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Book Review
| D. Don Welch, Vanderbilt Law School: Aspirations and Realities, Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2008. Pp. xii + 288. $49.95 (ISBN 978-0-8265-1582-7).
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| In this carefully researched book, D. Don Welch ably chronicles Vanderbilt Law School's slow and arduous rise from obscurity to international eminence. For more than seven decades after its founding in 1874, the Law School suffered from chronic penury, absentee administrators, neglect by Vanderbilt University officials, an inadequate library, geographical prejudices, competition from Tennessee's many other law schools, and fluctuating enrollment. It did not even have its own building until 1962. Admitted to the Association of American Law Schools in 1910, a decade after the AALS was founded, Vanderbilt Law School was excluded from the AALS from 1926 until 1929 on account of low academic standards. It was closed from 1944 to 1946 in the wake of low wartime enrollment. The most textured parts of this book explain how the Law School coped with these adversities, ever hopeful of achieving great stature. |
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In recounting the travails that afflicted the Law School until after the Second World War, Welch tacitly reveals how much legal education itself has improved during the past sixty years. Although Vanderbilt was little more than a shoestring operation for the first half of its history, its standards and resources for most of that period were superior to all but a few dozen of the nation's other law schools. Even in its most difficult times, Vanderbilt always had a highly qualified and dedicated faculty. Welch demonstrates how Vanderbilt has maintained its tradition of excellent teaching even as most of its faculty have become prolific scholars. The faculty's commitment to teaching always has facilitated the Law School's ability to attract talented students who have become distinguished and loyal alumni. |
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Even though the author is a longtime professor at Vanderbilt Law School and the book was published by Vanderbilt University Press, this is a serious institutional history rather than a mere celebration of Vanderbilt's progress and accomplishments. More than half of the book is devoted to the history of the Law School before the transformative deanship of John W. Wade (1952–1972), who expanded the quantity and quality of students and faculty, increased the geographical diversity of the student body, more than doubled the number of course offerings, and tripled the size of the library collection. The Law School's post-Wade history is presented in a more reticent concluding chapter that mostly catalogues the Law School's triumphs in raising funds, improving its physical facilities, expanding its course offerings, and providing increasing extra-curricular outlets for students. |
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Some of the most engaging parts of the book explain how Vanderbilt surmounted racial and gender discrimination. In overcoming both, the Law School was neither a leader nor a laggard. It admitted the first woman in 1915 and had a small but steady enrollment of women until Vanderbilt, along with other law schools, began to admit large numbers during the 1970s. The first African-Americans were admitted in 1956, and the process of racial integration appears to have proceeded smoothly. |
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The book is tightly focused on Vanderbilt Law School. Although Welch places each phase of its history within the context of national developments in American legal education, he discusses national trends and events only summarily. The book would have offered a better perspective for general readers and would have provided more resonance for scholars if Welch had done more to compare and contrast Vanderbilt's experiences with those of other schools. For example, the book's frequent references to tensions with the University would have benefitted from consideration of the relationships between other law schools and their universities, which in turn might have generated a better understanding of the role of the law school in the academy. Similarly, he might have offered a comparative perspective on Vanderbilt's efforts to establish an endowment. Moreover, Welch does not mention the legal realist movement of the 1930s or the critical legal studies movement of the past two decades, which roiled the faculties of many elite law schools. Even if these movements had no impact at Vanderbilt, that fact itself would be significant and worthy of explanation. |
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The book also might have provided a richer understanding of the Law School if it had provided a more detailed discussion of Vanderbilt University's history. In particular, Welch might have done more to consider the extent to which the University's lofty aspirations facilitated the Law School's progress even when University funding was stingy. |
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Welch relies heavily upon faculty correspondence and minutes of the meetings of law school faculty and the University's trustees. The book would have benefitted from more oral interviews with alumni and longtime faculty members. |
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This book should delight anyone who has a connection with Vanderbilt Law School. Despite its limitations, it also should enlighten scholars who study the history of American legal education. |
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| William G. Ross
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| Cumberland School of Law, Samford University |
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