New York Law School Still Upholds Distinguished HistoryAmong law schools, the manner or style of one's legal instruction has always been a source of much debate. Law schools take pride in the kind of legal instruction they provide which most often exemplifies their principles, vision and ideology. It was this kind of disagreement of differing principles and methods over a particular style of legal instruction that led to the founding of New York Law School. Theodore William Dwight had virtually been the chief architect of Columbia University's Department of Law and was the department's dean until 1891. It was that year when he clashed with Columbia trustees who wanted to shift to the case method of legal instruction. That certainly felt like a slap in the face especially when Dwight had been using the Dwight Method, a mode of legal instruction which he created, at a department he had single-handedly built. Unable to come to terms with the trustees, Dwight left Columbia with a core group of loyalists and founded New York Law School in 1891. The school was an instant success which was owed in part to its founder's extensive educational and legal experience and aggressive management skills. In a little over a year, New York Law School was the second-largest independent law school in the United States and eventually becoming the largest in the early 1900's. Ironically, the issue that paved the way for the school's founding was relegated to the background even as the case method of legal instruction eclipsed Dwight's method to become the dominant mode in American law schools up to this day and is even used at New York Law School. But the most important aspect of New York Law School tradition has always been the study and practice of law that would affirm and uphold the precepts of "living justly, not injuring anyone and to render to each person what is due". And for the next decades, well into the 20th and 21st centuries, the New York Law School legacy has always been about adhering to these precepts while intuitively negotiating social currents and ideological changes that always had an impact on how the nation's laws were written, interpreted and applied. New York Law School specially reserves a special spot for prospective students whose aspirations to become lawyers need the kind of recognition that understands the sort of sacrifices they had to make to fulfill those aspirations. An important New York Law School legacy in this regard has been the establishment of the first ever evening classes for those who were working or had families. Today, New York Law School continues to uphold its sterling and distingushed history even as it steers itself into one of the most difficult if not most challenging periods of modern American history. The school's desire of course to be competitive as a premier institution for legal learning has taken into consideration, the changing sentiments of Americans who want to take up law and are discriminating in their choice of law schools. This is primarily the reason why the school has adopted a more modern take of its precepts which now simply exhorts, "Learn Law. Take Action." Very fitting indeed for a school that has done just that for over a century and continuing to be at the forefront of providing the best and most relevant legal education to America's brightest minds. |