# University of Chicago Law School *Law school of the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; the subject of one at-issue record entry.* The **University of Chicago Law School** is the law faculty of the [[University of Chicago]], a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is counted in the T14, the group of U.S. law schools that consistently rank near the top. It awards the Juris Doctor and three advanced degrees: the Master of Laws, the Master of Studies in Law and the Doctor of Juridical Science.[^1] The school enters the Minnesota record through three rows, not through any proceeding or finding. At-issue entry AI-Stearns-043 pairs two items. The first is a school publication that treats [[Sinclair Lewis]]'s 1935 novel *[[It Can't Happen Here]]* as a framework for institutional and historical denial. The second is a statement that a county failed for twenty-seven years to locate an abducted child.[^2][^3] A claim row links the school to its news item on Leon Lewis.[^4] A project dossier records that [[Amy Klobuchar]], [[Hennepin County Attorney]] from 1999 to 2007, holds a J.D. from the school.[^5] The record does not establish any court filing, agency finding or Minnesota instrument concerning the school itself.[^2] ## Who Former faculty members include Barack Obama and three justices of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]]: [[Antonin Scalia]], [[John Paul Stevens]] and [[Elena Kagan]]. Wikipedia lists Cass Sunstein among past faculty. It lists Richard A. Posner, Richard A. Epstein, Martha Nussbaum, Geoffrey R. Stone and the federal appellate judges Frank H. Easterbrook and Diane P. Wood among current faculty.[^6] ## What A J.D. student can pair the degree with a business M.B.A. or Ph.D., an international relations A.M., a public policy M.P.P., or a divinity M.Div. Each is offered with another University of Chicago school.[^7] The project's dossier cites a school publication, *'It Can't Happen Here': The Lessons of History*, as a scholarly treatment of the novel. The dossier describes the publication as using the book as a framework for institutional and historical denial. It describes the novel as depicting an authoritarian demagogue elected to the American presidency. A matching record appears in the Chicago Unbound repository as book chapter 1523.[^2][^3] ## When The university was founded in 1892. In 1901 its president, William Rainey Harper, announced that a law school would open the following year. Harvard Law School's dean, James Barr Ames, gave professor Joseph Henry Beale a two-year leave so that Beale could serve as the new school's first dean.[^8] In October 1959 the school left Stuart Hall for a building designed by Eero Saarinen. Events marking the move included appearances by Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]]. The building was enlarged in 1987 over the objections of the Saarinen family. A clinics space, the Arthur Kane Center for Clinical Legal Education, was added in 1998, and a renovation was completed in 2008.[^9] ## Where The school first occupied Stuart Hall, a Gothic limestone building on the university's main quadrangles. Its present building stands on the far side of the Midway Plaisance from the main campus, beside what was then the American Bar Association's headquarters. That building houses the D'Angelo Law Library, which is part of the University of Chicago Library system.[^9] ## Why At the university's founding, Harper said he wanted a law school that would improve democratic government. He settled on the view that the study of law should take account of "the whole field of man as a social being".[^8] The outcomes the school reports under its ABA-required disclosures are measured in employment, salaries, firm size and clerkship placement (see below).[^10] ## How Wikipedia states that the faculty teach by the Socratic Method. Under that method, students are called on without notice and questioned on hypotheticals. Wikipedia also says the school is one of the few U.S. law schools that teaches this way, aided by a low student-to-professor ratio.[^7] ## How much The school's 2020 ABA-required disclosures report the following for the Class of 2019:[^10] - The median salary was $190,000. - Three-quarters of graduates started at $190,000 or more. ## How many Wikipedia's Academics section, retrieved 27 October 2026, puts the faculty at more than 200 full- and part-time members and J.D. enrolment at about 600.[^7] The article's lead gives more than 180 faculty and more than 600 J.D. students.[^1] Wikipedia reports these admissions figures:[^7] - In 2021 the school enrolled 175 students from 6,514 applicants, an acceptance rate of 11.91%. - For the entering class of 2024, the median LSAT was 172 and the median undergraduate GPA was 3.91. The 2020 disclosures report these figures for the Class of 2019:[^10] - 98.5% held full-time, long-term jobs requiring the J.D. within ten months of graduating. - 50.2% went to firms of more than 500 lawyers. - 27.6% took clerkships, and 87.3% of those clerkships were federal. Between 1992 and 2017 the school placed 88 alumni as Supreme Court clerks.[^10] ## In the at-issue record - **Item AI-Stearns-043 (rank 43, shock 72).** The entry sits in the section *The Jurisdiction Gap & the Unrecorded Record Edition* and belongs to the package labelled Stearns. - It notes that Lewis titled his 1935 novel *It Can't Happen Here*. - It states that the school publishes scholarly commentary using that phrase as a framework for institutional and historical denial.[^2][^3] - It states that the county that produced the phrase spent twenty-seven years unable to locate a child abducted three miles from its county seat. - The entry does not name the county or the child. Its listed sources are the school's two publications, and the record does not establish the abduction or the twenty-seven-year figure from a primary source.[^2][^3] - Its anchor is a March 2026 White House presidential action, *Establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud*, cited for "institutional denial as a named analytic category".[^11] ## In the Minnesota record ### Who - Amy Klobuchar served as Hennepin County Attorney from January 5, 1999 to January 3, 2007. She received a Yale B.A. in 1982 and a University of Chicago Law School J.D. in 1985. The project's dossier records these facts from her Wikipedia article, a source it grades low.[^5] - Claim row S-5478 ("University of Chicago Law School - Leon Lewis") sits in the section *Minnesota 12 A — 4010 new URLs*. It links to a school news item on Leon Lewis, whose web address describes him as having fought Nazis and American-born fascists over a plan to assassinate Hollywood film stars. The row states no theory, and Leon Lewis is a different person from the novelist Sinclair Lewis.[^4] ### What - The school's publication *'It Can't Happen Here': The Lessons of History* is the item cited in at-issue entry AI-Stearns-043.[^2][^3] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *University of Chicago Law School*, lead section (revision 1378375123, retrieved 27 October 2026) — affiliation, T14 grouping, degree programs, lead faculty and student counts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago_Law_School [^2]: University of Chicago Law School, *'It Can't Happen Here': The Lessons of History* (undated) — the scholarly treatment cited in the project dossier and in at-issue entry AI-Stearns-043. https://www.law.uchicago.edu/node/64406 [^3]: Chicago Unbound, *Book chapter 1523* (undated) — repository record cited with the school's commentary on the novel. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/book_chapters/1523/ [^4]: University of Chicago Law School, news item on Leon Lewis (1913) (undated; description taken from its web address) — the page linked in claim row S-5478. https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/leon-lewis-1913-fought-nazis-and-american-born-fascists-plan-assassinate-hollywood-film-stars [^5]: Wikipedia contributors, *Amy Klobuchar* (cited in the project's Freeman dossier, graded F) — Hennepin County Attorney term dates and her Yale B.A. and University of Chicago J.D. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Klobuchar [^6]: Wikipedia contributors, *University of Chicago Law School*, People section (revision 1378375123, retrieved 27 October 2026) — former and current faculty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago_Law_School [^7]: Wikipedia contributors, *University of Chicago Law School*, Academics section (revision 1378375123, retrieved 27 October 2026) — joint degrees, teaching method, faculty and student counts, admissions figures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago_Law_School [^8]: Wikipedia contributors, *University of Chicago Law School*, History section (revision 1378375123, retrieved 27 October 2026) — Harper's stated aim, the 1901 announcement, Beale's appointment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago_Law_School [^9]: Wikipedia contributors, *University of Chicago Law School*, Campus section (revision 1378375123, retrieved 27 October 2026) — Stuart Hall, the 1959 move, the 1987, 1998 and 2008 works, the D'Angelo Law Library. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago_Law_School [^10]: Wikipedia contributors, *University of Chicago Law School*, Reception section (revision 1378375123, retrieved 27 October 2026) — the Class of 2019 outcomes from the school's 2020 ABA-required disclosures, and Supreme Court clerkship placements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago_Law_School [^11]: The White House, *Establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud* (March 2026) — anchor document cited for at-issue entry AI-Stearns-043. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/