LSE Law School

LSE Law School
Parent school	London School of Economics
Established	1919 (1919)
School type	Public law school
Dean	David Kershaw
Location	London, United Kingdom
Website	www.lse.ac.uk/law

Cheng Kin Ku Building, seat of the LSE Law School

LSE Law School is the law school of the London School of Economics (LSE). It was founded in 1919 with the appointment of H. C. Beveridge as Professor of Law. David Kershaw is the current dean of the LSE Law School. It is one of the LSE's largest departments, with over 60 academic staff.

LSE Law School is located on Lincoln's Inn Fields in the Cheng Kin Ku Building (abbreviated as CKK, formerly the New Academic Building, NAB), named in honour of LSE donor Vincent Cheng’s father.

History

The teaching of law at the LSE dates back to its foundation in 1895, when commercial and industrial law was among one of the nine courses offered. In 1906, it became part of the intercollegiate faculty of law of the University of London, alongside the law schools of University College London and King's College London. This would continue well into the 1960s for undergraduate courses. H. C. Gutteridge was appointed as the first full-time Professor of Law at the LSE Law School and Sir Ernest Cassel, subsequently, as Professor of Industrial and Commercial law. He led the expansion of the school from one full-time professor, five part-time lecturers and two other party-time teachers in 1924 to a full-time staff of ten, with four professors, two readers and four lecturers, in 1934, forming the largest law department of any University of London college. Among those appointed to the school were Lord Wright, a judge in the House of Lords, A. V. Dicey, Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford, and Dr L. F. L. Oppenheim.

From 1930 to 1959, David Hughes Parry held the professorship of English Law and in 1937, Robert Chorley founded the Modern Law Review at the school. Arnold McNair and Robert Jennings taught at the school, both later becoming presidents of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), while Hersch Lauterbach moved from the Department of International Relations to the law school, later becoming a judge on the ICJ. The law school grew in popularity in the 1940s and 1950s as German-Jewish jurists fleeing Nazi persecution in the 1930s, including Otto Kahn-Freud and Hermann Mannheim, contributed to the school's further development. Jim Gower was inaugurated as Cassel Professor in 1949. By the 1980s, more women than men were studying the LLB at the LSE Law School.

At least one Prime Minister or President of the countries of Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Mauritius, Sierra Leone, Saint Lucia, Ghana, Peru, Mauritius and Thailand has earned either an LLB or LLM from the law school. Former President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, earned a PhD in Law in 1984.[1] Singapore's founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, initially enrolled at the school before transferring to Cambridge whilst Chief Architect of the Indian Constitution, B. R. Ambedkar took courses at the LSE law school in tandem with his study of economics at the LSE. The school also educated Cherie Blair, Shami Chakrabarti, Eugenia Charles, John Compton, Jean Corston, Linda Dobbs, Audrey Eu, Lord Tony Grabiner, Makhdoom Ali Khan, Mia Mottley, Dorab Patel, P. J. Patterson, Mónica Feria Tinta, J. A. G. Griffith and Veerasamy Ringadoo.

Academic profile

Teaching

LSE Law School offers undergraduate (LLB, BA Law and Anthropology), taught postgraduate (LLM, MSc Law and Finance, and Executive LLM), and research (PhD) degrees. It also offers a conjoint LLB/JD (Juris Doctor) degree with the Columbia Law School at Columbia University in the United States.

Research

LSE Law School has traditionally maintained close academic ties with the Modern Law Review and the London Review of International Law, both of which were founded at the school. The school hosts its annual Chorley Lecture, named in honour of Robert Chorley, 1st Baron Chorley.

Reputation and rankings

Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranks the LSE Law School 7th globally for Law and Legal Studies. In the United Kingdom, The Guardian places the school 3rd, a position also held in the Complete University Guide rankings.

List of Professors

Current and former professors at LSE Law School include Julia Black, Robert Chorley, 1st Baron Chorley, Hugh Collins, Ross Cranston, Paul Davies, A. V. Dicey, Neil Duxbury, Judith Freedman, Conor Gearty, Laurence Gower, Christopher Greenwood, Rosalyn Higgins, Lady Higgins, Jeremy Horder, Derry Irvine, Emily Jackson, Otto Kahn-Freund, David Kershaw, Nicola Lacey, Niamh Moloney, David Hughes Parry, Thomas Poole, Henry Slesser, Stanley Alexander de Smith, Cedric Thornberry, Sarah Worthington, Bill Wedderburn, Baron Wedderburn of Charlton, Glanville Williams and Michael Zander.