Vanderbilt University Law School

The Vanderbilt Law School provides a rigorous legal education in a supportive and collegial environment. The Vanderbilt Law Department was established in 1874, one year before classes began on the main campus. The faculty approved for eight members was reduced to one because only seven students attended classes that the first year. William B. Reese was the instructor in all classes. At the end of that year, William F. Cooper administered final exams for William Van Amburg Sullivan who had successfully completed the two-year course. The school's first graduating class was Sullivan. He later returned to Mississippi to practice as a lawyer and became a senator from the state. The law department was reorganized in the following year, under a lease arrangement. This semi-proprietary agreement would last for 25 years. Thomas H. Malone was appointed dean and was joined by Edmund Baxter and Reese on the faculty. Theytheyre all part-time faculty members, whotheyre also practicing lawyers and judges. The law department moved to downtown Nashville in 1889 to be closer to its offices and to allow faculty to practice law while teaching. Malone was the dean of the law department from 1904 to 1904. He was also a Chancery Court judge in Nashville in the 1880s. It was also close to the courts where students could receive an important part of their education.