The Study of Law at Yale University

The primary educational purpose of Yale Law School is to train lawyers and leaders in the public and private sectors. Its main scholarly role is to encourage research in law. Throughout much of the Law School's history, its teachers, students, and deans have taken a broad view of the role of law and lawyers in society. The Law School has sought to train lawyers for public service and teaching as well as for private practice, to advance inquiry at the boundaries of the law as well as to inculcate knowledge at the core. The professional orientation is enriched by a setting hospitable to a wide variety of intellectual currents and designed to produce lawyers who are creative, sensitive, and open to new ideas.

Many Yale leaders have spoken, in the idiom of their day, of these multiple tasks. President-designate Ezra Stiles in 1777 looked to "the Expediency of establishing and endowing Professorships of Law in the American universities," with a view to the promotion of "a Community abounding with men well instructed in the Knowledge of their Rights and Liberties." In 1874 President Woolsey recalled the theme:

Let the school, then, be regarded no longer as simply the place for training men to plead causes, to give advice to clients, to defend criminals; but let it be regarded as the place of instruction in all sound learning relating to the foundations of justice, the doctrine of government, to all those branches of knowledge which the most finished statesman and legislator ought to know.

Again, in 1920 Dean Thomas W. Swan posed the dual task:

A university law school has two functions. It aims by the case method of instruction to train its students so that they may become successful practitioners in their chosen profession. It aims also or at least it should aim, though too few schools have recognized this obligation, to aid in improving the law by scientific and analytical study of existing laws, by comparative study of the jurisprudence of other countries, by criticism of defects and suggestion for improvement in the administration of law and in methods of legislation, and by relating law to other institutions of human society. . . . It is the duty of a university law school to emphasize through research and publication by its faculty and through the character of its instruction, this broader base of legal education, as well as to give merely professional training.

History of the School

Instruction in law at Yale College was begun in 1801 with the appointment of Elizur Goodrich as professor of law. Goodrich lectured to undergraduates on general aspects of municipal and international law. Yale soon developed a relationship with a proprietary law school, which had grown up to provide systematic instruction for the apprentices in attorneys' offices in New Haven. By 1824 the names of the students in that school were printed in the Yale catalogue. This date therefore is usually taken to mark the founding of Yale Law School, although the first LL.B. degree was not conferred until 1843. Judge David Daggett, who taught in the Law School, succeeded Goodrich as professor of law in Yale College, lecturing on law to seniors. With the aid of other Connecticut judges, public men, and practitioners, these two men carried on the School for more than twenty years.

While Yale Law School did have some distinguished professors and alumni in its early years, it was perhaps better known for a shortage of students, money, and facilities. Though the University allowed its name to be used, the School continued to be run as a proprietary institution; the faculty were responsible for financial losses and, on rare occasions, were able to distribute dividends among themselves.

After the Civil War, the Law School was rejuvenated by three young New Haven lawyers: Simeon E. Baldwin, Johnston T. Platt, and William C. Robinson. Professor Robinson was acting dean until Francis Wayland became the first dean of the School in 1873. President Woolsey later reported on this stage of the School's history, drawing on Professor Robinson's account.

To any but three sanguine youths, with an ardent love for their profession, the prospect would have been discouraging. The school was unendowed. It had almost no students. Its only lecture room was over a saloon. It had a small library of valuable but antiquated books. It had only the name of Yale to conjure by. They advertised the School, remodelled the curriculum, engaged eminent lecturers, rigidly maintained a high standard of scholarship, and in three years they had gathered together fifty students. "We were astonished" [Robinson said] "at our own success; and saw then what others have seen, that if you plant but a dry chip from one of Eli's ancient elms, and water and nurse it well, it will grow into a vigorous and fruitful tree."

During the period 1869 to 1895, the modern law library was organized, the first effort to raise an endowment made, and the first law school building constructed. It was also during this period that The Yale Law Journal was begun. Led by Baldwin, the faculty of the Law School played a significant part in founding the American Bar Association and what was ultimately to become the Association of American Law Schools. Intellectually, Yale Law School was noted for its efforts to pioneer graduate programs in law, the degree of Master of Laws being offered for the first time in 1876. The Law School also experimented, largely unsuccessfully, with the B.C.L. degree, designed "for those not intending to enter any active business or professional career, but who wish to acquire an enlarged acquaintance with our political and legal systems, and the rules by which they are governed."

In 1890, Yale Law School had roughly 100 students, while Harvard and Columbia had 265 and 456 respectively. Perhaps what distinguished Yale most from the leading schools was that, with the exception of the dean, there were no full-time faculty. Teaching was done part time by local practitioners.

Early in the twentieth century the organization of the Law School was put on a new and firmer footing. By 1902, the LL.B. curriculum had been extended, with few exceptions, from two years to three; in 1911, Yale followed the leading schools by requiring a B.A. of all incoming students (except those from Yale College). In 1904 the Yale Corporation at last undertook financial responsibility for the Law School, thereby relieving faculty members of liability for losses. Perhaps most important of all was the decision, finally made clear in 1903, to appoint mainly full-time instructors. And it was particularly fortunate that Arthur L. Corbin was among the first of these. Under Corbin's influence, the Law School slowly moved away from the "Yale Method of Instruction"—consisting of lectures and recitations—toward the case method, which had been developed by Christopher Columbus Langdell at Harvard and was formally adopted by the Yale faculty in 1912.

By the time Thomas Swan was appointed dean in 1916, Yale Law School was positioned to emerge as an important intellectual center for legal studies, with a distinctive viewpoint and curricular policy. The presence on the faculty of William Howard Taft, who had been president of the United States and was to become chief justice, added a note of political distinction to the scholarly achievements of such men as Wesley N. Hohfeld, Walter Wheeler Cook, Ernest G. Lorenzen, and (briefly) Karl Llewellyn.

The next step in the development of the modern Yale Law School came during the deanships of Robert Hutchins (1927-29) and Charles Clark (1929-39). The faculty and corporation decided that Yale should remain a small school, with a small faculty-student ratio, and should have a carefully selected student body. Thus in the late twenties, Yale, instead of admitting large numbers of students and then failing many, began to apply strict tests for selection. Later, Yale made a decision to admit only 100 students a year. The School was also put on a sounder financial basis.

Under Dean Hutchins and Dean Clark, the School attracted a vigorous and dynamic faculty, including William O. Douglas, Underhill Moore, Thurman Arnold, Edwin Borchard, Walton Hamilton, Wesley Sturges, and Edward Robinson. Yale became a center of the Legal Realist movement, which reshaped the way all American law schools understood the nature and dynamics of the common law, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation. Links to social sciences were forged and faculty members were drawn into public service by the New Deal administration.

The post-Realist period at Yale has been marked by efforts to develop better approaches to the theoretical and practical study of law. In particular, progress has been made in integrating law with the humanities and the social sciences in a sophisticated and systematic fashion. Economists, historians, philosophers, political scientists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, and sociologists have been members of the faculty since the early thirties, and have contributed to the development of a mature understanding of law. Today, at Yale, many legal scholars are professionally trained in one of these sister disciplines.

The School has remained relatively small and highly selective. Each fall it now chooses a class of approximately 180 students from more than 3,500 applicants. Since 1955, it has pioneered the small-group approach. Some first-term courses have been taught as seminars since 1956, and in subsequent years a broad array of optional seminars and independent research has been available.

Yale Law School is on the approved list of the American Bar Association and is a charter member of the Association of American Law Schools.

Educational Currents

When the case method was introduced in American law schools in the latter part of the nineteenth century, its advocates hoped to base the study of law upon actual cases rather than abstract concepts. By close analysis of a series of appellate decisions, usually arranged in chronological order, the student would be encouraged to search for a "truer" rule of law than could be found in treatises. Law professors emphasized concreteness and particularity, rather than general rules of law, unlike the approach of the older textbooks. The case method was regarded as a better way to teach legal rules, as well as a way to learn how the rules had been derived. The "case" also lent itself well to a philosophy that viewed law and the judicial decision as a slice of a broader societal experience.

In some areas, however, using the appellate opinion as the exclusive source of "case" material was too limited for learning about legal rules, much less about the legal system. This narrowness of focus was attacked by the two schools of thought loosely called Sociological Jurisprudence and Legal Realism. Sociological Jurisprudence has attempted to locate law and legal institutions in the context of the entire social process, paying attention not only to courts but also to legislatures, administrators, and the consumers of law—the people. Complementing this macroscopic view, Legal Realism has sought to achieve a "micro" perspective: Why do the participants in the process behave as they do? What effect does doctrine have upon them and they upon doctrine? What assumptions of behavior underlie legal rules, and what are the consequences of adopting one rule rather than another? The work of Sociological and Realist Jurisprudence in the 1920s and 1930s deeply affected the attitudes of many teachers and lawyers; it made them skeptical of old faiths and determined to find new ones better anchored in the facts and aspirations of the society.

Since World War II, casebooks—many of them developed at Yale—have been made up of "cases and materials," where once there were only appellate opinions. There have been efforts to blend sociological and realist views, to incorporate "policy science," or to portray law in terms of context and process.

Many courses make use of the findings, concepts, and suggestions of the social sciences. The recent past has seen efforts to expand the forms of training and areas of experience. The clinical program, for example, offers the opportunity to work with facts and to reflect on their central role in the work of lawyers and their impact on the development of law. Yet the appellate cases are still the main raw material of legal education. By the end of most courses students are encouraged to patch together a fybric of law, torn and riddled as it may be, by tracing the experience reflected in appellate cases and other materials.

The case method is practiced here in a variety of ways—some closer to the original Langdell model, some using it as a way of pressing toward the development of theory, some drawing the student into a Socratic exchange. Students practice moving quickly in and out of complex fact situations, grasping what is known and what is not. They become especially skilled in showing the limits and inadequacies of what is proffered by others.

The first-term curriculum for candidates matriculating for the degree of J.D. is prescribed. It attempts to introduce the core of Anglo-American legal reasoning and legal culture through four courses: Constitutional Law, Contracts, Procedure, and Torts. One of these courses is taught in a seminar, normally of not more than seventeen students, in which students are also instructed in legal research and writing. For the remaining five terms, students are free to select their own curriculum, the only other requirements being the course in Criminal Law and Administration, a course in professional responsibility, and the writing requirements.

A student will normally take between 12 and 16 credits each term. Courses in graduate departments and professional schools throughout the University are available to law students. In addition, credit is given for many forensic activities. Some students concentrate on the more traditional fare of large courses in major areas of the law, such as business law, constitutional law, property, and taxation. Others for the most part take seminars and independent work with faculty members or participate intensively in the Law School's varied clinical programs. Most combine these approaches. Extracurricular interests differ widely. Some students spend a great deal of time on work outside their courses; others devote most of their energy to the courses.

As the acceptable forms of legal study grow steadily more diverse, students can pursue special interests. The faculty encourage catholicity and support individual reading courses and research for those with particular interests or research designs. Students who seem to enjoy most and benefit most from the Law School view it as a hospitable environment within which to take the initiative in pursuing course, research, and extracurricular interests. Increasingly, students publish one or more academic pieces during their law school career at Yale—often as notes or comments in the Law School's own journals, but sometimes as articles in non-Yale law reviews.

The Law School is a distinct community within the University. The level of talent and ambition produces a degree of intellectual probing and assertion that may disquiet some students but that others will find agreeably provocative. The atmosphere is conducive to the development of those analytical and verbal skills that are widely held to be essential to a well-educated lawyer.

The Charge to Students

The following sections contain the course offerings, a general description of the requirements for graduation from Yale Law School, and information concerning various academic options. Students are charged with notice of the contents of this bulletin.

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