Kansas City School of Law - Pandex Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

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The l'llHtI4'.l' of 1929 L91 Hzkiozy of Law Schools hz the Umred State! llv li. D. ELLISUN. D11 KN Rllllil to 1900 there were comparatively few law schools in the United States and most of those that were organized were poorly equipped and had no logical coordinate development. The Kansas City School of Law was organized in 1895 and two years there- after the General Assembly of the State of Missouri amended the statutes of this State in relation to attorneys at law by providing that graduates of the Kansas City School of Law should be admitted to practice without further examination upon producing satisfactory evidence of good moral character and taking the oath as prescribed by the constitution. Shortly thereafter a great many of the states initiated central examining boards to examine applicants for admission to the bat, and in 1905 our School, in line with the general tendency of the times, voluntarily acquiesced in an amendment to our State laws taking this privilege away from all of the law schools in the State and requiring all applicants to take the examination before the State Board of Bar Examiners. The Carnegie Foundation in a recent bulletin has this to say upon the subject: Today, all the agencies of civilization are being sharply scrutinized, most of all in those countries under democratic government. ln our own country there is a Widespread desire for an improvement in the administra- tion of the law, and a widespread conviction that there has been overmuch legislation and enactment of statutes. This conviction in the public mind has served also to focus attention upon the members of the legal profession. lntelligent men appreciate clearly that the lawyer is a member of a public profession, that he has responsibilities which can be effectively discharged only through a clue appreciation of his public relation, Not only is this pub- lic relation evident in the service of the lawyer in the courts, but. in the United Smtgi legislation itself is largely in the hands of members of the pro- fession of the law. A majority of the members of the Congress and of the legislatures of the States of the Union are lawyers. The profession of the law ig, in our country, the most direct road to political life. All this lays upon those who are members of this profession a public obligation that the adminis- tration of instice shall he as simple and as accessible to every citizen as it is possible to make it, and that the enactment of legislation shall be conducted with Cmhggigiititutis rccognition by the members of this profession of their public responsibility to the body politic. The people have a right to ask, in