September 20, 2004

CHRONOLOGICAL LISTINGS OF FACULTY OF THE WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW AND OF ITS PREDECESSOR INSTITUTIONS, THE LEXINGTON LAW SCHOOL, THE SCHOOL OF LAW AND EQUITY OF WASHINGTON COLLEGE, AND THE LAW DEPARTMENT OF WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY.

NOTES:

Much of the information for the biographical sketches of faculty who began their teaching at this law school between the years 1849 and 1957 comes from Legal Education In Virginia, 1779-1979: A Biographical Approach edited by W. Hamilton Bryson, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1982. Additional information came from Ollinger Chrenshaw's General Lee's College, Random House, New York, 1969.

The catalogs of the Washington and Lee University School of Law, held in the law school archives, have been used as the primary source for the compilation of the lists and years of teaching. (Certain issues of this catalog from the 1880's through the 1940's -- most particularly the years 1926-1933 -- are not present in these holdings.) The Caylx (Washington and Lee University yearbook) was used as a supplemental source for the years 1897 to the 1920's. Legal Education In Virginia, 1779-1979; A Biographical Approach was also used as a source, as were the personal papers of Charles V. Laughlin, held in the law school archives. From 1989 forward, the in-house law school directories -- and their corrections and addenda -- were used to eliminate those faculty announced in the catalog who did not actually teach, and those not mentioned in the catalog who did teach. The end dates of employment were determined from obituary notices or when the professor's name no longer appeared in the catalogs. (University personnel records, which would probably be more precise, were not consulted.) Where the law school catalogs include in the faculty listing certain administrators without teaching duties, they have been included here (and conversely, when such administrators were not listed, they were not included here.) Using these necessarily incomplete and imprecise sources, surely teachers -- especially adjunct and visiting professors, and members of the several categories of Frances Lewis Law Center visitors -- have been missed. (Certain Law Center visitors have been listed with the faculty in the catalogs, but many more have not been listed.) Please notify the law school archivist of any additions, deletions, or corrections to these lists.

The names of those who have taught at the W&L law school have been divided into three categories according to the following criteria:

Professors of Law: Teachers listed here hold (or held) the contemporary position of tenured or tenure track professorships or the nineteenth and early twentieth century equivalent of those terms. These teachers are (or were) permanent members of the faculty and hold earned law degrees. The term professor appears somewhere in their titles. Note that in recent years, some professors of law began their service on the faculty as visiting (and in one case adjunct) professors. The names of these professors appear in this listing only with the beginning date indicating when they were given a tenure track position. Their time of service as a visitor is given in the "Visiting Professors" listing.

Visiting Professors: With a few exceptions, visiting professors began in the mid-1970s at the W&L Law school. Visitors (Scholar-in-Residence, Jurist-in-Residence, etc.) to the Frances Lewis Law Center complicate what would otherwise be a straightforward listing. At least one law center scholar also held the title of adjunct professor. As already mentioned, some Law Center visitors are listed with the faculty in the catalog while others are not. The criteria for inclusion or exclusion are not apparent. All known law center scholars are included here.

Some visiting professors are in residence for an entire school year while others are here for one semester only. When records provide the specific information about the length of stay, the academic year, in the case of a year long visitor, or the semester (Fall or Spring) and the calendar year are provided. If the record is unclear, the academic year (e.g. 1991-1992) is listed.

Adjunct Professors: This category includes all faculty who are called adjunct professor in the modern (c. post 1970) use of the term in the catalogs, and those professors called lecturers before that time. Some subjective determinations of professors versus adjunct professors had to be made in reviewing the records of certain nineteenth and early twentieth century periods.

Clinical professors without tenure track positions and certain administrators, especially assistant and associate deans, are included here, if they are listed with the faculty in the law school catalog.