How has the work of SUNY Buffalo Law School scholars changed the rarefied intellectual world of legal scholarship?

The Oral History Project hosts a collection of interviews with alumni, faculty members and friends of the Law School. These interviews are preserved for posterity, and digitally indexed to provide easy access for historians, researchers and others.

From Hon. Charles Daniels, a working New York State Supreme Court judge, to Makau Mutua, an international leader in human rights, SUNY Buffalo Law School has been led by some of the greatest legal minds in history.

Over a century and a quarter, a long parade of distinguished teachers have brought both wisdom and knowledge to their students at what is now SUNY Buffalo Law School. Many have riveting life stories – experiences that intersected with their teaching and scholarship in sometimes surprising ways. Here are a few of the notable faculty from years past.

The Edwin F. Jaeckle Award is the highest honor the Law School and its Law Alumni Association can bestow. These men and women have exemplified the highest ideals of the Law School and been recognized for their significant contributions to the school and the legal profession.

Dean Makau W. Mutua has said it repeatedly and emphatically: SUNY Buffalo Law School must “look like America.” The goal is simple but never easy – to identify and recruit academically promising students and accomplished faculty of color, and to take advantage of the cultural and academic richness that a diverse population provides.

In the beginning, men dominated the bench and bar. Only with the advent of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s did the Law School see more than a handful of women in any one class. But a look back over 125 years of innovative legal education shows that accomplished and pioneering women have been the rule, not the exception, at Buffalo’s Law School.

The first issue of The Opinion debuted on November 29, 1949 under the leadership of Michael Beilewech, Jr. '51, the first editor. The inception of the newspaper coincided with the opening of the new West Eagle Street Law School building.

A law school education is expensive because it’s valuable. From its earliest days, Buffalo’s law school has tried to make a legal education accessible to talented students from all walks of life.