Columbia Law School: A Legacy of Legal Luminaries

Columbia Law School, officially founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School, boasts a rich history of legal scholarship and influential alumni. Its roots trace back to the 18th century with King's College, Columbia's colonial predecessor, producing notable judicial figures like John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States. Over the years, Columbia Law School has evolved into a prominent institution, shaping legal thought and producing leaders in various fields.

Historical Context and Evolution

The teaching of law at Columbia began in the 18th century. Columbia College appointed its first professor of law, James Kent, in 1793. Kent's lectures evolved into his Commentaries. However, he did not establish a law school.

Columbia Law School's early classes were held at Colonnade Row. The first dedicated law school building, a Gothic Revival structure, was located on Columbia's Madison Avenue campus. Later, the college became Columbia University and moved to Morningside Heights.

In its early days, the school was considered an experiment. Most lawyers were trained in offices or through private reading, and were skeptical about professional law schools. Legal education was generally poor, with clerks often left unsupervised. Examinations for bar admission were perfunctory.

Columbia Law School was one of the few law schools established in the United States before the Civil War. In the 18th and 19th centuries, legal education primarily occurred in law offices, where apprentices copied documents under the supervision of attorneys.

Read also: Columbia University Legacy

The first lecture in the law school was delivered on November 1, 1858, by Mr. Dwight. The audience mainly consisted of lawyers. The result was an immediate attendance of 35 students, who paid tuition fees for the year. The next year, the number of students was 62; in the third year, there were 103.

In 1860, annual prizes were established to stimulate excellence. These were judged by leading members of the bar based on written answers and essays. Only those who completed the two years' course could compete for the prizes. Dwight believed his method was superior to the case method because it created trained legal practitioners.

After Dwight's departure, William Albert Keener of Harvard Law School became dean from 1891 to 1901, succeeded by George Washington Kirchwey. Harlan Fiske Stone graduated from the law school in 1898. He lectured at Columbia Law School in 1899 and became dean in 1910, holding the position until 1923.

Columbia allowed women to enroll in 1927. In 1945, Elreta Alexander-Ralston became the first black woman to graduate from Columbia, followed by Constance Baker Motley. In the 1920s and 30s, the law school became known for the development of the legal realism movement.

Academic Programs and Centers

Columbia University was among the first to establish comparative and international law centers, as well as a space law department. The law school has major centers for the study of international law, including the Center for Chinese Legal Studies, the Center for Korean Legal Studies, the Center for Japanese Legal Studies, and the European Legal Studies Center. Other centers include the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, the Center on Corporate Governance, the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law, the Center for Law and Economic Studies, and the Center on Global Legal Transformation.

In July 2012, the law school launched the Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership. Among other externships, the law school offers a full-semester externship on the federal government in Washington, D.C., providing students hands-on experience in government law offices.

Field Placements: Students are required to work a minimum of 30 hours a week doing substantive legal work at a federal agency. Seminar: Students conduct an in-depth analysis of the roles lawyers play in federal offices. Each seminar is taught by Columbia Law faculty and a Washington-based adjunct professor. Supervised Research: Students are required to produce an 8,000-10,000-word research paper on a topic closely connected to their externship and field placement.

Columbia offers a Graduate Legal Studies Program, including the Master of Laws (LL.M.) and the Doctor of the Science of Law (J.S.D.) degrees. The LL.M. Program is considered one of the best in the United States. Each year the law school enrolls approximately 210 graduate students from more than 50 countries with experience in all areas of the legal profession. Graduate students participate in many co-curricular activities, including student journals, moot courts, and student organizations.

The law school runs several clinical programs that contribute to the community, including the nation's first technology-based clinic, called Lawyering in the Digital Age. In December 2010, the law school announced the addition of an accelerated JD/MBA joint degree program, which allows students to obtain both a JD and MBA within three years. A joint degree can prove to be beneficial to law students' career objectives.

Facilities and Location

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. It is located at the intersection of Amsterdam Avenue and West 116th Street. In 1996, the law school was renovated and expanded by Polshek Partnership, including the addition of a new entrance façade and three story skylit lobby. In the summer of 2008, construction of a new floor in Jerome Greene Hall was completed providing 38 new faculty offices.

Read also: Paying for Columbia

Other Columbia Law School buildings include William and June Warren Hall, the Jerome Greene Annex, and William C. Lenfest Hall, the law school's premier residence, opened in August 2003. Lenfest contains more than 200 luxury student residences. In addition to Lenfest Hall, the majority of Columbia Law students live in the university's Graduate Student Housing consisting of single and shared apartments in buildings throughout Morningside Heights.

Notable Alumni

Columbia Law School has produced numerous influential figures in law, politics, business, and the arts.

Heads of State and Government

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, were students at CLS. Former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, received his LL.M. at Columbia; Giuliano Amato, twice former Prime Minister of Italy (1992-93 and 2000-2001), was also a CLS graduate.

Franklin D. Roosevelt entered Columbia Law School in 1904 but dropped out after three years when he passed the New York Bar Exam. He then pursued a career at a prestigious law firm but did not feel passionately about it so moved into politics in 1910 where he became a member of the New York Senate. As World War I broke out, Roosevelt was appointed assistant secretary of the Navy and later served as the governor of New York despite recent paralysis of his legs. In 1932, Roosevelt had a landslide victory in the presidential elections and held this role until his death in 1945.

Supreme Court Justices

Three of the school's graduates have served as Chief Justice of the United States: Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan Fiske Stone, and John Jay. Columbia Law School is the only law school to have graduated more than one chief justice. Ten alumni of Columbia Law School have served on the Supreme Court of the United States, including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Several alumni have served as United States Solicitor General.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been pushing the boundaries of the legal world since 1956, when she enrolled in Harvard Law School as one of nine women in a class of 500. Ginsburg was the second woman to become a Supreme Court justice, where she still serves today. Ginsburg taught at Columbia Law for eight years, becoming the first tenured female professor.

Judges and Legal Professionals

Numerous alumni have served on the U.S. federal courts. Internationally, CLS graduates also have occupied prominent judicial positions, including Shi Jiuyong, former president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ); Xue Hanqin, current member of the ICJ; Giuliano Amato, current member of the Constitutional Court of Italy; Jan Schans Christensen ('88 LL.M.), current member of the Supreme Court of Denmark; Susan Denham, current Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Ireland; Marvic Leonen ('04 LL.M.), current member of the Supreme Court of the Philippines; Hironobu Takesaki, current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Japan; Umu Hawa Tejan-Jalloh, current Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Sierra Leone; Karin Maria Bruzelius, former member of the Supreme Court of Norway; Lawrence Collins, former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom; and Francis M. Ssekandi, Justice of the Supreme Court of Uganda.

Since 2005, 24 Columbia Law alumni have served as judicial clerks at the United States Supreme Court.

Legal Academics

Notable legal academics who are graduates of CLS include Barbara Black, Lee Bollinger, Felix S. Cohen, Lawrence Collins, Robert Cover, Samuel Estreicher, E. Allan Farnsworth, Charles Fried, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Harvey Goldschmid, Kent Greenawalt, Jack Greenberg, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Benjamin Kaplan, Jessica Litman, Louis Lusky, Yale Kamisar, Soia Mentschikoff, Richard B. Morris, Paula Franzese, Robert Pitofsky, Barbara Ringer, Lawrence Sager, Michael I. Sovern, Arthur T. Vanderbilt, Charles Warren, Amy Wax, Herbert Wechsler, and Mark D. West.

Politics and Public Service

Alexander Hamilton was one of the seven founding fathers of America and the government’s first secretary of the treasury. Hamilton attended Columbia College, then known as King’s College from 1773 to 1774 but was unable to graduate due to the British occupation of New York City in the Revolutionary War. During the war, Hamilton led a troop of artillary soldiers in many battles including the Battle of Princeton and achieved notoriety for his service.

Barak Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America studied political science and English literature at Columbia University, graduating in 1983. Following this, Obama obtained his J.D. degree in law from Harvard Law School. Barak Obama had a career in practicing and teaching civil rights/constitutional law before beginning his political career as a member of the Senate in 1997. In 2008, Obama ran for presidency as a member of the democratic party and after defeating John McCain, sat as the President of the United States for two terms until 2017.

Many Columbia Law graduates have held high-ranking positions in the U.S. government. Some notable examples include:

Lanny A. Breuer: Special White House Counsel under President Clinton.
Samuel Irving Rosenman: First White House Counsel under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.: Solicitor General of the United States.
Benjamin Powell: Associate White House Counsel and Special Assistant to the President during the administration of George W. Bush.
Stephen Friedman: Director, President's United States National Economic Council under George W. Bush.
Jonathan W. Daniels: White House Press Secretary under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Jay Lefkowitz: Deputy Assistant to President George W. Bush.
Brett H. McGurk: United States National Security Council under President George W. Bush.
John D. Hawke, Jr.: United States Comptroller of the Currency under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Other prominent figures include:

Bella Abzug: A longtime social activist and politician who fought passionately for women’s rights and social equality during her time in the House of Representatives.
Robert L. Carter: Worked closely with Thurgood Marshall and served as the lead counsel in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education.

Arts, Business, and Other Fields

CLS alumni are also notable in the arts, business, and elsewhere. For example, civil rights activist, recording artist, and actor Paul Robeson received his law degree from CLS in 1923. Academy Award-winning lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II attended the law school.

Other alumni who have made significant contributions in various fields include:

Caroline Kennedy: Writer, editor, and daughter of President John F. Kennedy.
Bruce Buck: Chairman of Chelsea F.C.
Alan N. Cohen: Chairman, CEO, Madison Square Garden Corp.
Jerome L. Greene: Real estate investor and namesake of Columbia's main building.
Morton L. Janklow: Literary agent.
Robert Krulwich: Media journalist.
Roberta A. Kaplan: Litigator and partner of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
Li Lu: Leader of the Tiananmen Square Protests (1989).
Anika Rahman: President and CEO, Ms. Foundation for Women.

Recent Alumni Achievements

Recent graduates of Columbia Law School continue to make significant contributions in various fields:

Rahul Agarwal (2006): Appointed as a trustee to the New York State Interest on Lawyer Account Fund (IOLA).
Lisa V. LeCointe-Cephas (2006): Named chief compliance officer at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine.
Sean B.A. Sullivan (2006): Appointed managing director and chief legal officer of TSG Consumer Partners.
Darshak S. Dholakia (2007): Joined McDermott Will & Emery as a partner in the regulatory practice group.
Kimberly M. Jaime (2004): Named to The Hollywood Reporter’s Power Lawyers.
Matt Galsor (1999): Named to The Hollywood Reporter’s Power Lawyers.
Gordon M. Bobb (1996): Named to The Hollywood Reporter’s Power Lawyers.
Nina L. Shaw (1979): Named to The Hollywood Reporter’s Power Lawyers.

Columbia University Beyond Law

Columbia University has long been synonymous with intellectual prowess, producing some of the world’s most influential minds in fields ranging from politics and literature to business and the arts.

Maggie Gyllenhaal didn’t just inherit acting chops from her famous family - she also gained a strong intellectual background at Columbia. Before she made us cry with her performances in The Dark Knight and The Secretary, Maggie studied literature and East Asian studies at Columbia, showing that she had both the brains and the acting talent.
What happens when a brilliant astrophysicist gets his education at one of the world’s most prestigious universities? Well, you get Neil deGrasse Tyson, the man who made us all fascinated by the universe again. Tyson earned his undergraduate degree in physics from Harvard, but it was at Columbia where he completed his Ph.D. in astrophysics. Since then, he’s been delighting us with his charismatic explanations of everything from black holes to the multiverse.
legal history, and she studied at Columbia Law School, where she was in the top 4% of her class. Supreme Court. Her time at Columbia sparked her lifelong passion for fighting gender discrimination and advocating for justice.
You didn’t think we’d leave out the most famous Columbia alum, did you? President Barack Obama may have earned his law degree from Harvard, but at Columbia, he laid the intellectual foundations that would shape his future political career. Before becoming President of the United States, Obama was a transfer student in Columbia’s undergraduate political science program, perfecting his ability to inspire crowds and move mountains. Is Columbia to thank for this groundbreaking political career?
Columbia has long been known for nurturing intellectual minds, and Allen Ginsberg was no exception. The beat poet, famous for his poem Howl, was a proud Columbia alum. Columbia was where he met future literary giants like Jack Kerouac. Ginsberg was part of the “Beat Generation,” a group of writers who challenged the establishment with their open, often controversial ideas. Proud Columbia alum and former Columbia admissions officer Jen Duran has been helping Ivy Coach’s students get into Columbia at a rate of 100%. That’s right: in the last five years, not a single one of Ivy Coach’s package clients had to face rejection from the home of the Lions. You are permitted to use www.ivycoach.com (including the content of the Blog) for your personal, non-commercial use only.

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