Antioch School of Law was a law school in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

which specialized in public advocacy. The school now operates as the

University of the District of Columbia The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) is a public historically black land-grant university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1851 and is the only public university in the city. UDC is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall ...

David A. Clarke School of Law The University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law (UDC Law) is the law school of the University of the District of Columbia, a public historically black land-grant university in Washington, D.C. It is named after David A. ...

(UDC-DCSL). The school was located on 16th Street, NW and its law library a block away on Crescent Place, Northwest, in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., near

Meridian Hill Park Meridian Hill Park, also known as Malcolm X Park, is a structured urban park located in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C., Columbia Heights; it also abuts the nearby neighborhood of Adams Morgan. The park wa ...

Founding and educational philosophy

Antioch School of Law was run under the auspices of

Antioch College Antioch College is a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1852 as a non-sectarian institution; politician and education reformer Horace Mann was its f ...

Yellow Springs, Ohio Yellow Springs is a village in Greene County, Ohio, United States. The population was 3,697 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is home to Antioch College. History The area of the village had long b ...

, long a pioneer in educational innovation, which, at various points in its history, operated as many as 32 separate entities in several states, as well as abroad as part of the Antioch Network. The school was established in 1972 by

Edgar S. Cahn Edgar Stuart Cahn (March 23, 1935January 23, 2022) was an American law professor, a counsel and speech writer to Robert F. Kennedy, and the creator of TimeBanking. He co-founded the Antioch School of Law (now the David A. Clarke School of Law at ...

and Jean Camper Cahn, longtime champions of the

legal rights Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights. * Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are ''universal'', ''fundamental'' and ...

low-income Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

income

and minority persons. The Cahns were also instrumental in establishing the federal

Legal Services Corporation The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is a publicly funded, 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation established by the United States Congress. It seeks to ensure equal access to justice under the law for all Americans by providing funding for civil legal ...

during the administration of President

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

. They served as the first deans of the school, and envisioned a law school focused on training highly skilled attorneys dedicated to

public interest The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. Overview Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefore ...

advocacy. The school was fully ABA accredited for the class of 1977 (who entered in 1974), and operated until 1988. The school pioneered a comprehensive law clinic education model espoused by Edmond Cahn, a law professor at Columbia University and Edgar's father in the 1930s. His concept was to train lawyers like doctors in a clinical model, as opposed to the pure Langdell Case method use by Harvard and most other law schools, and to use those lawyers in training to provide legal services to those unable to afford lawyers. Edgar and Jean brought his ideas to life in Antioch's teaching law firm, a combination Legal Services office and law school. Since then, clinical legal education has now been acknowledged by the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

and the

Association of American Law Schools The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), formed in 1900, is a non-profit organization of 176 law schools in the United States. An additional 19 schools pay a fee to receive services but are not members. AALS incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non ...

as being an essential part of a complete

legal education Legal education is the education of individuals in the principles, practices, and theory of law. It may be undertaken for several reasons, including to provide the knowledge and skills necessary for admission to legal practice in a particular j ...

, and has been incorporated to some degree into the curriculum of virtually every

law school in the United States A law school in the United States is an educational institution where students obtain a professional education in law after first obtaining an undergraduate degree. Law schools in the U.S. confer the degree of Juris Doctor (J.D.), which is a p ...

. The school, in fact, was envisioned as more than a law school - it was to be a public interest

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to r ...

with teacher-lawyers and student-advocates providing

pro bono ( en, 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. In the United States, the term typically refers to provision of legal services by legal professionals for pe ...

legal services to the poor and others who were unable to obtain representation. The intent was to create an intense combination of learning and practice. New students also spent their first eight weeks, later reduced to two weeks at the school living with families in Washington's slums to get an understanding of the legal needs and institutional barriers of the people whom the students would soon be representing. This was part of the school's effort to inculcate in its students the passion to eradicate injustice in society. From the beginning, Antioch's approach to admissions was far less test-score oriented than most other law schools. The Cahns said they wanted "good" students as well as "bright" ones. They sought students who were more mature and had life experience which demonstrated competency and capacity to initiate and complete tasks in support of social justice. The class gender balance in the incoming class of 1975 was 50/50 men to women, (average female law school admissions at the time was less than 10%) and about 35 percent persons of color and other minorities, with an average age in the late 20s with many students who had successful pre-law school careers. They recognized that not only do those who lack a conventional cultural or educational background have the potential to become good lawyers, they often, uniquely, have the motivation and life experiences to become great advocates for change and

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

. Antioch provided many students an opportunity to attend law school that they probably would not have been afforded otherwise. In addition to its

professional degree A professional degree, formerly known in the US as a first professional degree, is a degree that prepares someone to work in a particular profession, practice, or industry sector often meeting the academic requirements for licensure or accreditatio ...

program, which led to the

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

degree, permitting graduates to seek licensure as attorneys in all American jurisdictions, the school also initially offered an advanced degree program leading to the Masters of Law (LLM) in Trial Advocacy and later a Masters in the Arts of Teaching (MAT) in clinical legal education. In addition, Antioch School of Law offered an M.A. in Legal Studies, one of the first law schools to do so in the 1980s and a number of paralegal programs.

Closing

By the early 1980s, faced with growing financial challenges, and a diminished federal funding commitment to in its educational approach, Antioch was forced to scale back its operations, and, in 1986, closed the law school. In 1986, after the announcement of the law school's closing, Antioch Law students and alumni mounted a spirited grassroots campaign and ultimately succeeded in convincing the

Council of the District of Columbia The Council of the District of Columbia is the legislative branch of the local government of the District of Columbia, the capital of the United States. As permitted in the United States Constitution, the district is not part of any U.S. state ...

to establish the District of Columbia School of Law (DCSL). Although it had no formal connection to Antioch, the DCSL specifically adopted Antioch's mission and curriculum, including the clinical legal education components, employed many of its faculty, and afforded Antioch School of Law alumni full rights as alumni of the new law school. In 1996, the DCSL was absorbed by the

, a traditionally black public institution. Renamed in 1998, what had constituted the professional degree curriculum of Antioch School of Law now operates as the University of the District of Columbia

, a fully accredited institution with several hundred students, and with one of the nation's most highly regarded clinical legal education programs. Initially, the LL.M. in trial advocacy program was adopted as it existed by

George Washington University Law School The George Washington University Law School (GW Law) is the law school of George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Established in 1865, GW Law is the oldest top law school in the national capital. GW Law offers the largest range of cou ...

, and operated under that school's aegis. In the ensuing years, however, the program was gradually diminished, and now exists only in truncated form as a three-credit, six-day offering known as the College of Trial Advocacy, and in various other courses in advanced advocacy skills and dispute resolution, at George Washington. In the winter of 2009, the Chancellor of

Antioch University Antioch University is a private university with multiple campuses in the United States and online programs. Founded in 1852 as Antioch College, its first president was politician, abolitionist, and education reformer Horace Mann. It changed its n ...

set as a priority the exploration of reopening the Antioch School of Law.

Notable alumni

* Kevin M. Dougherty, associate justice on the

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Unified Judicial System. It also claims to be the oldest appellate court in the United States, a claim that is disputed by the Massachusetts Supreme ...

Maryellen Fullerton Maryellen Fullerton is an American lawyer and academic. She is a professor of law and former interim dean at Brooklyn Law School. She was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Trento for 2012-13. Biography Fullerton earne ...

, lawyer and former interim dean and law professor of law at

Brooklyn Law School Brooklyn Law School (BLS) is a private law school in New York City. Founded in 1901, it has approximately 1,100 students. Brooklyn Law School's faculty includes 60 full-time faculty, 15 emeriti faculty, and a number of adjunct faculty. Brookly ...

* John Ramsey Johnson, associate judge on the

Superior Court of the District of Columbia The Superior Court of the District of Columbia, commonly referred to as DC Superior Court, is the trial court for the District of Columbia, in the United States. It hears cases involving criminal and civil law, as well as family court, landlor ...

* Thomas L. Kilbride, longtime legal aid attorney and now former Justice/Chief Justice on the

Illinois Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Illinois is the state supreme court, the highest court of the State of Illinois. The court's authority is granted in Article VI of the current Illinois Constitution, which provides for seven justices elected from the five ap ...

* Lisa J. Krisher, Senior Director of Litigation & Advocacy for the Georgia Legal Services Program * Andrea D. Lyon, defense attorney specializing in serious criminal offenses and death penalty cases. * Barry D. Trebach, founder of Kiernan Trebach LLP specializing in civil litigation defense.

References

{{Authority control David A. Clarke School of Law Educational institutions established in 1972 1972 establishments in Washington, D.C. Adams Morgan Defunct law schools Educational institutions disestablished in 1986 1986 disestablishments in Washington, D.C.