The Law School

Abstract

T he School of Law of the S tate U niversity of M ontana is and will continue to be one of the particu larly recognized elements of the large r institution. O rganized by a special act o f the Legislature in 1911, it has developed into a school with a carefully selected lib rary of six thousand two hundred fifty volumes, with a regis­ tration of one hundred th irteen students, including the pre-legal students, and with a faculty of five full professors and three lec turers on special subjects. T he law faculty, about whom the real fabric of the school is woven, combine, according to student opinion, unquestioned competency, a unique ability to do their work effectually and the added qualities o f loyalty and sincere interest in the school and its members, all of which go to m ake up tha t seriously happy student inspiration which is so necessary to proper instruction in the law. D uring the academ ic.year of 1911-1912 there were enrolled in the law school seventeen students. T here was an increase of sixty per cent, in 1913-1914 and in the fall o f 1915 there was a m arked addition of th irty -th ree students. A t the close of 1914 five degrees in law w ere conferred, C arl Cam eron, Paul D ornblaser, E dw ard P . Kelly, E llsw orth G. Sm ith and Raym ond If . W eidman being the first men to go out nito practice as three-year graduates of the 'M ontana School o f Law. In the fall of 1915 a policy of d iscouraging the tak ing of law by those students who could no t offer standing equal to that of tw o years pre-legal w ork was adopted. S tudents over tw enty-one years of age who are not candidates for a degree are still a d m itte d ; bu t they are specially urged to take the two years prelegal w ork if possible. T here are a t this time 113 students with law as their m ajor subject, divided as follow s: S ixteen th ird year men and seventy-three first and second year men. T here are tw enty-four students registered in the U niversity as pre-legals. T he regu lar law course covers a period of th ree years. E igh t five-unit hours are required for graduation . In addition each candidate fo r a degree m ust have had w ork equivalent to a t least tw o full years of college train ing . 1 he m ethod of instruction is tha t employed in the leading law schools of Am erica, viz, the case system, supplem ented by lectures and assigned readings. The aim is to teach the student not the cold facts of the law, but m ethods of legal reasoning and