The first law school in New York City set the national standard
In short: Before the modern legal landscape existed, NYU Law pioneered the way lawyers are taught. By introducing a revolutionary "course method" in 1838, it moved legal education away from disorganized study toward the structured curriculum used by nearly every law school in the United States today.
Established in 1835, NYU Law holds the distinction of being the first law school in New York City and the oldest surviving law school in New York State. While a small institution conducted by Peter van Schaack existed in Kinderhook from 1785 to 1832, NYU Law became the primary successor in the city's legal education landscape. It was founded just four years after the university itself, serving as its oldest professional school.
The school's pedagogical influence is rooted in the work of Benjamin Franklin Butler, the United States Attorney General. Butler proposed a "Plan for the organization of a law faculty" which was formally accepted on June 2, 1835. When instruction began in 1838, Butler instituted the "course method." This was the first curriculum in the country to teach law through structured courses, a model that was subsequently adopted as the standard for legal education across the United States.
The institution has evolved significantly since its inception, becoming one of the first in the nation to admit women in 1890. It has maintained a reputation for high academic rigor, with the 2025 entering class seeing over 10,500 applicants compete for roughly 430 seats. Today, it balances this historical legacy with modern diversity, offering specialized programs in cybersecurity, health law, and international taxation, while maintaining a first-time bar passage rate of 96.6 percent.
The campus itself preserves a piece of literary history; the West 3rd Street facade of the main building incorporates the remaining part of a townhouse where Edgar Allan Poe lived from 1844 to 1846. This preservation resulted from a settlement between the university and preservationists who opposed a 2000 plan to demolish the structure.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: New York University School of Law
- Also: www.nyls.edu — Home - New York Law School
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