List of law schools attended by United States Supreme Court Justices

Levi Woodbury was the first Justice to have formally attended a law school.

Stanley F. Reed was the last sitting Justice not to have received a law degree.

The Constitution does not require that federal judges have any particular educational background, but the work of the Court involved complex questions of law - ranging from constitutional law to administrative law to admiralty law - and consequentially, a legal education has become a de facto prerequisite to appointment on the Supreme Court. As of 2009, every person who has been nominated to the Court has been an attorney.

Before the advent of modern law schools in the United States, justices, like most attorneys of the time, completed their legal studies by "reading law" (studying under and acting as an apprentice to more experienced attorneys) rather than attend a formal program. The first Justice to be appointed who had attended an actual law school was Levi Woodbury, appointed to the Court in 1846. Woodbury had attended Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, the most prestigious law school in the United States in that day, prior to his admission to the bar in 1812. However, Woodbury did not earn a law degree. Woodbury's successor on the Court, Benjamin Robbins Curtis, who received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1832, and was appointed to the Court in 1851, was the first Justice to bear such a credential.

Associate Justice James F. Byrnes, whose short tenure lasted from June 1941 to October 1942, was the last Justice without a law degree to be appointed; Stanley Forman Reed, who served on the Court from 1938 to 1957, was the last sitting Justice from such a background. In total, of the 111 Justices appointed to the Court, 46 have had law degrees, an additional 18 attended some law school but did not receive a degree, and 47 received their legal education without any law school attendance.

Four or more Justices

Harvard Law School

1. Harry Blackmun
2. Louis Brandeis
3. William J. Brennan, Jr.
4. Stephen Breyer
5. Harold Hitz Burton
6. Benjamin Robbins Curtis
7. Felix Frankfurter
8. Melville Fuller - did not graduate; Chief Justice
9. Ruth Bader Ginsburg — graduated from Columbia Law School
10. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
11. Elena Kagan
12. Anthony Kennedy
13. William Henry Moody - did not graduate
14. Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.
15. John Roberts - Chief Justice
16. Edward Terry Sanford
17. Antonin Scalia
18. David Hackett Souter

Yale Law School

1. Samuel Alito
2. Henry Baldwin
3. David Davis
4. Abe Fortas
5. George Shiras, Jr.
6. Sonia Sotomayor
7. Potter Stewart
8. William Strong
9. Clarence Thomas
10. Byron White

Columbia Law School

1. Benjamin N. Cardozo - completed two years, did not graduate
2. William O. Douglas
3. Ruth Bader Ginsburg - also attended Harvard Law School
4. Charles Evans Hughes - Chief Justice
5. Joseph McKenna - studied at the law school, did not graduate
6. Stanley Forman Reed - also attended University of Virginia School of Law, did not graduate from either
7. Harlan Fiske Stone - Chief Justice

Three Justices

University of Michigan Law School

1. George Sutherland
2. Frank Murphy
3. William Rufus Day

Litchfield Law School (defunct)

1. Henry Baldwin
2. Ward Hunt
3. Levi Woodbury - first justice to have attended law school

Two Justices

Albany Law School

1. David Josiah Brewer
2. Robert H. Jackson - completed one year of the two year program

Cincinnati Law School (University of Cincinnati Law School)

1. Willis Van Devanter
2. William Howard Taft - Chief Justice (and former President)

Cumberland School of Law

1. Howell Edmunds Jackson
2. Horace Harmon Lurton

Northwestern University School of Law

1. Arthur Goldberg
2. John Paul Stevens

Stanford Law School

1. Sandra Day O'Connor
2. William Rehnquist - Chief Justice

University of Virginia School of Law

1. James Clark McReynolds
2. Stanley Forman Reed - also attended Columbia Law School, did not graduate from either

Washington and Lee University School of Law

1. Joseph Rucker Lamar
2. Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.

One Justice

Howard University School of Law

1. Thurgood Marshall

Benjamin Harrison School of Law, now Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis

Benjamin Harrison School of Law

New York Law School

1. John Marshall Harlan II

Transylvania University School of Law

1. John Marshall Harlan

Tulane University Law School

1. Edward White - Chief Justice

University of Alabama School of Law

1. Hugo Black

University of California at Berkeley Boalt Hall

1. Earl Warren - Chief Justice

University of Colorado School of Law

1. Wiley Blount Rutledge

University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law

1. Charles Evans Whittaker

University of Pennsylvania Law School

1. Owen Josephus Roberts

University of Texas School of Law

1. Tom C. Clark

William Mitchell College of Law

1. Warren Earl Burger - Chief Justice

University or college trained

These justices were educated at the equivalent of what would today be an undergraduate level, but did not receive legal education at the graduate level, the model under which law schools in the U.S. are currently organized.

Brigham Young University

1. George Sutherland - Also attended University of Michigan Law School

Carleton College

1. Pierce Butler

Case Western Reserve University

1. John Hessin Clarke

Centre College

1. Frederick Moore Vinson - Chief Justice

College of Philadelphia

1. James Wilson - also attended the Universities of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, Scotland

College of William and Mary

1. John Marshall - Chief Justice
2. Philip Pendleton Barbour
3. Bushrod Washington
4. John Blair

Columbia University

1. John Jay – Chief Justice
2. Samuel Blatchford

Emory University

1. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar

Princeton University

1. Oliver Ellsworth - Chief Justice
2. William Paterson
3. Mahlon Pitney

Rutgers University

1. Joseph P. Bradley

Saint Joseph's University

1. Joseph McKenna - also took law courses at Columbia Law School but was not enrolled in a degree program

Trinity College, Dublin

1. Frank Murphy

University of Georgia

1. John Archibald Campbell

University of Michigan

1. William R. Day

Washington and Lee University

1. Thomas Todd

Wesleyan University

1. David Josiah Brewer (1851–1854, transferred to and graduated from Yale)

Yale University

1. Sherman Minton
2. David Josiah Brewer (transferred from Wesleyan University)

No university legal education

Some justices received no legal education in a university setting, but were instead either trained through apprenticeships or were self-taught, as was common with many lawyers prior to the mid-20th century.

1. James F. Byrnes
2. Samuel Chase
3. John Hessin Clarke
4. James Iredell
5. Thomas Johnson

See also

• Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States by court composition
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States by time in office
• List of law schools in the United States

References

• "Judges of the United States Courts". Official website of the Federal Judicial Center. Archived from the original on November 7, 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20041107212347/http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetCourt?cid=0&order=c. Retrieved November 21, 2004. 
  • source for seat information
• "Members of the Supreme Court from the Supreme Court of the United States". Official website of the Supreme Court of the United States. http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/members.pdf. Retrieved May 29, 2005. 
  • PDF (28 kB)
  • source for term of active service

External links

• Decisions and biography by Justice
• Thorough Supreme Court site by Northwestern University
• Biographies of Supreme Court Justices at michaelariens.com
• The Supreme Court Historical Society