Marquette University Law School is the law school of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is one of two law schools in Wisconsin and the only private law school in the state. Founded in 1892 as the Milwaukee Law Class, MULS is housed in Eckstein Hall on Marquette University's campus in downtown Milwaukee.
Overview
Marquette University is a Catholic institution operated by the Jesuit order. The law school's mission includes a commitment to the Jesuit idea of cura personalis ("care of the entire person"), a duty to promote diversity, and a goal of encouraging its "students to become agents for positive change in society."
As of the 2016-17 academic year, the school has 575 enrolled students and 98 faculty members and administrators, including 30 full-time faculty members, 10 "deans, librarians, and others who teach," and 58 part-time faculty members. For the fall 2016 entering J.D. class, there were 190 enrolled students (182 full-time and 8 part-time).
Wisconsin, unique among American states, allows graduates of accredited law schools within the state to be admitted to the Wisconsin state bar without taking the state's bar examination if they complete certain requirements in their law school courses and achieve a certain level of performance in those courses, a practice known as the "diploma privilege."
History
Marquette University Law School was born out of Marquette University's 1908 acquisition of the Milwaukee Law Class and the Milwaukee University Law School. First known as the Marquette University College of Law, the school added a day division to the two predecessors' evening programs. The first dean was James Graham Jenkins, a retired judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In 1916, the first edition of the Marquette Law Review was published, and in 1923, the college's name was changed to Marquette University Law School. A year later, the school moved into Sensenbrenner Hall. A law review article at the time described the building's interior: "four large lecture rooms and a large Moot Court room" and a "third floor [to] be occupied entirely by the library capable of holding 50,000 volumes." The law school became a member of the Association of American Law Schools in 1912 and received American Bar Association approval in 1925. The evening program was suspended in 1924 as part of the accreditation process, and was not restored for decades.
It was under Dean Robert Boden that the modern law school emerged. He took over as acting dean in June 1965, and served as dean until his death in 1984. During those nearly 20 years, the size of the full-time faculty tripled, the student body nearly doubled, and the law library doubled the size of its collection. Boden also oversaw a significant increase in the physical plant of the law school, making two major additions to Sensenbrenner Hall. Moreover, in January 1968, the law library moved into the newly constructed Legal Research Center, appended to the west side of Sensenbrenner Hall. The move was managed by Professor Mary Alice Hohmann, the first woman to teach a law course at MULS.
In fall 2010, the school moved into the new Eckstein Hall. The school also recently received the two largest gifts in its history: $51 million from alumni Ray and Kay Eckstein for Eckstein Hall, and $30 million from real estate developer Joseph Zilber, the bulk of which will endow scholarships. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia spoke at the September 8, 2010 dedication ceremony.
Facilities
In September 2010, the Law School opened $85 million Eckstein Hall in downtown Milwaukee. The building was largely funded by donations from Ray and Kay Eckstein, Joseph Zilber, Wylie Aitken, and the Bradley Foundation. Zilber and Sheldon Lubar contributed provided funding for scholarships, research and other law school programs.
Eckstein Hall is located on the eastern end of the Marquette campus, two blocks from the Milwaukee County Courthouse and a mile from the Federal Courthouse. At 200,000 square feet, the building is four stories tall. It includes a four-story "library without borders," two mock courtrooms, a four-story atrium (the Zilber Forum), a cafeteria, a workout facility, a conference center, classrooms and faculty offices. The classrooms were all designed as "smart classrooms" with projectors, cameras, audio recording, and individual microphones built into classroom seating.