New York Law School

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New York Law School


Motto	Juris praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere, autem non laedere, suum cuique tribuere. (The precepts of the law are these: to live justly, not to injure anyone, and to render to each person what is due.)
Established	1891
Type	Private
Dean	Richard A. Matasar
Students	1,480
Location	New York City, New York, USA
Campus	Urban
Website	www.nyls.edu

New York Law School is a private law school in Lower Manhattan in New York City.

1 History
2 Curriculum
3 Notable faculty
4 Alumni
- 4.1 Famous alumni
- 4.2 Name partners in prominent firms
5 External links

[edit] History

New York Law School is one of the oldest independent law schools in the United States. The Law School was founded in 1891 by Theodore William Dwight, a prominent figure in the history of American legal education, along with some members of the faculty, students and alumni of Columbia Law School. Dwight and the others had left Columbia to protest the trustees' attempts to convert Columbia to the case method pioneered at Harvard Law School by Christopher Columbus Langdell. In 1894, the Law School established one of the nation's first evening divisions in order to provide an alternative to full-time legal studies.

New York Law School was an immediate success. In 1892, after only a year in operation, it was the second-largest law school in the United States; by 1904, it was the largest. It experienced steady growth in its early years, that was only interrupted for one year when the school closed during World War I. During these early years, the Law School saw some of its most famous alumni graduate. The Law School was forced to close a second time from 1941 to 1947, for the duration of World War II. After reopening, the Law School started a new program that was influenced by a committee of alumni headed by New York State Supreme Court Justice Albert Cohn. This led to accreditation by the American Bar Association in 1954; continued growth led to further accreditation by the Association of American Law Schools in 1974.

The buildings of the Law School underwent renovation during the leadership of Dean James F. Simon, from 1983 to 1992. Under his successor, Dean Harry H. Wellington, who served in that position until 2000, the curriculum was revised to put greater emphasis on the practical skills of a professional attorney. Since the current dean, Richard A. Matasar, took over, the Law School has opened its first dormitory in the East Village in 2005; and has begun construction of a fifth building in the TriBeCa campus, attached to the other four buildings used by the Law School. It is scheduled for completion in 2008.

[edit] Curriculum

New York Law School has three divisions: Full-time Day, Part-time Day, and Part-time Evening. The Law School offers the Juris Doctor (J.D.), the Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Taxation, the Joint J.D./LL.M. in Taxation, the Joint J.D./M.B.A. with Baruch College, City University of New York, the Joint Bachelor's/J.D. with Stevens Institute of Technology, and the Joint Bachelor's/J.D. with Adelphi University.

New York Law School operates on the standard semester basis. 86 credits are required for graduation, 38 of which are for required courses. The first and second years have mandatory studies, and the third year is all elective courses. Students must maintain a minimum 2.0 GPA for all courses. Required first-year courses are Civil Procedure, Contracts I and II, Criminal Law, Evidence, Lawyering, Legal Reasoning, Writing and Research, Property, Torts, and Written and Oral Advocacy. Required second-year courses are Constitutional Law I and II, and the Legal Profession. An upper-division writing requirement is also necessary study.

The areas of concentration offered for study by New York Law School are Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Corporate and Securities Law, Criminal Law, International Law, Information and Media Law, Labor and Employment Law, Professional Values and Practice, Real Estate Law and Taxation. New York Law School has five clinics: Criminal Law, Elder Law, Mediation, Securities Arbitration and Urban Law. The stimulation courses offered are Advocacy of Criminal Cases, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Negotiating, Counseling and Interviewing (NCI), Trial Advocacy, and The Role of the Government Attorney.

[edit] Notable faculty

President Woodrow Wilson lectured at the school before becoming Governor of New Jersey.
Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State and Chief Justice of the United States.
Nadine Strossen, President of the American Civil Liberties Union.

[edit] Alumni

In addition to more than 100 sitting judges and many partners of prominent law ﬁrms, New York Law School graduates have achieved success working in business, education, and the arts.

[edit] Famous alumni

John Marshall Harlan II, Class of 1924, United States Supreme Court Justice from 1955 to 1971; attended after completing legal training at Princeton University and Balliol College, Oxford.
Judith Sheindlin ("Judge Judy"), Class of 1965, New York family court judge, author, and television personality.
James J. Walker, John Purroy Mitchel, and John F. Hylan, all New York City Mayors.
Felix Frankfurter, United States Supreme Court Justice, who attended New York Law School before completing his legal training at Harvard.
Conrad A. Johnson, Class of 1913, an immigrant from Barbados, became the ﬁrst black Republican alderman in New York City.
Emilio Nuñez, Class of 1927, became the ﬁrst Latino judge in New York City.
James S. Watson, Class of 1913, became a judge and was the ﬁrst African American admitted to membership in the American Bar Association.
Barbara M. Watson, Class of 1962, daughter of James S. Watson, first female Assistant Secretary of State of the United States.
Wallace Stevens, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, Class of 1903.
Elmer Rice, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, Class of 1912.
Chester Carlson, a physicist and former engineer at Bell Labs, while a student at New York Law School in 1938 invented the xerography photocopy process.