Rutgers Law School is the oldest law school in New Jersey. Rutgers Law School has its roots in three law schools. The first was founded October 5, 1908 as
New Jersey Law School, the second,
South Jersey Law School founded in 1926 by
Collingswood, New Jersey mayor and businessmen Arthur E. Armitage and a group of South Jersey lawyers, and the final was
Mercer Beasley School of Law, named for
Mercer Beasley, a former
New Jersey Supreme Court Justice and founded in 1926 by several prominent Newark attorneys. The New Jersey Law School was founded as a for-profit law school by Richard D. Currier, a New York lawyer and graduate of Yale and
New York Law School. Currier was joined by Charles M. Mason, a New Jersey attorney, who served as dean until his death in 1928. The school originally had only three faculty members 30 students with classes on the 4th floor of the
Prudential Insurance Home Office in Newark for their first classes. In December 1908, the school was moved to a large Victorian townhouse at 33 East Park Street also in Newark. From its founding, women were to be admitted on "equal basis to men." After World War I, the New Jersey Law School saw increase in enrollment and by 1927, enrollment had peaked to more than 2,300 students, making it the second largest law school in the United States. In 1927 the school moved to the former Ballantine & Sons Ale Brewery at 40 Rector Street. In 1934, Mercer Beasley School of Law and Newark Institute of Arts and Sciences merged to form the University of Newark and two years later, the New Jersey Law School joined establishing the
University of Newark Law School. Combining the resources of the schools was designed created a stronger institution however the law school experienced a major decline in enrollment due to World War II and therefore was in a precarious financial condition. In 1946, the University of Newark merged with
Rutgers University and the law school was renamed the Rutgers University School of Law. In 1950, the South Jersey Law School in Camden, New Jersey, merged with
Rutgers University. The school was divided between the Newark Division and the South Jersey division based in Camden, with the dean and law school administration based in Newark. During the 1950s and 1960s the law school expanded in size creating the largest law library in New Jersey and its faculty tripled in size. In 1963, the future U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hired as a law professor and served on the faculty until 1972. Ginsburg developed some of the concepts that led to the founding of the Women's Rights Litigation Clinic by Professor
Nadine H. Taub, who was its director for many years, and the
Women's Rights Law Reporter the first American legal journal dedicated women's rights. In 1967, the South Jersey Division was split and created as a separate unit, creating two law schools:
Rutgers School of Law – Camden and
Rutgers School of Law – Newark. In 1968, following the Newark riots of 1967, the faculty created the Minority Students Program (MSP) one of the first law school affirmative action programs in the country, with the goal of increasing African American student enrollment. In 1978, the law faculty voted to admit students regardless of race and revamped the Minority Students Program to focus on socio-economically disadvantaged students in response to the Supreme Court's decision in
Bakke. In
Doherty V. Rutgers School Of Law-Newark the
3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the MSP in a lawsuit from a white student alleging discrimination. Throughout the 1970s the Newark campus was a center of activism and law students nicknamed it "The People's Electric Law School." Its graduates from this period include United States Senators
Elizabeth Warren and
Bob Menendez. After eliminating its evening program in 1955, in 1975, the law school restarted an evening program on Camden and Newark campus.
Lawsuits On March 8, 2026, Dean Cliff Dawkins of the Minority Student Program filed a complaint in New Jersey Federal Court alleging discrimination and retaliation for reporting financial misappropriation and asking for $4.5 milliion dollars in damages. The lawsuit names Rutgers Law School Dean
Johanna Bond, Vice Dean Shani King, and Professor Charles Auffant. On January 1, 2024, an Orthodox Jewish Rutgers Law student, Yoel Ackerman, sued in Essex County Superior Court in New Jersey alleging antisemitism and a hostile environment. Rutgers Law School Dean
Johanna Bond, as well as Rutgers Law School were named in the suit. ==Admissions==