New York City Proclaims Oct. 25 Columbia Law School Day

                        

October 23, 2008 (NEW YORK) – In honor of Columbia Law School’s Sesquicentennial year, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proclaimed October 25, 2008, Columbia Law School Day.

“Columbia Law School has done as much as anyone to ensure that the pillar of law upholds our society, and today, we are proud to celebrate Columbia Law’s 150th Anniversary,” the Proclamation reads.

The Proclamation commemorates the long history and “special link” the Law School has with New York City from James Kent, Columbia College’s first professor of law and in 1797 one of the City’s first Corporation Counsels, to Michael Cardozo ’66, who is the Corporation Counsel today. It also notes that both Presidents Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt attended the Law School.

Columbia Law School has hosted a year of Sesquicentennial celebrations in 2008. The year began with January events in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo and with the annual Winter Luncheon at the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel, which honored the Law School’s six living deans, alumni who are serving as judges, and alumnus H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, entrepreneur, philanthropist and Dean’s Council member. Also that month, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59 hosted a dinner at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

 
To honor the history of Law School alumni serving at all levels of the judiciary, more than 50 alumni who are judges celebrated at a dinner in February at the Morgan Library & Museum.

This October, the Law School held a Global Reunion in London which featured a symposium of 10 professors and a keynote address by Lord Patten of Barnes.

 
The final words of the Proclamation look to the future: “We know that Columbia Law School will continue nurturing our best and brightest legal minds for many years to come.”

Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, stands at the forefront of legal education and of the law in a global society. Columbia Law School joins traditional strengths in international and comparative law, constitutional law, administrative law, business law and human rights law with pioneering work in the areas of intellectual property, digital technology, sexuality and gender, and criminal law.