William Draper Lewis and National Trends in Legal Education

William Draper Lewis

Provost Harrison appointed William Draper Lewis (1867- 1949) Dean of the Law School in July, 1896. Lewis had graduated from Haverford College in 1888 and enrolled in the Law School's Class of 1891, the first to follow the three-year curriculum. Penn awarded him both a doctorate in economics and a bachelor of laws. He then lectured on economics at Haverford and legal history at Penn. In Lewis, the Provost had found a man who would teach law as a full-time profession, not as a part-time avocation.

Harrison and Lewis were in step with their time. In 1893 the American Bar Association established the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which three years later set a minimum standard of a high school diploma and two years of legal education for admission to the bar. In 1897 the period of study was lengthened to three years. In 1900 the Association of American Law Schools came into being, with Penn as one of 25 charter members. Lewis was prominent from the start.

At the time Lewis accepted the Dean's post, admission was open to virtually all who had received "the common branches of an English education"; student attendance was voluntary; and one-third of all matriculants failed courses. In 1897 Lewis imposed an entrance examination designed to be at least as stiff as that in use at the College and required that all students attend at least 80 percent of their classes.

But from the first, Lewis's strongest arguments were aimed at requiring a full undergraduate degree as prerequisite for admission to the School. By 1905 he had convinced the faculty to establish a minimum age of 20 for admission, with the aim that the student's time between 18 and 20 be spent in college. Finally, in April 1914, as he prepared to leave the deanship, the faculty voted that "a degree of Bachelor of Arts or an equivalent degree, from an approved University or College, shall be required for admission to the Law School." Driven by Lewis, Penn had established itself as one of the most selective law schools in the country.

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