Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the
law school of
Stanford University, a private
research university
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kn ...
near
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was es ...
. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford Law has regularly ranked among the top three
law schools in the United States by ''
U.S. News & World Report'' since the magazine first published
law school rankings in the 1980s, and has ranked second for most of the past decade.
In 2021, Stanford Law had an acceptance rate of 6.28%, the second-lowest of any law school in the country. Since 2019,
Jennifer Martínez has served as its
dean
Dean may refer to:
People
* Dean (given name)
* Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin
* Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk
* Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean
Titles
* ...
.
Stanford Law School employs more than 90 full-time and part-time faculty members and enrolls over 550 students who are working toward their
Doctor of Jurisprudence
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 ...
(J.D.) degree. Stanford Law also confers four advanced legal degrees: a
Master of Laws
A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is an advanced postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in a related subject. In mos ...
(LL.M.), a
Master of Studies in Law
A Master of Studies in Law (M.S.L.), also Master of Science of Law or Master of Legal Studies (M.L.S.) or Juris Master (J.M.) or Masters of Jurisprudence (M.J.) or Master in Law (M.L.), is a master's degree offered by some law schools to students ...
(M.S.L.), a Master of the Science of Law (J.S.M.), and a
Doctor of the Science of Law (J.S.D.). Each fall, Stanford Law enrolls a J.D. class of approximately 180 students, giving Stanford the smallest student body of any law school ranked in the top fourteen (
T14). Stanford also maintains eleven full-time legal clinics,
["Clinics Offered"]
Stanford Law School. Retrieved 27 June 2015 including the nation's first and most active Supreme Court litigation clinic, and offers 27 formal joint degree programs.
Stanford Law alumni include several of the first women to occupy Chief Justice or Associate Justice posts on
supreme courts: former
Chief Justice of New Zealand
The chief justice of New Zealand ( mi, Te Kaiwhakawā Tumuaki o Aotearoa) is the head of the New Zealand judiciary, and presides over the Supreme Court of New Zealand. The chief justice of New Zealand is also the chief justice of Tokelau. Befo ...
Sian Elias
Dame Sian Seerpoohi Elias (born 13 March 1949) is a New Zealand former Government official, who served as the 12th Chief Justice of New Zealand, and was therefore the most senior member of the country's judiciary. She was the presiding judge o ...
, retired
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the late
Associate Justice
Associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some sta ...
of the
Hawaii Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Hawaii is the highest court of the State of Hawaii in the United States. Its decisions are binding on all other courts of the Hawaii State Judiciary. The principal purpose of the Supreme Court is to review the decisions of ...
Rhoda V. Lewis, and the late
Chief Justice of Washington
The Washington Supreme Court is the highest court in the judiciary of the U.S. state of Washington. The court is composed of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Members of the court are elected to six-year terms. Justices must retire ...
Barbara Durham
Barbara M. Durham (October 6, 1942 – December 30, 2002) was the first-ever female chief justice of the Washington Supreme Court. She also was a former federal judicial nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Earl ...
. Other justices of supreme courts who graduated from Stanford Law include the late
Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist ( ; October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, first as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and then as the 16th chief justice from ...
, retired
Chief Justice of California
The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...
Ronald M. George
Ronald Marc George (born March 11, 1940) is an American jurist. He previously served as the 27th Chief Justice of California from 1996 to 2011. Governor of California, Governor Pete Wilson appointed George as an associate justice of the Supreme Co ...
, retired
California Supreme Court Justice Carlos R. Moreno, and the late California Supreme Court Justice
Frank K. Richardson.
History
Stanford first offered a curriculum in legal studies in 1893, when the university hired its first two law professors: former U.S. president
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia–a grandson of the ninth pr ...
and
Nathan Abbott. Abbott headed the new program and assembled a small faculty over the next few years. The law department primarily enrolled undergraduate majors at this time and included a large number of students who might not have been welcome at more traditional law schools at the time, including women and students of color, especially Hispanic, Chinese and Japanese students.
In 1900, the department moved from its original location in Encina Hall to the northeast side of the Inner Quadrangle. These larger facilities included Stanford's first law library. Beginning to focus more on professional training, the school implemented its first three-year curriculum and became one of 27 charter members of 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) n ...
(AALS). In 1901, the school awarded its first professional degree, the
Bachelor of Laws
Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Ch ...
(LL.B.).
[
Starting in 1908, the law department began its transition into an exclusively professional school when Stanford's Board of Trustees passed a resolution to officially change its name from Law Department to Law School. Eight years later, Frederic Campbell Woodward became the first dean of the law school, and in 1923, the law school received accreditation from 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 aca ...
(ABA). In 1924, Stanford's law program officially transitioned into a modern professional school when it began requiring a bachelor's degree for admission.[
The 1940s and 1950s brought considerable change to the law school. After ]World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
caused the law school's enrollment to drop to fewer than 30 students, the school quickly expanded once the war ended in 1945. A move to a new location in the Outer Quadrangle, as well as the 1948 opening of the law school dormitory Crothers Hall (the result of a donation by Stanford Law graduate George E. Crothers), allowed the school to grow, while the 1948 inaugural publication of the ''Stanford Law Review
The ''Stanford Law Review'' (SLR) is a legal journal produced independently by Stanford Law School students. The journal was established in 1948 with future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as its first president. The review produces s ...
'' (helmed by future U.S. Secretary of State
The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
Warren Christopher
Warren Minor Christopher (October 27, 1925March 18, 2011) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician. During Bill Clinton's first term as president, he served as the 63rd United States Secretary of State.
Born in Scranton, North Dakota, ...
'49) helped to augment the law school's national reputation. The decision that Stanford should remain a small law school with a very limited enrollment emerged during this period. For the third time in its history, the law school relocated in the 1970s, this time to its current location in the Crown Quadrangle.[
In the 1960s and 1970s, the law school aimed to diversify its student body. During this period, students established a large number of new and progressive student organizations, including the Women of Stanford Law, the Stanford Chicano Law Student Association, the Environmental Law Society, and the Stanford Public Interest Foundation. Additionally, in 1966, the school sought to academically diversify its student body by collaborating with the ]Stanford Business School
The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business schoo ...
to create its first joint-degree program.[ A year earlier, in 1965, the law school enrolled its first black student, Sallyanne Payton '68, and in 1972, the school hired its first female law professor, ]Barbara Babcock
Barbara Babcock (born February 27, 1937) is an American actress who played Grace Gardner on ''Hill Street Blues'', for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress—Drama Series in 1981, She played Dorothy Jennings on ''Dr. Quinn, ...
, and its first professor of color, William B. Gould IV. In 1968, Stanford appointed Thelton Henderson, future judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, as the first assistant dean for minority admissions. Henderson expanded minority enrollment from a single student to approximately a fifth of the student body.[ Stanford Law's commitment to diversity continues today, and '']The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review is an education services company providing tutoring, test preparation and admission resources for students. It was founded in 1981. and since that time has worked with over 400 million students. Services are delivered by 4,0 ...
'' currently ranks Stanford Law as one of the ten best law schools for minority students.["Stanford University - School of Law"]
''The Princeton Review''. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
Earning national recognition in the 1980s and 1990s, the law school embarked on innovating its curriculum. Stanford offered new courses focusing on law and technology, environmental law, intellectual property law, and international law, allowing students to specialize in emerging legal fields. In 1984, it launched its first clinical program, the East Palo Alto Community Law Project.[ By the 21st century, a new focus on interdisciplinary education emerged. In 2009, it transitioned from a semester system to a quarter system to align itself with Stanford's other graduate schools. Stanford also expanded its upper-level offerings in international law, by adding new clinics, academic centers, and simulation courses, and expanded its joint degree programs.
]
Academics and admissions
Stanford Law School is known for its student-to-faculty ratio (7.3 to 1), one of the lowest in the country.[ The first-year class of approximately 180 students is divided into six smaller sections of 30 students each.
The academic program is flexible. First-year students (or 1Ls) are required to take Civil Procedure, Contracts, Torts, and Legal Research & Writing during the autumn quarter, and Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Federal Litigation, and one elective during the winter quarter. In the spring quarter, they take Federal Litigation, Property, and enroll in electives. Stanford Law offers 280 course titles beyond the first-year curriculum, and advanced courses range from ]White-Collar Crime
The term "white-collar crime" refers to financially motivated, nonviolent or non-directly violent crime committed by individuals, businesses and government professionals. It was first defined by the sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a ...
to a Supreme Court Simulation Seminar. Additionally, because of the law school's proximity to other academic programs on campus, there is a strong focus on joint-degree programs and interdisciplinary learning, and upper-level students may take classes at Stanford's other professional and graduate schools.
Stanford Law enables second- and third-year students to gain hands-on experience by working full-time in one of eleven legal clinics, including an Environmental Law Clinic, Criminal Defense Clinic, a Religious Liberty Clinic, and an Intellectual Property and Innovation Clinic.[ The Supreme Court Litigation Clinic has successfully brought over thirty cases before the Court, making it one of the most active Supreme Court practices of any kind. The clinic has served as lead counsel or co-lead counsel on the merits in numerous cases, including '']Kennedy v. Louisiana
''Kennedy v. Louisiana'', 554 U.S. 407 (2008), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits imposing the death penalty for the rape of a chi ...
'' (2008), '' Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts'' (2009), ''United States v. Windsor
''United States v. Windsor'', 570 U.S. 744 (2013), is a landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case concerning same-sex marriage. The Court held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denied federal recognition o ...
'' (2013), '' Riley v. California'' (2014), and ''Bourke v. Beshear
The lead cases on same-sex marriage in Kentucky are ''Bourke v. Beshear'', and its companion case ''Love v. Beshear''. In ''Bourke'', a U.S. district court found that the Equal Protection Clause requires Kentucky to recognize valid same-sex marri ...
'' (2015).
Launched in 2013, Stanford's Law and Policy Lab provides further opportunities for experiential learning. The Policy Lab allows second- and third-year students to enroll in faculty-supervised policy practicums, where students work in small teams to conduct policy research and analysis for real-world clients. Topics have ranged from wildlife trafficking to prison realignment to copyright reform, and prior clients include California Attorney General
The attorney general of California is the state attorney general of the Government of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" (Constitution of California, Article V, Section ...
Kamala Harris
Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
, Governor of California Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of ...
, the California Law Revision Commission
The California Law Revision Commission (CLRC) is an independent California state agency responsible for recommending reforms of state law.
Duties
The CLRC makes recommendations to the California State Legislature to correct defects in California ...
, the U.S. Copyright Office
The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a part of the Library of Congress, is a United States government body that maintains records of copyright registration, including a copyright catalog. It is used by copyright title searchers who are ...
, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of the Treasury
The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and t ...
, and the White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
Office of Management and Budget
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...
.
Students and alumni routinely report high satisfaction with their academic experience. In surveys conducted by '' Above the Law'', Stanford Law received an "A+" from both students and alumni for their satisfaction with Stanford's academic program, and the law school also received an "A+" rating from students for practical/clinical training, career counseling, and financial aid advising. Based on surveys with students at the nation's 169 best law schools, ''The Princeton Review'' currently ranks Stanford Law as having the best "Classroom Experience",[ and students provided Stanford with the highest score (99) for its "Academic Experience Rating" and "Professors Interesting Rating". Additionally, the 2014 "Midlevel Associates Survey" conducted by '']The American Lawyer
''The American Lawyer'' is a monthly legal magazine and website published by ALM Media. The periodical and its parent company, ALM (then American Lawyer Media), were founded in 1979 by Steven Brill.[Stanford Law Review
The ''Stanford Law Review'' (SLR) is a legal journal produced independently by Stanford Law School students. The journal was established in 1948 with future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as its first president. The review produces s ...]
'', which has been ranked as the top law review by the ''Washington & Lee Law Review Rankings'' in both 2013 and 2014. Advocacy skills are tested in the Marion Rice Kirkwood Moot Court competition.
The Robert Crown Law Library at Stanford holds 500,000 books, 360,000 microform and audiovisual items, and more than 8,000 current serial subscriptions.
In August 2008, Stanford Law School changed its grading system, which no longer relies on traditional letter grades, joining Yale Law School
Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...
, the University of California, Berkeley School of Law
The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (commonly known as Berkeley Law or UC Berkeley School of Law) is the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It is one of 1 ...
, and Harvard Law School. Students now receive one of four grades: honors, pass, restricted credit, or no credit. Unlike Harvard Law School and Yale Law School, Stanford Law School enforces strict curves which cap the number of honors grades to around 30%. As part of Stanford's grade reform, the law school no longer awards the honors of the Order of the Coif or Graduation with Distinction.
Between 4,000 and 5,000 students apply for admission each year. Selection is competitive: the median undergraduate grade point average of admitted students is 3.93 and the median LSAT score is 171 (out of 180). Beyond numbers, Stanford places considerable emphasis on factors such as extracurricular activities, work experience, and prior graduate study. About three quarters of the members of each entering class have one or more years of prior work experience and over a quarter have another graduate degree. The school also accepts a small number of transfers each year.
Bar passage rates
According to ABA Required Disclosures, Stanford Law School had an average bar passage rate of 98.25% in 2020.
In 2020, 96.39% of Stanford Law graduates taking the California bar exam for the first time passed, and 100% of Stanford Law graduates who took the bar exam in other jurisdictions for the first time passed.
Post-graduation employment
Upon graduation, about a third of the class clerks for a judge; about half join law firms.
According to Stanford Law School's official 2014 ABA-required disclosures, 90.4% of the Class of 2014 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation, excluding solo-practitioners. Stanford's Law School Transparency
Law School Transparency (LST) is a nonprofit consumer advocacy and education organization concerning the legal profession in the United States. LST was founded by Vanderbilt Law School graduates Kyle McEntee and Patrick Lynch. LST describes its ...
under-employment score is 3.2%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2014 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.
According to the American Bar Association, of 2014 Stanford Law graduates, 90.9% are employed in a position that required the graduate to pass the bar exam; 2.7% are employed in a position in which the employer sought an individual with a J.D. or in which the J.D. provided a demonstrable advantage in obtaining or performing the job, but which did not itself require an active law license; 2.7% are employed in other professional positions; 1.1% are pursuing graduate work full-time; 1.1% have a deferred employment starting date; and 1.6% are unemployed and seeking employment.
Despite its small size, Stanford Law has the third highest (per capita) placement rate for law professors at the nation's 43 leading law schools, according to a 2011 study, and has achieved the second-highest (per capita) placement rate for U.S. Supreme Court clerkships, according to a 2013 finding. Stanford Law alumni have clerked for the U.S. Supreme Court every year for the past 40 years. Based on a 2012 to 2014 average, Stanford Law has also achieved the second-highest (per capita) placement rate for federal judicial clerkships, and for the class of 2014, reported the highest placement rate for federal judicial clerkships at 30.5%.
Costs
The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Stanford Law School for the 2020–21 academic year is $105,849. Law School Transparency estimated that Stanford Law's debt-financed cost of attendance for three years (at full cost) is $315,604.
A 2015 study by M7 Financial, which assessed law schools' "credit ratings" using data on average starting salaries, employment trends, and student loan obligations, found that Stanford Law had the lowest student debt burden of any law school in the study.
Programs and centers
* Stanford Constitutional Law Center
* Stanford Criminal Justice Center (SCJC)
* Stanford Three Strikes Project
* Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program (ENRLP)
* Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance
* China Guiding Cases Project (CGCP)
* Rule of Law Program
* Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation (SCICN)
* Stanford Human Rights Center
* Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law
* Stanford Program in Law and Society
* Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance
* John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics
* Securities Class Action Clearinghouse (SCAC)
* Center for E-Commerce
* Center for Internet and Society
* Center for Law and the Biosciences
* Stanford Center for Computers and the Law (CodeX)
* Fair Use Project
* Stanford Center in Law, Science, & Technology
* Stanford Program in Neuroscience and Society (SPINS)
* Transatlantic Technology Law Forum
* Stanford Center on the Legal Profession
* Martin Daniel Gould Center for Conflict Resolution Programs
* Gould Negotiation and Mediation Teaching Program
* Center for Internet and Society (CIS)
* John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law
* Stanford Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Law and Policy Project (SIDDLAPP)
Law Review and journals
* ''Stanford Law Review
The ''Stanford Law Review'' (SLR) is a legal journal produced independently by Stanford Law School students. The journal was established in 1948 with future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as its first president. The review produces s ...
''
* '' Stanford Journal of International Law''
* ''Stanford Law & Policy Review''
* ''Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance''
* ''Stanford Technology Law Review''
* ''Stanford Environmental Law Journal''
* ''Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties''
Notable faculty
The Stanford Law School faculty ranks among the top three law faculties in the United States in terms of scholarly impact, and faculty members include the most widely cited legal scholars in intellectual property law (Mark Lemley), legal history (Lawrence Friedman), and legal ethics (Deborah L. Rhode). A 2012 study found that five Stanford Law professors are among the 50 most relevant law professors in the nation, and a 2013 study found that 25 percent of Stanford Law School's tenured faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
.
In 2013, ''The National Law Journal
''The National Law Journal'' (NLJ) is an American legal periodical founded in 1978. The NLJ was created by Jerry Finkelstein, who envisioned it as a "sibling newspaper" of the '' New York Law Journal''.
Originally a tabloid-sized weekly newspa ...
'' recognized Professors Jeffrey L. Fisher and Mark Lemley as two of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, and in 2014, a study by ''Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was esta ...
'' identified former Dean Kathleen M. Sullivan and Professors Jeffrey L. Fisher, Pamela S. Karlan, and Brian Wolfman as among the 66 most successful appellate litigators before the U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
.
Notable current faculty
* Joseph Bankman – tax law
* Ralph Richard Banks – family law, employment discrimination law, race and the law
* Paul Brest
Paul Brest (born 1940) is an American scholar of constitutional law, a former president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and a former dean of Stanford Law School. He is an influential theorist on the role of non-profit organizations i ...
(emeritus) – former Dean of the law school; constitutional law, judgment and decision-making
* Gerhard Casper (emeritus) – former President of Stanford University; constitutional law scholar
* Joshua Cohen – political theorist and philosopher
* John J. Donohue III – law and economics, empirical analysis
* Jeffrey L. Fisher – co-director of the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and appellate litigator who has argued 27 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court
* Richard Thompson Ford Richard Thompson Ford is George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. His scholarship includes work on critical race theory, local government law, housing segregation, and employment discrimination. He has served as a housing commiss ...
- civil rights, local & state government, critical theory; named one of Esquire's Best-Dressed Real Men in 2009
* Barbara Fried - legal theory
* Lawrence M. Friedman
Lawrence Meir Friedman (born April 2, 1930) is an American Legal education, law professor, historian of American legal history, and author of nonfiction and fiction books. He has been a member of the faculty at Stanford Law School since 1968.
Bi ...
– legal historian
* Paul Goldstein – international intellectual property, copyright, trademark; author of best-selling legal fiction novels
* Thomas C. Grey (emeritus) – legal theory, modern American legal thought, constitutional law
* Joseph Grundfest
Joseph Grundfest (born 1951) is an American academic. He is the Bill Franke, William A. Franke Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School and co-director of the Rock Center on Corporate Governance at Stanford University. He joined Stanfo ...
– corporate governance and securities litigation
* Thomas Heller – international trade and tax specialist
* Pamela S. Karlan
Pamela Susan Karlan (born 1959) is an American legal scholar who is the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. She is on a leave of absence from Stanford Law School. A ...
– co-director of the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic; election law and constitutional law scholar who is currently serving as the U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Voting Rights in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice
* Mark Kelman
Mark Kelman (born August 20, 1951) is jurist and vice dean of Stanford Law School. As a prominent legal scholar, he has applied social science methodologies, including economics and psychology, to the study of law. He is one of the most cited law ...
- Vice Dean of the law school; application of social sciences to law
* Michael Klausner – corporate law, business transactions, corporate governance, financial regulation
* Larry Kramer
Laurence David Kramer (June 25, 1935May 27, 2020) was an American playwright, author, film producer, public health advocate, and gay rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to Lo ...
– constitutional law, conflict of laws
* Mark Lemley
Mark A. Lemley (born c. 1966) is currently the William H. Neukom Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and the Director of the Stanford Law School Program in Law, Science & Technology, as well as a founding partner of the law firm of Durie Tan ...
– intellectual property law, patent law, law and technology
* Jennifer Martínez – current Dean of the law school; human rights and international law scholar; represented José Padilla before the U.S. Supreme Court
* Michael W. McConnell
Michael William McConnell (born May 18, 1955) is an American constitutional law scholar who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2002 to 2009. Since 2009, McConnell has been a ...
– constitutional law scholar and former Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (in case citations, 10th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:
* District of Colorado
* District of Kansas
* Distr ...
* Nathaniel Persily
Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where he has taught since 2013. He is a scholar of constitutional law, election law, and the democratic process.[A. Mitchell Polinsky
Alan Mitchell Polinsky (born 1948) is the Josephine Scott Crocker Professor of Law and Economics at Stanford Law School. At Stanford, Polinsky is the founder and director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics. He is also a past presiden ...]
– law and economics
*Deborah Sivas
Deborah A. Sivas is an American environmental lawyer currently the Luke W. Cole Professor at Stanford Law School
Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, ...
– environmental law
* Jane S. Schacter
Jane S. Schacter (born June 27, 1958) is an American legal scholar who serves as the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Stanford Law School with an expertise in constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and sexual orientation law. – sexual orientation law, statutory interpretation, constitutional law
*Barton Thompson
Barton "Buzz" Thompson is an American lawyer and academic who focuses on climate, ecosystem services and conservation, freshwater, oceans and sustainable development.
Thompson is currently the Robert E. Paradise Professor in Natural Resources Law ...
– natural resources law
* Allen S. Weiner – international law scholar
* Robert Weisberg – criminal law and law and literature
Notable visiting faculty and lecturers
* Viola Canales – former litigator, short story author, and published novelist
* Lanhee Chen
Lanhee Joseph Chen (; ; born July 4, 1978) is an American policy advisor, attorney, and academic. Chen serves as the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution, director of domestic policy studies and ...
– lecturer in law and former chief policy advisor to Mitt Romney
* Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
Mariano-Florentino "Tino" Cuéllar (born July 27, 1972) is an American scholar, academic leader, public official, jurist, and nonprofit executive currently serving as the 10th president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A former ...
– visiting professor, current Justice of the Supreme Court of California, former White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
official, and former Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford
* Russ Feingold
Russell Dana Feingold ( ; born March 2, 1953) is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1993 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee in the 2016 election for the same U ...
– lecturer in law and former U.S. Senator
* Bertram Fields
Bertram Harris Fields (March 31, 1929 – August 7, 2022) was an American lawyer noted for his work in the field of entertainment law. He represented many of the leading film studios, as well as numerous celebrities, and lectured at both Stanf ...
– lecturer in law and entertainment attorney
* Benjamin Ginsberg – lecturer in law and former national counsel to the 2000 and 2004 Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns
* Jennifer Granick
Jennifer Stisa Granick (born 1969) is an American attorney and educator. Senator Ron Wyden has called Granick an "NBA all-star of surveillance law." She is well known for her work with intellectual property law, free speech, privacy law, and othe ...
– intellectual property and First Amendment scholar and practitioner
* Thomas B. Griffith – lecturer in law and current judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
* Goodwin Liu
Goodwin Hon Liu (born October 19, 1970; Chinese: 劉弘威) is an American lawyer, educator and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California. Before his appointment by California Governor Jerry Brown, Liu was Associate Dean and Profes ...
– lecturer in law and current Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California
Notable former faculty
* Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander (born October 7, 1967) is an American writer and civil rights activist. She is best known for her 2010 book '' The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness''. Since 2018, she has been an opinion columnist ...
– associate professor of law and author of '' The New Jim Crow''
* Anthony G. Amsterdam – professor of clinical education (1969-1981)
* Barbara Allen Babcock
Barbara Allen Babcock (July 6, 1938 – April 18, 2020) was the Judge John Crown Professor of Law, Emerita, at Stanford Law School. She was an expert in criminal and civil procedure and was a member of the Stanford Law School faculty from 1972 ...
(emerita) – criminal law, civil procedure, women's legal history
* Tom Campbell – professor of law (1987-2002), associate professor of law (1983-1987)
* Barbara A. Caulfield
Barbara Ann Caulfield (December 2, 1947 – November 9, 2010) was a United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Education and career
Born in Oak Park, Ill ...
– lecturer in law (1988-2010)
* Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
Mariano-Florentino "Tino" Cuéllar (born July 27, 1972) is an American scholar, academic leader, public official, jurist, and nonprofit executive currently serving as the 10th president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A former ...
– professor of law (2001-2015), former White House official, and former Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University has many centers and institutes dedicated to the study of various specific topics. These centers and institutes may be within a department, within a school but across departments, an independent laboratory, institute or center ...
at Stanford
* John Hart Ely
John Hart Ely ( ; December 3, 1938 – October 25, 2003) was an American legal scholar. He was a professor of law at Yale Law School from 1968 to 1973, Harvard Law School from 1973 to 1982, Stanford Law School from 1982 to 1996, and at the Uni ...
– professor of law (1982-1996); former Dean (1982-1987)
* Tom Goldstein
Thomas Che Goldstein (born 1970) is an American lawyer known for his advocacy before and blogging about the Supreme Court of the United States. He was a founding partner of Goldstein and Howe (now Goldstein & Russell), a Washington, D.C., firm s ...
– clinical lecturer (2004-2012); co-founder of the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic
* Gerald Gunther – professor of law (1962-1995), professor emeritus (1995-2002)
* Lawrence Lessig
Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard ...
– professor of law (2000-2009); founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society
The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a public interest technology law and policy program founded in 2000 by Lawrence Lessig at Stanford Law School and a part of Law, Science and Technology Program at Stanford Law School. CIS brings togethe ...
* M. Elizabeth Magill – former Dean of the law school; constitutional law and administrative law scholar
* Richard Posner
Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American jurist and legal scholar who served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chic ...
– associate professor of law (1968-9)
* Margaret Jane Radin – professor of law (1989-2006)
*Deborah L. Rhode
Deborah Lynn Rhode (January 29, 1952January 8, 2021) was an American jurist. She was the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and the nation's most frequently cited scholar in legal ethics. From her early days at Yale Law S ...
– legal ethics, gender and the law; former president of 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) n ...
* Joseph Tyree Sneed, III – professor of law (1962-1971)
* Kathleen M. Sullivan – professor of law (1992-2012); former Dean (1999-2004)
Notable alumni
Stanford Law School alumni practice in 61 countries, 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Marshall Islands, and Washington D.C. Stanford Law alumni are partners at 87 of the 100 largest law firms in the United States; 94 of the largest law firms employ Stanford Law alumni as attorneys.[Graduate Facts , Stanford Law School]
Law.stanford.edu. Retrieved on 2015-06-24. Consistent with Stanford's expertise in law and technology, Stanford Law graduates currently work or have previously worked as general counsels for many of the leading high-tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, Cisco, eBay, Yahoo!, Qualcomm, Oracle, and Genentech.[
]
Popular culture
* The film ''Legally Blonde
''Legally Blonde'' is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Robert Luketic in his feature-length directorial debut, and scripted by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith from Amanda Brown's 2001 novel of the same name. It stars Reese Wit ...
'' was originally set at Stanford Law School, which is also the setting of the book it is based on; however, Stanford did not approve of the script, so the setting was changed to Harvard.
See also
* Dean of Stanford Law School
*Stanford Center for Computers and the Law {{unreferenced, date=November 2011
ThStanford Center for Computers and the Law- CodeX - is an interdisciplinarresearch center jointly operated by Stanford Law School and the Stanford School of Engineering
Stanford University School of Engineering ...
References
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
ABA-accredited law schools in California
Educational institutions established in 1893
Law in the San Francisco Bay Area
1893 establishments in California