Albany Law School history

While attendance dipped during the Civil War, enrollment swelled afterward to 146 by 1868.In Albany, as elsewhere in America during the latter part of the 19th century, immigrants from Europe began to arrive in great numbers.

As the school population became geographically more diverse, gradually including young men from states of the former Confederacy, including Florida, Tennessee, Virginia and Arkansas, so must have the range of students' political views.In 1869, an athletic facility became available to students.

By 1870, there were 31 law schools in the United States, double the number when Albany Law was founded.

In 1873, it affiliated with Albany Medical College and Union College to form Union University.

Few now remember the man for whom the Dean Alexander Moot Courtroom is named (right). Born in Albany in 1874, Alexander attended city public schools, never married and was Albany County's district attorney for five years.

In 1875, Albany Law published the nation's first student-edited legal periodical, the Albany Law School Journal, which existed for only one academic year before being discontinued.

Beginning in 1878, the Albany College of Pharmacy, Albany Law School, Albany Medical College, Dudley Observatory, Graduate College of Union University, and Union College created the loose association today known as Union University.

Baptist minister Russell Conwell went on to become the Founder of Temple University in 1884.

Although closer to a legal newspaper than a traditional academic law review, the Albany Law School Journal has been hailed as a precursor to the first academic law review published by Harvard Law School in 1887.

Kirchwey was unanimously selected as Albany Law School's fourth dean in 1889.

Jews had established a community in the early part of the century, but many more settled after 1890.

The first year of his rein, 1895, 31 students were enrolled.

Kate Stoneman 1898 First alumna and woman admitted to the New York State bar

Perhaps Kirchwey's reforms would have taken root if he had not left within two years to join the faculty at Columbia Law School, where he would become dean in 1901.

Returning veterans after the war swelled attendance to a high of 260.Greek -letter fraternities, some affiliated with Union College, were established at the law school beginning in 1902.

Born in Watervliet in 1906, Samuel Moody Hesson (right) had attended public schools and Union College.

In 1909 while at the law school, Fiero was appointed state reporter, and from his desk at the Court of Appeals he produced more than 60 volumes of "New York Reports." Fiero was the author of several law books.

Considered one of Albany Law School’s most esteemed graduates, Jackson attended the 1912 Commencement but was not awarded a degree due to his age — not yet 21 years old — along with two other classmates, twin sisters.

Clements, class of 1919, never strayed far from the school, serving first as its registrar and then as a lecturer.

For the 1920-21 school year, the basketball team played in an intercollegiate league for the first time.

He succeeded Fiero as dean in 1924.

In spring 1926, Albany Law School went public with its own debating team, "The Forum," and began intercollegiate competition.

Straub had graduated as class valedictorian in 1928 and then married the daughter of the law school trustee president, whose law firm Straub joined after graduation.

In 1931, the first issue of the "Albany Law Review" was published.

In 1935, Hesson joined the law school faculty and soon earned a master's degree in law at Columbia University.

A trustee starting in 1941, Straub served for 50 years, longer than any other member of the board in modern history of the law school.

Ralph D. Semerad, a Schenectady native, Harvard Law School graduate, Federal Bureau of Investigation judo and firearms instructor who had joined the Albany Law faculty in 1945, was a popular instructor.

In 1951, Clements published the Manual of Charges for Trial Justices, written with a faculty member.

Clements also respond to a highly critical American Association of Law Schools review in 1960 that threatened Albany Law's accreditation, making changes that improved student performance and bar passage rates.

Dean Clements led the law school until he became ill in 1962.

Clements returned to work briefly but died in 1964.

Others had to interrupt their studies after they enlisted or were drafted.After the Kent State tragedy in May 1970, a group of law students opposing the war asked to cancel their final examinations so they could join demonstrations in Washington.

Charging the administration and faculty with discrimination, they noted the absence of black and female professors and the school's poor record of placing minority and women graduates in jobs. For example, in March 1972 a group of five students from the Student Bar Association met with four trustees at the State Street law office of J. Vanderbilt Straub, then board president.

In 1973, he sat briefly on the state Supreme Court, before being tapped to become the state's first administrative judge.

Bartlett was already known to the committee for he had delivered the commencement address in 1974 and had recently joined the board of trustees.

Hesson would serve for 10 years, until his death in 1975 at age 68 due to a heart attack.

Less than three years after Hesson's death, Semerad died in 1977 at age 62.

But Welsh did guide capital and program improvements that were crucial to the law school maintaining its accreditation from the ABA-AALS. One of the most significant achievements during this transitional period was the establishment in 1978 of the Government Law Center.

J. Langdon Marsh was selected as the GLC's first full-time director in 1979.

For a brief time in 1983, Joseph W. Bellacosa served as the GLC's director, before being appointed to serve as a judge on the Court of Claims and chief administrative judge of all State courts, followed by a fourteen-year term on the Court of Appeals.

One of the most important achievements of the Bartlett administration was the kick-off of the six-year Campaign for Albany Law School to raise more than $12 million through the new Office of Development and Alumni Affairs, established in 1984.

Following a nationwide search, Martin H. Belsky was chosen the next leader of the law school in 1986.

Focusing on the problem of attracting students of color to the law school, Baker with a panel of minority lawyers and law students organized the first Minority Law Day in 1992.

Senior Citizens Law Day, sponsored by the Government Law Center, was started in 1994 and continues annually.

With 40 other law school in the market for deans at the time, faculty member John Welsh served as acting dean for nearly two years until Thomas H. Sponsler was selected as the new chief administrator of the law school in 1995.

Starting in 1996, the Summer Legal Institute offered course to law students and attorneys who needed to brush up on changes in the profession.

In 1998, the Government Law Center celebrated its 20th anniversary as a national model for the research of public policy and legal issues confronting state and local government.

Along with numerous other awards, she holds a “Women of South Africa Achievement Award,” the Albany Law Review’s Women Who Mean Business Award, the Haywood Burns/Shanara Gilbert Award, as well as Albany Law’s Kate Stoneman Award, which she received in 2002.

In 2003, the law school suffered its lowest bar passage rate in 35 years and 10 percentage points below the average of other state schools.

Bar passage rates rebounded. For example, by 2006, approximately 88 percent of first-time bar exam takers from the law school passed, nearly 10 percent greater than the state average.

In 2010, Guernsey, 59, married and father of two children, announced his intentions to step down at the end of the 2010-11 school year.

The law school inducted its first permanent female President & Dean, Penelope Andrews, on July 1, 2012.

In November, 2014, the school entered into discussions with the State University of New York at Albany ("UAlbany") about a possible merger or affiliation, the need for which primarily brought about by declining law school enrollments, student quality, and budgetary shortfalls.

On July 1, 2015, Alicia Ouellette became President & Dean.

For results of the first year of the affiliation, see the 2016 Steering Committee Report.