A Short, Opinionated, and Incomplete History of Legal Education and of Boston University School of Law, Part 1

When BU Law opened in 1872, most new lawyers did not attend any formal classroom legal education. Professor Seipp\u27s Part One of this two-part presentation started with how lawyers learned the law before law schools became the usual route into the profession. He told the story of BU\u27s founding and early decades in friendly rivalry with Harvard Law School across the Charles River. We found out what Judge Dwight Foster said in 1875 when a student interrupted his Equity lecture by shooting a pistol in the classroom. And we heard how Justice Holmes set the agenda of twentieth century American law in his Path of the Law speech at the opening of BU\u27s new law school building in 1897