Solidifying Stature: 1903-1930
1903
Arthur L. Corbin, Class of 1899, is appointed as the first full-time faculty member other than the Dean. He went on to be a preeminent scholar of contract law and an intellectual father of the Legal Realism movement.
1904
The Yale Corporation takes financial responsibility for Yale Law School, relieving faculty members of liability for losses.
Pictured: Illustration from the 1904 Yale Law Reporter.
1907
Magrane Coxe donates the world's premier collection of the works of William Blackstone to the Yale Law Library.
1909
A college degree is required for admission.
1912
Yale Law School faculty allows case system of instruction for the first time. Dean Henry Wade Rogers notes that “the instruction is now given almost exclusively by resident professors who devote their entire time to the work of the School and who are withdrawn from the active practice of law.”
1913
Dean Rogers begins to urge that either a separate building should be created for the Law Library or a new Law School building should be built large enough to encompass the growing library collection.
Pictured: Early construction of the Sterling Law Building.
1913
William Howard Taft, between being U.S. President and being Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, is Chancellor Kent Professor at Yale Law School for eight years.
Pictured: Class of 1915 with President Taft front and center.
1913
Professor Wesley N. Hohfeld publishes the seminal article, “Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning,” in the Yale Law Journal.
1916
Thomas Swan becomes the third Dean.
Pictured: Thomas Swan on his 90th birthday from volume 14 of Yale Law Report.
1918
Women are explicitly allowed to be admitted to Yale Law School.
Pictured: Scan of the Admissions section of the 1919-1920 Law School Bulletin.
1920
Karl N. Llewellyn, Class of 1918, as an instructor at Yale Law School develops the precursor of the Bluebook citation manual for the Yale Law Journal. He later created the Uniform Commercial Code and was a key figure in the Legal Realism movement.
1921
Jasper Alston Atkins, Class of 1922, becomes the first Black editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Pictured (left to right): Jasper Alston Atkins, Charles A. Chandler, Mifflin Gibbs, Leroy Pierce at Yale Law School, from the Jasper Alston Atkins papers, Archives at Yale.
1924
The Centennial of Yale Law School is celebrated.
Pictured: Cover of the celebratory Centennial book.
1926
Trustees of New York attorney John W. Sterling's estate earmark funds to build a new Law School building.
Pictured: Partially built Sterling Law Building.
1927
Robert M. Hutchins, Class of 1925, becomes the fourth Dean at the age of 28. He went on to emerge as a renowned educational philosopher.
1927
For the first time, Yale Law School rejects more applicants than it admits.
1927
A group of students instigates the formation of the New Haven Municipal Legal Aid Bureau, the beginnings of clinical legal education at Yale.
1928
Dean Hutchins hires a psychologist, a political scientist, and an economist without law degrees for faculty.
1929
Charles E. Clark, Class of 1913, becomes the fifth Dean.
Pictured (left to right): Six former deans of the Law School - Charles E. Clark, Thomas W. Swan, Robert M. Hutchins, Harry Shulman, Ashbel G. Gulliver, and Wesley A. Sturges
1930
Sociologist Dorothy Swaine Thomas becomes the first woman to teach courses at Yale Law School.
Pictured: Dorothy Swaine Thomas from University of Pennsylvania's Archives.
