Emory Law School

Emory Law School was founded in 1916 to fill the "real need" for properly trained lawyers, according to Emory University trustees. Mere technical aptitude would be considered incomplete training, though, so Emory would instead turn out lawyers whose first emphasis would be "on the ethics and ideas of an ancient and honorable profession," said Chanc... ellor Bishop Warren A. Candler during the school's opening address. Within only four years of its founding, Emory had distinguished itself as a leader in Southern legal education and was admitted in 1920 to the Association of American Law Schools, the first law school in Georgia to achieve that distinction. Emory was able to fulfill its promise early in its history, in part, because so many of the founding faculty stayed with the school throughout their careers, including Paul E. Bryan, who taught the first class at the school. Also, the university provided a splendid building for the law school - what is now divided between several small college departments and a wing of the Michael C. Carlos Museum on the Emory Quadrangle. And, the school started with a respectable library of more than 5,000 volumes. Twenty-seven students were admitted the first year, each paying 5 to study law. During the sixties, Emory Law School lived up to the challenge of combining legal education with higher ideals of law by instituting law suit to allow integration of private colleges in Georgia. The suit was ultimately decided by the Georgia Supreme Court in favor of Emory. It ruled, "We hold that Emory, as a private school, can accept colored students without jeopardizing its tax exemptions..." In 1963, the first black student, Ted Smith, enrolled in Emory Law School and graduated in 1965. Emory Law School also established two progressive programs during the 1960's, Pre-Start and the Emory Community Legal Services Center.Pre-Start attracted capable black students to the school. The Legal Services Center supervised operation of the school's neighborhood law office staffed by third year ...Read More