Cornell Law School

Cornell Law School
Cornell Law School
Parent school	Cornell University
Established	1887; 137 years ago
School type	Private
Parent endowment	$10 billion
Dean	Jens David Ohlin
Location	Ithaca, New York, United States
Enrollment	585
Faculty	201
USNWR ranking	14th (tie) (2024)
Bar pass rate	94.3% for first-time takers in all jurisdictions (NY 96.1%)
Website	lawschool.cornell.edu
ABA profile	Standard 509 Report

Cornell Law School is the law school of Cornell University, a private, Ivy League university in Ithaca, New York.

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One of the five Ivy League law schools, Cornell Law School offers four degree programs, JD, LLM, MSLS and JSD, along with several dual-degree programs in conjunction with other professional schools at the university. It was established in 1887 as Cornell University's Department of Law. Currently, the school graduates around 200 students each year.

Cornell Law alumni include business executive and philanthropist Myron Charles Taylor, namesake of the law school building, along with U.S. Secretaries of State Edmund Muskie and William P. Rogers, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Samuel Pierce, the first female President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, federal judge and first female editor-in-chief of a law review Mary H. Donlon, former President of the International Criminal Court Song Sang-Hyun, as well as many members of the U.S. Congress, governors, state attorneys general, U.S. federal and state judges, diplomats and businesspeople.

Cornell Law School is home to the Legal Information Institute (LII), the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, the Cornell Law Review, the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, and the Cornell International Law Journal.

Jens David Ohlin is the current Dean.^[5]

History

19th century

The Law Department at Cornell opened in 1887 in Morrill Hall with Judge Douglass Boardman as its first dean. At that time, admission did not require even a high school diploma. In 1917, two years of undergraduate education were required for admission, and in 1924, it became a graduate degree program.^[6] The department was renamed the Cornell Law School in 1925. In 1890, George Washington Fields graduated, one of the first law school graduates of color in the United States.^[7] In 1893, Cornell had its first female graduate, Mary Kennedy Brown. Future Governor, Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the United States, Charles Evans Hughes, was a professor of law at Cornell from 1891 to 1893, and after returning to legal practice he continued to teach at the law school as a special lecturer from 1893 to 1895. Hughes Hall, one of the law school's central buildings, is named in his honor.

In 1892, the school moved into Boardman Hall, which was constructed specifically for legal instruction. The school moved from Boardman Hall (now the site of Olin Library) to its present-day location at Myron Taylor Hall in 1932. The law school building, an ornate, Gothic structure, was the result of a donation by Myron Charles Taylor, a former CEO of US Steel, and a member of the Cornell Law class of 1894.

20th century

Hughes Hall was built as an addition to Myron Taylor Hall and completed in 1963. It was also funded by a gift from Taylor. Another addition to Myron Taylor Hall, the Jane M.G. Foster wing, was completed in 1988 and added more space to the library. Foster was a member of the class of 1918, an editor of the Cornell Law Review (then Cornell Law Quarterly), and an Order of the Coif graduate.

In 1948, Cornell Law School established a program of specialization in international affairs and also started awarding LL.B. degrees. In 1968, the school began to publish the Cornell International Law Journal. In 1991, the school established the Berger International Legal Studies Program. In 1994, the school established a partnership with the University of Paris I law faculty to establish a Paris-based Summer Institute of International and Comparative Law.

21st century

From 1999 to 2004 the school hosted the Feminism and Legal Theory Project. In 2006, the school established its second summer law institute in Suzhou, China. The Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture was established in 2002.

In June 2012, the school embarked on a multi-year, multi-phase expansion and renovation. The first phase created additional classroom space underground, adjacent to Myron Taylor Hall along College Avenue. The second phase included the removal and digitization of printed materials from the library stacks so that the space could be converted into additional classroom and student space. The third phase involved converting Hughes Hall into office space.^[8] As a result, Myron Taylor Hall saw the addition of 40,000 square feet of underground classroom space. The renovation of Hughes Hall was completed in 2017.^[9]

Academics

Degree programs

Cornell has offered LL.M and J.S.D degrees since 1928.^[10] The joint JD/MBA (with Cornell's Johnson School of Management) has three- and four-year tracks,^[11] The JD/MILR program is four years, the JD/MPA is four years, and the JD/MRP is four years.

In addition, Cornell has joint program arrangements with universities abroad to prepare students for international licensure:

Joint program with University of Paris (La Sorbonne) (JD/Master en Droit)
Joint program with Humboldt University of Berlin (JD/M.LL.P)
Joint program with Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (JD/Master in Global Business Law)

The JD/Master en Droit lasts four years and prepares graduates for admission to the bar in the United States and France. The JD/M.LL.P is three years old and conveys a mastery of German and European law and practices. The JD/Master in Global Business Law lasts three years. ^{[citation needed]}

Cornell Law School runs two summer institutes overseas, providing Cornell Law students with unique opportunities to engage in rigorous international legal studies.^[12] The Cornell-Université de Paris I Summer Institute of International and Comparative Law at the Sorbonne in Paris, France offers a diverse curriculum in the historic Sorbonne and Centre Panthéon (Faculté de Droit) buildings at the heart of the University of Paris I: Panthéon-Sorbonne. Coursework includes international human rights, comparative legal systems, and international commercial arbitration. French language classes are also offered.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, Cornell Law School announced that it would launch a second summer law institute, the new Workshop in International Business Transactions with Chinese Characteristics in Suzhou, China. In partnership with Bucerius Law School (Germany) and Kenneth Wang School of Law at Soochow University (China), Cornell Law provides students from the United States, Europe, and China with an academic forum in which they can collaborate on an international business problem.^{[citation needed]}

Rankings

Cornell Law School was ranked 2nd in the 2023 Above the Law rankings, which prioritizes career outcomes above all other factors.^[13] In 2023, Cornell Law was ranked 1st (in a tie) with an "A+" rating by The National Jurist in the "Best Schools for Law Firm Employment" listing.^[14] The school ranked 13th in the 2023-2024 U.S. News & World Report Law School rankings.^[15]

Admissions

Cornell Law School is extremely selective: the median LSAT for the 2023 entering class was 172 (98th percentile of all test takers), with 25th and 75th percentiles of 169 and 175, respectively. The median undergraduate GPA was 3.90, with 25th and 75th percentiles of 3.77 and 3.97, respectively.^[16]

For the 2021 LL.M. program, which is designed for non-U.S.-trained lawyers, 900 applications were received for the 50 to 60 openings. LL.M. students come from over 30 different countries.^[17]

Along with consideration of the quality of an applicant's academic record and LSAT scores, the full-file-review admissions process places a heavy emphasis on an applicant's statement, letters of recommendation, community and extracurricular involvement, and work experience. The application also invites a statement on diversity and a short note on why an applicant particularly wants to attend Cornell. The law school values applicants who have done their research and have particular interests or goals that would be served by attending the school versus one of its peer institutions.^[17]

Campus

Cornell Law is housed within Myron Taylor Hall (erected 1932), which contains the Law Library, classrooms, offices, a moot courtroom, and the Cornell Legal Aid Clinic.

Library

The law library contains 700,000 books and microforms and includes rare historical texts relevant to the legal history of the United States.^[18] The library is one of the 12 national depositories for print records of briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court. Also, there is a large collection of print copies of the records and briefs of the New York Court of Appeals. The large microfilm collection has sets of Congressional, Supreme Court, and United Nations documents, as well as a large collection of World Law Reform Commission materials. Microfiche records and briefs for the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and D.C. Circuit, and the New York State Court of Appeals are also collected.^[19] The library also has a large collection of international, foreign, and comparative law, with the main focus being on the Commonwealth of Nations and Europe. Along with this, there are also collections of public international law and international trade law. A new initiative by the library is to collect Chinese, Japanese, and Korean resources to support the law school's Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture.^[19]

Rare books in the library include the Samuel Thorne collection, which has 175 of some of the earliest and most rare books on law. Other significant collections include the Nathaniel C. Moak Library and the Edwin J. Marshall Collection of early works on equity and the Earl J. Bennett Collection of Statutory Material, a print collection of original colonial, territorial, and state session laws and statutory codes.^[19] Among the library's special collections are the 19th Century Trials Collection, Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection, Scottsboro Collection, William P. and Adele Langston Rogers Collection and the Chile Declassification Project.^[19]

Student life

Costs

The 2022-2023, non-discounted tuition for the JD program was $74,098 per year.^[2] The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Cornell Law School for the 2022-2023 academic year was $97,618, bringing the total non-discounted cost of attendance for the J.D. class of 2025 to approximately $313,831 (assuming a total cost increase of 7% per year).^[2] According to Cornell Law's 2022 509 ABA disclosures, 86% of its students received grants or scholarships, though only 17% received grants or scholarships covering half or more of their tuition.^[2]

Employment

Cornell Law is known for its large firm prowess, placing a greater portion of its J.D. graduates at big law firms than any other law school in the United States.^[20] On the public service front, Cornell Law is known for the Cornell Law Death Penalty Project;^[21] its Tenants Advocacy Practicum;^[22] and for housing the Legal Information Institute, a non-profit, public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to legal research sources online at law.cornell.edu, serving over 47 million unique visitors per year.^[23]

Approximately 92% of the Class of 2022 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment within ten months of graduation.^[24] According to Reuters, Cornell Law placed a greater portion of its 2022 graduates in associate positions at big law firms than any other law school in the United States.^[25] Of the graduating class of 2022, approximately 80% were employed at large firms with more than 250 attorneys.^[24] And in total, approximately 83% of that class obtained elite employment outcomes in the form of federal clerkships or employment at firms with more than 250 attorneys.^[24] In a comparative survey of all law schools, Cornell graduates earned the highest average salaries in the United States from 2014 through 2019, with a mean salary of over $183,000.^[26] The median private-sector salary for Cornell Law graduates is $215,000.^[27] In 2023, Law.com ranked Cornell Law #2 on its ranking of the 50 best law schools for getting an associate position at the largest 100 law firms in the country.^[28]

Publications

The school has three law journals that are student-edited: the Cornell Law Review, the Cornell International Law Journal, and the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Additionally, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies is a peer-reviewed journal that is published by Cornell Law faculty.

Moot court

Cornell Law students actively participate in myriad moot court competitions annually, both in the law school itself and in external and international competitions. The Langfan First-Year Moot Court Competition, which takes place every spring, traditionally draws a large majority of the first-year class. Other internal competitions include the Cuccia Cup and the Rossi Cup.

Initiatives

Legal Information Institute

Cornell Law also is home to the Legal Information Institute (LII), an online provider of public legal information.^[29] Started in 1992, it was the first law site developed for the internet.^[30] The LII offers all opinions of the United States Supreme Court handed down since 1990, together with over 600 earlier decisions selected for their historic importance.^[31] The LII also publishes over a decade of opinions of the New York Court of Appeals, the full United States Code, the UCC, and the Code of Federal Regulations among other resources.^[29]

The LII is a public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to legal research sources online at law.cornell.edu, serving over 47 million unique visitors per year.

The LII also maintains Wex, a free legal dictionary and encyclopedia. Created in collaboration with legal experts, Wex has since 2020 been continuously edited and supplemented by the Wex Definitions Team, a group of supervised Cornell Law student editors.^[32]^[33] And the LII Supreme Court Bulletin is a free email- and web-based publication that intends to serve subscribers with thorough, yet understandable, legal analysis of upcoming Court cases as well as timely email notification of Court decisions.^[34]

Programs

Berger International Legal Studies Program
Clarke Business Law Institute
Clarke Center for International and Comparative Legal Studies
Clarke Initiative for Law and Development in the Middle East and North Africa
Clarke Program on Corporations and Society
Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture
Death Penalty Project
Empirical Legal Studies: Judicial Statistics Project
Global Center for Women and Justice
Graduate Legal Studies Program
ILR-Law School Program on Conflict Resolution
International Comparative Programs
Law and Economics Program
Lay Participation in Law International Research Collaborative
Migration and Human Rights Program

People

Deans

Following is a list of the deans of Cornell Law School:^[7]

More information No., Name ...

List of Cornell Law School deans
No.	Name	Tenure
1	Douglass Boardman	1887–1891
2	Francis Miles Finch	1891–1903
3	Ernest Wilson Huffcut	1903–1907
4	Frank Irvine	1907–1916
5	Edwin Hamlin Woodruff	1916–1921
6	George Gleason Bogert	1921–1926
7	Charles Kellog Burdick	1926–1937
8	Robert Sproule Stevens	1937–1954
9	Gray Thoron	1956–1963
10	William Ray Forrester	1963–1973
11	Roger C. Cramton	1973–1980
12	Peter William Martin	1980–1988
13	Russell King Osgood	1988–1998
interim	Charles W. Wolfram	1998–1999
14	Lee E. Teitelbaum	1999–2003
interim	John A. Siliciano	2003
15	Stewart J. Schwab	2004–2014
16	Eduardo Peñalver	2014–2021
17	Jens David Ohlin	2021–present