Duke University School of Law - Prolocutor Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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Alvozfe: The Law .Library offers unexcelletl facilities for research and classroom work. Below: The Legal Aid Clinic Class views a slide projection of an actual brief, in preparing to handle a practical legal problem. a Law School. Law and Contemporary Prob- lems is absolutely unique in the field of legal publications. This School was over fifteen years ahead of the American Bar Association in setting up its Bar Association for law students. The present administration, through appro- priate faculty committees, has proved that the pioneer spirit of the Law School is not merely a thing of the past. As of this year, the student body is benefiting from a revamping of the cur- riculum and teaching methods. Work in the public law field has been considerably expanded. Legal Research and Writing fa course required of all studentsj has been given renewed emphasis, and seminar work with the accent on planning and drafting of legal instruments has been added in the third year. On the eve of its transition from Trinity to Duke, the School of Law had four thousand books in its library. Five years later it had eleven thousand. Today, the Law Library contains over eighty-two thousand volumes and is the largest law school collection in the South. The Library receives every current legal periodical of general interest printed in the English language. Duke's internationally famous Legal Aid Clinic is a boon to those law students desiring a legal internship before stepping into private practice and to the poor in need of legal guid- ance. It is in effect an active law office offering the student funder supervisionj experience in interviewing actual clients, investigation of facts, preparing cases for adjustment or for trial in court, writing legal documents, briefing, and other tasks familiar to the practicing attorney. Approximately four hundred persons a year apply for the services of the Clinic. Only those applicants who are unable to pay counsel fees and cases where there is no opportunity for a contingent fee are accepted. Dr. Iohn S. Brad- Way has directed the Clinic since its founding. Absolutely unique in the field of legal publi- cations is the Law School's quarterly, Law am! Contemporary Problemr, which is edited by Pro- fessors Brainerd Currie, Robert Kramer, and Iohn Pemberton. It presents in each issue a sympo- sium on a problem of current importance, in PAGE 1 3

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THE DUKE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL Venue and Jurisdiction UKE UNIVERSITY was built around Trinity College, which grew out of Union Institute, and law has been an important part of its curriculum for almost one hundred years. In 1850 law was made available to seniors as part of their cultural education. Within twenty years it had been given departmental status. The present School of Law was founded in IQO4 upon an en- dowment established by Iames B. and Benjamin N. Duke with the distinguished and colorful Samuel Fox Mordecai as its first Dean. Trinity College blossomed into Duke University in 1924, and the Law School shared in the expansion. Iustin Miller, author of Miller on Criminal Law, became Dean in 1930, and the Law School grew even ITIOFC--IO include graduate work, the Legal Aid Clinic, the Practice Court, the Duke Bar Association, and the famous quarterly, Law and Contemporary Problems. As the activities of the Law School expanded, it was natural and necessary that they be put in PAGE I 2 Venue refers to :he place where the case is tried, and jur1'sd1'ezion is the power of the court to handle a particular case. This Law School has changed the venue and expanded its jurisdiction zuizlz the passage of time .... larger and larger containers. In its earliest days the Law School held its classes in the Washing- ton Duke Building and in the Library on what is now East Campus. In 1927 it went into larger quarters in the Carr Building, and three years later it moved to its present location on West Campus. The Law Building, like all other structures on Duke's West Campus, is in Tudor Gothic style of colorful Cambrian stone from the University quarries. It has space for the Law Library, Legal Aid Clinic, offices, classrooms, seminar rooms, and a courtroom equipped for trial court and appellate court sessions. Legal pioneering has been an everyday occur- rence in the Duke Law School since its inception. education It set the standard in Southern legal by being the Hrst to require two years of college as a prerequisite to entrance fthree required todayj. It was one of the Schools to use the case method as a basis of in- struction. Duke's Legal Aid Clinic is one of the very few in the country run in connection with years are first Law

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L r About-, left to right: Robert Rcnbert Wilson, I, Francis Paschal, Carl A. Hyldburg, Wallace H. McCown. Below, first row, left to right: Nancy St. Clair, I-lollie Simmons, Frances Edwards, Myrtle Burns, Sybil Pope, Helen Kendall, Edna I-lerrington. Seroml row: Betty Worth, Marianna Long, Marlea Benedetti, Catherine Everingharn, Lina Williamson, Katherine Day, Alice Collins, Mary Louise Lewis, Madeline Copeland. which the inter-related social and economic, as Well as legal, factors are discussed by Writers of competence in these respective fields. The circu- lation of this Well-known publication extends to lawyers, law libraries, general university libraries, industrial and financial concerns, and government agencies. Some university courses have been built around individual issues. . The lam-:ml of Legal Ezfucazion, the only jour- nal of its kind in the country, is edited at this Law School as the official organ of the Asso- ciation of American Law Schools. Professor Brainerd Currie, as Editor-in-Chief, and Profes- sor Robert Kramer, both of this Law School, head an impressive staff which includes such uotables as David F. Cavers of Harvard, Albert I. Harno of Illinois, and Elliot E. Cheatham of Columbia. The journal provides a clearinghouse for ideas and professional studies in the constantly expanding field of legal education. Dr. I. Francis Paschal has offices in the Law Building, but his job is that of Director of the PAGE I4 North Carolina Commission for the Improve- ment of the Administration of Iustice .... Dr. Robert R. Wilson teaches International Law, but his primary duties are with the Duke Depart- ment of Political Science .... Mr. Carl I-Iyldburg and Mr. Wallace McCoWn assist in the Clinic .... The wheels Within the wheels who help keep the Law School running smoothly are, of course, the ofiice girls. They help the professors, furnish students with reams of mimeographed materials, and brighten everyone's day with their friend- liness. The Duke Law School is a member of the Association of American Law Schools and is on the approved list of the American Bar Associa- tion. Its qualities have drawn students from more than thirty-five states and 138 institutions of higher learning, and its graduates have been admitted to the bar in forty states and the Terri- tory of Hawaii. It is generally recognized that the Law School of Duke University is one of the very best in the United States.