legal Philosophy (Joseph Raz, William Simon, R. Kent Greenawalt, Charles Sabel), Intellectual Property (Jane Ginsburg, Michael Heller, Clarisa Long, Eben Moglen, Tim Wu), Administrative Law (Thomas Merrill, Gillian Metzger, Peter Strauss), and Legal History (Eben Moglen, John Witt, Vincent Blasi, Robert Ferguson, Ariela Dubler).

Widely cited scholars in other specialties include Kimberle Williams Crenshaw (race and gender), Michael C. Dorf and Henry Monaghan (constitutional law), Thomas Merrill (administrative law, Property Theory), Robert Scott (contract law), and Patricia J. Williams (race and gender). Columbia was also among the first schools to establish both comparative and international law centers, and is also a major center for the study of Chinese, Japanese and Korean law.

In 2006, Columbia Law School embarked on an ambitious campaign to increase the number of faculty by fifty percent without increasing the number of students.

Columbia Law School’s Arthur W. Diamond Library is the second largest law library in the United States, with over 1,000,000 volumes. The Columbia Law Review is the second most cited law journal in the country and is one of the four publishers of the Bluebook. Columbia Law School has also cultivated alliances and dual degree programs with overseas law schools, including the London School of Economics (LSE) in London, England and the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (“Sciences Po”) in Paris, France. Furthermore, Columbia Law School runs vigorous clinical programs that contribute to the community, including the nation's first technology-based clinic, called Lawyering in the Digital Age. This clinic is currently engaged in building a community resource to understand the collateral consequences of criminal charges.[3] In April 2006, Columbia announced that it was starting the nation's first clinic in sexuality and gender law.[4]

Columbia Law School’s main building, Jerome L. Greene Hall, was designed by Wallace Harrison and Max Abramovitz, architects of the United Nations Headquarters and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (which for many years served as the site of Columbia Law School's graduation ceremonies). One of the building's defining features is its frontal sculpture, Bellerophon Taming Pegasus, designed by Jacques Lipchitz, widely reviled among Columbia students. In 1996, the Law School was extensively renovated, including the addition of a new entrance façade and lobby, as well as the expansion of existing space to include a café and lounges.

The student-run organization Unemployment Action Center has a chapter at Columbia Law School.

[edit] Columbia Law School in Popular Culture

• Marvel Comics character Matthew Murdoch, the alter ego of superhero Daredevil, and his roommate and eventual law partner, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, attended Columbia Law School.
• On the television show Law & Order, Assistant District Attorney Jamie Ross also studied law at Columbia.
• In Body Heat, Edmund Walker (played by Richard Crenna), the wealthy husband of the film's femme fatale, is a Columbia Law School graduate.
• In the film Old School, Dean Gordon Pritchard bribes the student body president by guaranteeing her admission to Columbia Law.
• On the television show How I Met Your Mother, the character Marshall is a Columbia Law student.
• On The West Wing (S7E1), Toby Ziegler is seen in a three-year flash-forward to be teaching at Columbia.

[edit] Columbia Law School People

See also the list of Columbia University people.

[edit] The Supreme Court

• John Jay (1764)¹, First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1789-95)
• Samuel Blatchford 1837¹, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1882-93)
• Charles Evans Hughes 1884, New York governor (1907), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1910-1916), Republican nominee for President of the United States (1916), Secretary of State under Presidents Warren Harding (1921-23) and Calvin Coolidge (1923-29), and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1930-41)
• Benjamin Nathan Cardozo 1891², judge on the New York Court of Appeals (1914-32), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1932-38)
• Harlan Fiske Stone 1898, professor (1902-05) and dean (1910-23) at Columbia Law School, Attorney General under President Calvin Coolidge (1924-25), Associate Justice (1925-41) and Chief Justice (1941-46) of the Supreme Court
• Stanley Forman Reed², Solicitor General (1935-38) and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1938-57)
• William O. Douglas 1925, professor at Yale Law School (1928-34), Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (1936-39), and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1939-75)
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1959, law professor at Rutgers University (1963-72) and Columbia Law School (1972-80), ACLU attorney (1972-80), judge on the DC Circuit (1980-93), and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1993-present)

[edit] Politics and Government

• John Kean 1875, senator from New Jersey (1899-1911)
• Perry Belmont 1876, congressman from New York (1880-88) and US Ambassador to Spain (1888-1889)
• Theodore Roosevelt 1880², hero of the Spanish-American War, New York governor (1899-1901), 25th Vice President of the United States (1901), 26th President of the United States (1901-1909), Nobel Peace Prize winner (1906)
• Bainbridge Colby 1891, founder of the United States Progressive Party (1912); Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson (1920-21)
• Henry Morgenthau, Sr., US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1913-16)
• Alva B. Adams 1899, senator from Colorado (1923-24, 1933-41)
• John Purroy Mitchell 1899, New York City mayor (1914-17)
• Luke Lea 1903, senator from Tennessee (1911-17)
• William Joseph Donovan 1905, World War I hero, head of the OSS during World War II, and US Ambassador to Thailand (1953-54)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1904-1907², New York governor (1929-33) and 32nd President of the United States (1933-45)
• Charles Ruthenberg 1909, founder of the Communist Party of America (1919)
• Emanuel Celler 1912, congressman from New York (1923-1973)
• Tracy Voorhees 1915, Undersecretary of the Army (1948-53)
• Lister Hill 1915², congressman (1923-38) and senator (1938-69) from Alabama
• Colgate Darden 1923, congressman from Virginia (1933-37, 1939-41), Virginia governor (1942-46), and president of the University of Virginia (1947-59); namesake of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration
• Thomas E. Dewey 1925, Manhattan district attorney (1937-42), New York governor (1942-55), and Republican nominee for President of the United States (1944, 1948), name partner of New York law firm Dewey Ballantine
• Clifford P. Case 1928, congressman (1945-53) and senator (1955-79) from New Jersey
• Wayne Morse 1932, senator from Oregon (1945-69)
• Robert Baumle Meyner 1933, New Jersey governor (1952-62)
• Constance Baker Motley 1946, attorney for the NAACP (1945-64); Manhattan Borough president (1964-66); first African American woman appointed to the federal bench (1966-86)
• Roy Cohn 1947, anti-communist attorney who was an influential aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy and was active in the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
• Paul Warnke 1948, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, 1966-1969; SALT Negotiator and Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1976-1978
• Jack B. Weinstein 1948, professor at Columbia (1952-98) and federal judge (1967-93)
• Harrison A. Williams 1948, congressman (1953-57) and senator (1959-82) from New Jersey
• Slade Gorton 1953, senator from Washington (1981-87, 1994-2001)
• John D. Hawke, Jr. 1960, Comptroller of the Currency (1998-2004)
• Charles Fried 1960, professor at Harvard Law School (1961-87, 1989-95, 1999-present), US Solicitor General (1985-89), and Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1995-99)
• Charles F.C. Ruff 1963, Washington attorney who represented Anita Hill and President Bill Clinton
• Michael Cardozo 1966, corporation counsel of New York City (2002-present)
• Richard Ben-Veniste 1967, federal prosecutor (1968-73), chief of the Watergate Task Force of the Special Prosecutor's Office (1973-75), and member of the 9/11 Commission (2002-2004)
• Gray Davis 1967, California governor (1999-2003)
• George Pataki 1970, New York governor (1994-present)
• Bill Lann Lee 1974, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights (1997-2001)
• Mary Jo White 1974, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1993-2002)
• Mitchell Reiss, former Director of Policy Planning at U.S. State Department (2003-2005); Vice-Provost of International Affairs and law professor at College of William and Mary; current U.S. Special Envoy to Ireland
• Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby 1975, novelist, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney (2001-2005), indicted on obstruction of justice charges for his role in the Plame affair (2005)
• Margery Bronster 1982, Hawaii attorney general (1995-99)
• Rocky Delgadillo 1986, City Attorney of Los Angeles; first Latino in over 100 years to be elected city-wide in Los Angeles
• Caroline Kennedy 1988, daughter of President John F. Kennedy
• Mikhail Saakashvili 1994, president of Georgia (2005-present)
• Li Lu 1996, leader of the Tiananmen Square Protests (1989), first student at Columbia to simultaneously receive B.A., M.B.A., and J.D. degrees.

[edit] Business & Philanthropy

• William Waldorf Astor 1875, Anglo-American financier, son of John Jacob Astor, US Minister to Italy (1881-1885)
• Henry Clay Folger 1881, president of the Standard Oil Company (1911-1923) and founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library
• James T. Lee 1899, prolific Manhattan real estate developer/magnate; grandfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
• Douglas Black 1918, president of Doubleday (1946-63)
• Edward S. Harkness 1928³, Standard Oil Company heir, donated funds used to construct Butler Library at Columbia and most of the undergraduate dormitories at Yale and Harvard, as well as to Phillips Exeter Academy
• Russell E. Train 1948, founding trustee, CEO, president, and chairman of the World Wildlife Fund
• Morton L. Janklow 1953, literary agent to Sidney Sheldon, Pope John Paul II, Danielle Steele, Ronald Reagan, and J.K. Rowling
• Alan N. Cohen 1954, chairman and CEO of the Madison Square Garden Corporation (1974-77), principle owner of the New Jersey Nets, and principle owner of the Boston Celtics (1983-2004)
• Herb Sandler, founder of Golden West Financial (1963), philanthropist, member of Forbes 400 (from 2003)
• H. F. Lenfest 1958, media proprietor and member of Forbes 400 (from 1999)
• Stephen Friedman 1962, chairman of Goldman Sachs (1990-1994), director of the National Economic Council (2002-2005), chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, incumbent as of 2006
• Michael Lynne 1964, president (1990-2001), co-CEO and co-chairman (since 2001, incumbent as of 2006) of New Line Cinema
• Douglas H. McCorkindale 1964, CEO (since 2000, incumbent as of 2006) and chairman (since 2001, incumbent as of 2006) of Gannett
• Robert Shaye 1964, founder, chairman/co-chairman and CEO/co-CEO of New Line Cinema (since 1967, incumbent as of 2006)
• Ted Forstmann 1965, co-founder of Forstmann Little & Company, chairman and CEO of Gulfstream Aerospace (1990-1999), and member of Forbes 400 (1998-2003)
• David Stern 1966, commissioner of the National Basketball Association (since 1984, incumbent as of 2006)
• S. Robson Walton 1969, chairman of Wal-mart (1992, incumbent as of 2006) and member of the Forbes 400 (since 1992)
• Bruce Ratner 1970, founder (1985), president, and CEO of Forest City Ratner; principal owner of the New Jersey Nets
• Thomas Rogers, President and CEO Tivo
• Frank Blake, CEO of Home Depot
• Roland W. Betts 1978, investor, film producer, lead owner in George W. Bush’s Texas Rangers partnership (1989-1998), and developer and owner of Chelsea Piers (since 1989, incumbent as of 2006)
• Philippe Dauman 1978, President and CEO of Viacom, parent company of Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks
• Mark Attanasio 1982, investment banker and owner of the Milwaukee Brewers (since 2004, incumbent as of 2006)
• Randy Lerner 1987, Chairman and CEO of MBNA (2002-2005), owner of the Cleveland Browns (since 2002, -present) and Aston Villa Football Club (since 2006, incumbent as of 2006), and member of Forbes 400 (since 2002, incumbent as of 2006)
• Dan Abrams 1992, general manager of MSNBC; formerly chief legal correspondent for NBC News and host of The Abrams Report

[edit] Arts & Academia

• Isaac Hollister Hall 1865, famed Orientalist and curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1885-96)
• Charles Chaille-Long 1880, soldier and explorer of Africa
• John Kendrick Bangs 1883-84², writer and satirist associated with so-called "Bangsian fantasy"
• William Ivins, Jr. 1907, curator of prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1916-1946)
• Paul Robeson 1923, All-American athlete, actor, singer, and civil rights activist
• Felix S. Cohen 1931, expert on Native American law, legal philosopher, and professor at Yale Law School, the City College of New York, The New School, and Rutgers University; early proponent of legal realism
• Herbert Wechsler 1931, professor at Columbia Law School (1933-1978) and director of the American Law Institute (1963-84); argued in front of the Supreme Court in the seminal libel case New York Times v. Sullivan (1964)
• Jack Greenberg 1948, counsel for the NAACP (1949-84), in which capacity he argued Brown v. Board of Education (1954); professor at Columbia Law School (1984-present)
• Robert L. Carter 1941, civil rights activist, NAACP general counsel, in which capacity he argued Brown v. Board of Education II (1955); judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
• E. Allan Farnsworth 1952, expert on the law of contracts and professor at Columbia Law School (1952-2004)
• Yale Kamisar 1955, expert on criminal law and professor at the University of Michigan Law School (1965-present)
• Michael I. Sovern 1955, professor (1957-present) and dean (1970-79) at Columbia Law School, president of Columbia University (1980-93), and chairman of Sotheby's (2002-present)
• Edward Packard, children's author who developed the "choose your own adventure" style of storytelling
• Lawrence Sager 1966, dean of University of Texas Law School (2006-present)
• Robert Cover 1968, professor at Columbia Law School (1971-72) and Yale Law School (1972-86); scholar of history, philosophy, literature, and law; author of the multidisciplinary analysis Justice Accused: Antislavery and the Judicial Process, and The Structure of Procedure
• Lee Bollinger 1971, professor (1973-1994) and dean (1987-1994) at the University of Michigan Law School, Provost of Dartmouth College (1994-1996), President of the University of Michigan (1996-2002) and president of Columbia University (2002-present); defendant in the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger (2003)
• Rod MacDonald 1973, singer/songwriter
• Barry Mills 1979, president of Bowdoin College (2001-present)
• Brad Meltzer 1996, New York Times best-selling novelist, DC Comics author, and co-creator of the television series Jack & Bobby

[edit] Private Legal Practice

• Francis L. Stetson 1869, early leader of New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
• John Woodruff Simpson 1873, founder of New York law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
• William Nelson Cromwell 1878, founder of New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.
• Paul Drennan Cravath 1886, name partner of New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore (awarded first Municipal Law prize, and prize tutorship).
• John William Sterling 1893³, founder of the New York law firm Shearman & Sterling; major donor to his undergraduate alma mater, Yale University; namesake of Yale's library, law building, and its most prestigious endowed chair.
• George B. Case 1897, founder of New York law firm White & Case.
• Joseph Meyer Proskauer 1899, founder of New York law firm Proskauer Rose.
• Louis Weiss, Simon Rifkind, and John Wharton, name partners of New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
• Frank Weil, Sylvan Gotshal, and Horace Manges, founders of New York law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges.
• Walter J. Fried 1928, name partner of New York law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.
• John H. Slate, Jr. 1938, name partner of New York law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
• William Kunstler 1948, civil rights activist, self-described "radical lawyer," and popular author.
• David Sive 1948, pioneer in environmental law; founding partner, Sive, Paget & Riesel, PC.
• Robert G. Morvillo, 1962, defense lawyer for Martha Stewart
• Gary P. Naftalis 1967, co-chairman of the New York law firm Kramer, Levin, Naftalis & Frankel.
• Ed Hayes 1972, defense attorney and Court TV anchor; basis for the character Tommy Killian in the Tom Wolfe novel The Bonfire of the Vanities.

[edit] Athletics

• John Montgomery Ward 1883, played baseball for the Providence Greys (1878-82), New York Giants (1883-1889, 1893-94), Brooklyn's Ward Wonders (1890) and Brooklyn Grooms (1890-91); president of the Boston Braves (1911-1912); advocate for player's rights; member of the Baseball Hall of Fame (1964)
• Moe Berg 1930, light-hitting catcher for the Brooklyn Robins (1923), Chicago White Sox (1926-1930), Cleveland Indians (1931, 1934), Washington Senators (1932-34) and Boston Red Sox (1935-39); able to speak twelve languages; spy for the OSS; according to Casey Stengel, "the strangest man ever to play Major League Baseball"

[edit] Faculty (Non-Alumni)

• James Kent, first professor of law at Columbia University (1793-98, 1823-26), chancellor of the New York Court of Chancery (1814-23), author of Commentaries on American Law
• Karl Llewellyn, professor at Columbia Law School (1925-51)
• Jeremy Waldron, professor at Columbia Law School (1997-2006)

¹ Studied law at Columbia University prior to the founding of the Law School.

² Failed to complete the law degree.

³ Received the LL.D.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Website
• US News & World Report Columbia Law School Profile

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