Marshall-Wythe School of Law
Contents
History
A history of the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at William & Mary is available at its website. The first woman to earn a Bachelors of Civil Law, the predecessor to the Juris Doctor, was Virginia Mister in 1937. The first African American to receive a Bachelors of Civil Law was Edward Travis in 1954.
Constructed: 1978-1980
Dedication: September 13, 1980
Named for: John Marshall and George Wythe
Building
The Marshall-Wythe School of Law is located east of campus beside the National Center for State Courts at 613 South Henry Street. It was located in the Old Gymnasium from 1922 to 1931, in James Blair Hall from 1935 to 1968, and in St. George Tucker Hall from 1968 to 1980.
The official opening ceremony for the School of Law occurred on January 14, 1922 when the school was still housed in the Old Gymnasium. The ceremony was attended by 125 members of the Virginia General Assembly and Senate as well as other governmental officials. At that time, courses taught at the law school were arranged to prepare students for legislative legislative, educational and diplomatic lines of work.
In 1974, an article in the Flat Hat noted the overcrowded conditions in the law school. Classes were being taught to 450 students in a building intended for 200. In 1975 Wright, Jones, and Wilkerson designed the new law school to alleviate this problem. The groundbreaking ceremony for the Law School was held on September 11, 1976, but construction was delayed until March 1978 due to lack of funding. The Law School moved in during the summer of 1980, vacating the spaces in Tucker Hall, the basement of Chancellors Hall, rooms in Dawson Hall, Camm Hall, and Bryan Hall of the Bryan Complex, and the third floor of James Blair Hall. The dedication ceremony for the building was held on Burgesses Day on September 13, 1980.
The Law School has 87,954 square feet of space, and nearly half of the is devoted to the library. Also within the Law School are a moot courtroom, two lecture rooms seating 154 people each, two more lecture rooms seating 85 people each, and smaller seminar rooms for approximately 30 students each. Photos from William & Mary on Flickr.
Deans
Note that early professors were the sole faculty member offering instruction in law to students.
1779-1789 George Wythe
1790-1804 St. George Tucker
1804-1813 William Nelson
1813-1818 Robert Nelson
1818-1834 James Semple
1834-1851 Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1784-1851)
1852-1855 George Parker Scarburgh
1855-1858 Lucian Minor
1860-1861 Charles Morris
1861-1921 Law School closed
1923-1929 John Garland Pollard
1932-1942 Theodore Sullivan Cox
1942-1946 Dudley W. Woodbridge, Acting Dean
1946-1947 Theodore Sullivan Cox
1947-1948 Arthur Warren Phelps
1948-1963 Dudley W. Woodbridge, Acting Dean 1948-1950
1964-1969 Joseph Curtis, Acting Dean 1962-1963
1970-1976 James P. Whyte, Jr.
1976-1985 William Spong
1985-1992 Timothy Sullivan
1992-1993 Richard Williamson, Acting Dean
1993-1994 Paul Marcus, Acting Dean
1994-1997 Thomas G. Krattenmaker
1997-1998 Paul Marcus, Interim Dean
1998-September 2008 W. Taylor Reveley, III
February 2008-June 2009 Lynda Butler, Interim Dean
July 2009-Present Davison M. Douglas
Curriculum
For research related to the School of Law's curriculum, the below are suggested resources in getting your research started.
- Legal education in Virginia, 1779-1979 : a biographical approach, [compiled and edited by] W. Hamilton Bryson. Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, 1982.
- See University Archives Subject File Collection, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William & Mary.
- College of William and Mary Catalogs and Bulletins.
- Various College of William and Mary administrative records.
- To search for further material, see Finding Materials in the SCRC for an introduction to the SCRC Collections Database, card catalogs, Flat Hat-William & Mary News-Alumni Gazette index, etc.
- Transitions in early American legal education : the development of university-sponsored law schools in the early nineteenth century United States, Andrew T. Redman. Elon, N.C. : Elon University, 2008.
References
- "Opening Marshall-Wythe School Attended By State Solons --Hear Judge Parker," The Flat Hat, 20 January 1922.
- "Overcrowding at Marshall-Wythe," The Flat Hat, 13 December 1974.
External Links / Further Reading
- For your research related to the College of William and Mary, you should begin by reviewing the guide from Swem Library on conducting research about the College of William and Mary.
- A growing number of resources are available in the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository.
- Photos from William & Mary on Flickr.
- William and Mary: The First American Law School by Robert M. Hughes, William and Mary Quarterly
Need help?
To search for further material, visit the Special Collections Research Center's Search Tool List for an overview of the Special Collections Database, W&M Digital Archive, Flat Hat-William & Mary News-Alumni Gazette index, card catalogs, and other tools available to help you find material of interest in William & Mary Libraries Special Collections Research Center.
Questions? Contact the Special Collections Research Center at spcoll@wm.edu or 757-221-3090, or visit the Special Collections Research Center in the Earl Gregg Swem Library at William & Mary.
| A Note About The Contents Of This Wiki |
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| The information available in this wiki is the best available from known documents and sources at the time it was written. Unfortunately, many of the early original records of William & Mary were destroyed by fires, military occupation, and the normal effects of time. Information in this wiki is not complete as new information continues to be uncovered in Swem Library's Special Collections Research Center and elsewhere. Researchers are strongly encouraged to use the Special Collections search tools for their research as the information contained in this wiki is by no means comprehensive. |
