Legal Education

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

Page 236

There were no law schools in colonial America. Those who sought a legal career had several options. They could embark on a self-directed course of study; they could serve as an assistant in a clerk of court's office; or they could travel to England to study at the Inns of Court. The most common method of obtaining a legal education, however, was through the apprenticeship system.

The apprenticeship system allowed men (it was generally unavailable to women) to acquire education and experience by working under an experienced practitioner. Ideally, an apprentice would spend several years learning both the law and the practical aspects of a law practice. The quality of apprenticeships varied greatly, however, depending on the administering attorney's skill and attention. Some apprenticeships were merely a source of cheap labor. THOMAS JEFFERSON once commented that the services he was expected to render as an apprentice were worth more than the instruction he received.

In 1779, Jefferson helped found the first chair of law, at William and Mary College, and appointed his mentor, GEORGE WYTHE, to fill it. Yale, Columbia, the University of Maryland, and Harvard followed suit. The positions they established were part of the general university curriculum and were typically filled by practitioners rather than academicians. This early movement to emphasize the scholarship of law gained little momentum because most lawyers believed that apprenticeships provided sufficient legal training. In 1784, however, proprietary (for-profit) law schools began to spring up, which spurred the transformation of legal education.

Proprietary law schools were essentially specialized and elaborate law offices. The first and most famous was Connecticut's LITCHFIELD LAW SCHOOL. Its 14-month course provided instruction in subjects such as property, contracts, procedure, master-and-servant, and commercial law?similar to the subjects of some of today's first-year law school classes. Litchfield graduated about one thousand students in its 49-year history, including 2 future vice presidents, 101 congressmen, 28 senators, 14 governors, and scores of distinguished state jurists.

The advent of law professorships, proprietary schools, and bar associations brought some standard of form to legal education. These standards deteriorated, however, thanks in part to ANDREW JACKSON, who was elected the seventh president of the United...