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Founded in 1901 by William Payson Richardson and Norman P. Heffley, Brooklyn Law School was the first law school on Long Island. [ 2 ] Using space provided by Heffley’s business school, the law school opened Sept. 30, 1901 with five faculty members (including Richardson as dean and Heffley as president) and two special lecturers.

The year started with five students and ended with 28. [ 3 ] In late 1901, the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York gave the school a limited charter. Although the school could not grant degrees, the Board of Regents could confer law degrees once students passed the bar exam. [ 4 ] By 1902, in its second year, Brooklyn Law School’s enrollment had increased to 112. [ 5 ]

From its earliest days, Brooklyn Law School opened its door to minorities, women, and immigrants, and it offered night classes for those with full-time jobs. Dean Richardson also allowed students who had trouble paying tuition to remain enrolled on credit. The school moved twice between 1901 and 1928, when it finally moved into the first building designed and built specifically for it on Pearl Street in downtown Brooklyn. [ 5 ] Though the school lacked a campus, dormitories, and a cafeteria, students could engage in a wide range of extracurricular activities. [ 5 ]

World War II struck Brooklyn Law School especially hard, and by 1943, enrollment was down to 174 students. [ 5 ] St. Lawrence University. which until then operated Brooklyn Law School and conferred its degrees, decided to shut down the school. Prominent alumni were galvanized into action and negotiated the repurchase of the school’s assets, ensuring that Brooklyn Law School would operate as an independent institution. [ 5 ]

• The edition of U.S. News ranked Brooklyn Law School 61st in its list of top 100 law schools. [ 6 ] †
• The Leiter Report ranked Brooklyn Law School 39th nationwide in Student Quality based on the entering class. [ 7 ]
• In the - term, six current alumni will be clerking with federal circuit judges, which places BLS 19th in the country, according to the latest Leiter Report ranking. Three will be working for judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, two for the Eleventh Circuit, and one for the Third Circuit. [ 8 ]
• The Leiter Report ranked Brooklyn 25th in the "Most 'Prestigious' Law Firm Placement" category. [ 9 ]

† The U.S. News ranking was later questioned because part time program data was not included in the Brooklyn Law School's survey response. U.S. News stated that they are not going to recalculate the rank, but did say that the ranking would have been lower if preliminary data (entered earlier, but later deleted) had been used in the rankings. [ 10 ] The school responded in a statement explaining the situation. [ 11 ]

Entrance to Feil Hall, 205 State Street

Brooklyn Law School’s academic and administrative buildings and ten student residences are located in Brooklyn Heights Historical District. across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan. where many federal and state courts and corporate and public interest law offices are located.

Brooklyn Law School’s main academic building at 250 Joralemon Street houses classrooms, faculty offices, a conference center, dining hall, and a four-story law library with 550,000 volumes. The office building across the street at One Boerum Place houses many of the law school’s clinics, the student journals, the bookstore and administrative offices.

Brooklyn Law School guarantees housing in its residences to all entering students, about 500 in all. The largest residence is Feil Hall, a 21-story building at 205 State Street. Designed by noted architect Robert A. M. Stern. Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, it accommodates about 360 students in 239 furnished apartments of varying sizes and includes a conference center and cafe.

All the student residences are within a short walk of the main building. In addition to Feil Hall, the law school owns and operates apartment buildings at various places in the neighborhood.

Brooklyn Law School’s faculty includes 68 full-time professors and five emeriti faculty [ 12 ]. It also draws on a large body of practitioners, public officials and judges as adjunct faculty to teach specialized courses in many areas of law, including trial advocacy, business crimes and corporate litigation, sports law, real estate development, and border and homeland security law. In addition, in any given semester, visiting professors come from all over the United States and from around the world to teach at the school.

The law school is home to several well-known scholars, including torts expert Aaron Twerski. who holds the Irwin and Jill Cohen Professor of Law Chair at the school; Margaret Berger, the Suzanne J. Norman Miles Professor of Law and an authority on scientific evidentiary issues; and Rose L. Hoffer, Professor of Law Elizabeth Schneider, an expert on gender, law and civil procedure. All three were highly ranked recently in Brian Leiter ’s survey of “Most Cited Law Professors by Specialty.” [ 13 ]

In the last two years, the law school has hired 15 new junior faculty whose work draws on a variety of influences to contribute scholarship to fields from scientific evidence to tax havens. and international business law to the secondary mortgage market. [ 14 ]

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The Law School currently publishes four student-edited law journals: The Brooklyn Law Review. Brooklyn Journal of International Law and The Journal of Law and Policy. and the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial and Commercial Law. Over 290 second and third year students have the opportunity to write for one of the journals.

The journal selection process takes place at the end of the first year of study. Students have the opportunity to take part in a writing competition where they are given 48 hours to write a case comment based on pre-provided materials. The e-board members of each journal select new staff members based on the participant’s performance in the competition.

Best Moot Court Programs ranks Brooklyn Law School’s Moot Court Program 7th in the nation based on its performance in the 2006-2007 season. [ 15 ] The law school has both trial and appellate advocacy moot court divisions. Each year the law school enters approximately 30 teams in national moot court competitions. These competitions span all areas of the law, from family law to criminal procedure, from white-collar crime to international law.

In the 2006-2007 school year, BLS took home four national titles and top regional titles. The Bankruptcy Appellate Advocacy Team placed first in a field of 42 teams in the Duberstein National Bankruptcy Memorial Moot Court Competition, the Immigration Team defeated Georgetown University Law School in the semi-finals and Harvard Law School in the finals to take first place in the 2nd Annual Immigration Law Competition. The Ethics Trial Advocacy Team won first place at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law Trial Advocacy Competition and the Civil Rights Trial Advocacy Team II took top honors at the St. John’s National Civil Rights Competition judged by leading national trial experts.

Each year Brooklyn Law School hosts the Jerome Prince Memorial Evidence Competition, a national moot court competition. Named in honor of the late BLS Dean and renowned evidence scholar, the competition draws over 30 law school teams from across the country. Many of the students from the Moot Court Honor Society are involved in the coordination of the Prince Competition, and a few students have an opportunity to work with faculty members to research and write the problem – an issue at the forefront of evidentiary law – that is used in the Competition.