From seven students and one professor to a burgeoning center of law research and study, The University of Mississippi School of Law has seen tremendous growth and development in its more than 150 years of history. Since opening as the UM Law Department in 1854, the school has maintained its status as the first and only public law school in the state.
Today, the School of Law includes:
Enrollment at the School of Law has hovered around 500 students for several years, and today there are more than 30 full-time and part-time faculty members.
Although the law school is commonly known to have had three homes during its history, the number of locations is actually seven, including the current Law Center. The Department of Law was first housed in the Lyceum and then in a building just off the Oxford Square before the Civil War. Historian Michael Landon said the university agreed to lease the building from its owner in 1858 to keep the owner from going bankrupt and kept that agreement until the Civil War closed the school in 1861 for one of only two times in its history.
The school reopened in 1866 in a dormitory building that was on the current site of Peabody Hall. It was closed again in 1874 because no one applied for admission during Reconstruction. Classes resumed in the same location and remained there until 1911, when classes were moved to the building now known as Ventress Hall. Ventress Hall was first named Lamar Hall for famed Mississippian and U.S. Sen. L.Q.C. Lamar.
In 1921, the Department of Law officially became the School of Law, and, in 1931, a new facility, now known as Farley Hall, became the law school’s home. The School of Law remained in that building until 1978 when the current facility was opened. |
