The law school was founded in 1865 byGeorge Grover Wright andChester C. Cole as an independent law school in the state capital of Des Moines as Iowa School of Law, but it moved to Iowa City and became part of the University of Iowa in 1868. It is the oldest law school west of the Mississippi River. Iowa's College of Law is said to have graduated the first female law student in the nation,Mary Beth Hickey, in 1873.[5] The second woman to graduate from Iowa Law was Mary Humphrey Haddok in 1875, who later became the first woman admitted to practice before the U.S. District and Circuit Courts.[6] Alexander G. Clark, Jr. was the first African American to graduate from the law school, and his fatherAlexander G. Clark was the second. The senior Clark was ambassador to Liberia in 1890–1891.
Co-founder Justice George Grover Wright
When the Law Building was built in 1986, the project included a low-rise library, classrooms, auditoriums, moot courts, and administrative facilities. The architect wasGunnar Birkets & Associates and the structural engineer was Leslie E. Robertson Associates. The law library has the second-largest collection of volumes and volume-equivalents and the second or third largest number of unique individual cataloged volume and volume-equivalent titles among all law school libraries.[7] It contains more than one million volumes and volume equivalents and is one of the largest and finest collections of print, microform, and electronic legal materials in the United States.[8]
For more than 30 yrs, the law school has sponsored "Bridging the Gap," a minority pre-law conference held at the law school.[9] It participates in, and supports, CLEO and PLSI.
The Boyd Law Building is located in the center of the campus on a bluff overlooking theIowa River.
The Law School has four academic journals, including theIowa Law Review, founded in 1915 as theIowa Law Bulletin. It is a scholarly legal journal, analyzing developments in the law and suggesting future paths for the law to follow. The Iowa Law Review ranks high among the top "high impact" legal periodicals in the country, and its subscribers include legal practitioners and law libraries throughout the world.
Iowa Law Review, ranked 17th overall law review in Washington and Lee University School of Law's index of legal journals.[10]
Journal of Corporation Law, ranked 4th overall law review in Washington and Lee University School of law's index of legal journals in the area of corporations and associations.
According to the Iowa College of Law's official 2019 ABA-required disclosures, 89.3% of the Class of 2019 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment within nine months after graduation.[11] Iowa'sLaw School Transparency under-employment score is 5.7%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2019 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.[12]
Bill Crews (1977) Mayor of Melbourne, Iowa (1984-1998); Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, Washington, DC, (2003-2005,2011-2012); DC Zoning Administrator (2005-2007)[citation needed]
Lester J. Dickinson (1899), U.S. Representative (1919–1931), and U.S. Senator (1931–1937)[21]
Leo A. Hoegh (1932), former Iowa governor (1955–1957), Director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, and member of National Security Council[26]
Brian H. Hook (1999), former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, and senior advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 2006 to 2008[27]
William S. Kenyon (1890), U.S. Senator (1911–1922), and circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (1922–1933)[29]
Nile Kinnick (1940, attended), 1939 Heisman Trophy winner, 1939 Maxwell Award winner, consensus All-American, World War II veteran, inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and 1939 AP Male Athlete of the Year.[30]
Keith Kreiman (1978), former member of both the Iowa House of Representatives (1993–2003) and the Iowa Senate (2003–2011)[31]
Roy L. Stephenson (1940), Chief federal district court judge, Southern District of Iowa (1960–1971), and circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (1971–1982)[42]
Austin Adams (1875–1890), lecturer and Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court from 1876 to 1887.
David Baldus (1969–2011), notable academic in the field of Capital Punishment whose research was a key component in Furman v. Georgia (1972)
Willard L. Boyd (1954–2022), President Emeritus of the University of Iowa and the Field Museum of Natural History
Herbert F. Goodrich (1914–1922), co-founder of the Iowa Law Review, and circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1940–1947)
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