Michigan State University College of Law

Etching of Detroit College of Law, Elizabeth Street Building, Detroit 1937–1997

Detroit College of Law opened in 1891 with 69 students and was incorporated in 1893. Among the first class of 69 students to graduate were a future circuit judge and an ambassador. It was the oldest continuously operating independent law school in the United States until it was assimilated by MSU in 1995.[8][9]

In 1937, the college broke ground and relocated itself in a new building at 130 East Elizabeth Street in Detroit, where it stayed until 1997. The Building was designed by architect George DeWitt Mason. It had been located at the former Detroit College of Medicine building on St. Antoine Street from 1892 to 1913; and the Detroit "YMCA" building from 1913 to 1924; the ground on which the building stood was under a 99 year lease from the YMCA.[9][10] The last location of the Detroit College of Law in Downtown Detroit is commemorated by a plaque at Comerica Park, the home stadium of the Detroit Tigers baseball team, which now occupies the site.[11][12]

The college became affiliated with Michigan State University in 1995 to enhance the college's curriculum and reputation.[13] It relocated to East Lansing in 1997, when its 99-year lease with the Detroit YMCA expired, and the original building was demolished to make way for Comerica Park. The newly located college was called "Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University".[13] The affiliation was celebrated at a function where former President and Michigan native Gerald Ford joined more than 2,500 guests at the Wharton Center for Performing Arts Great Hall. Ford characterized the affiliation between Michigan State University and the Detroit College of Law "a bold new venture" that presents "a singular opportunity to help shape the changing face of American legal education well into the next century."[13] In April 2004, the school changed its name to the MSU College of Law, becoming more closely aligned academically with MSU.[13] MSU Law is currently fully integrated as a constituent college of the university: academically, financially, and structurally.

View of the MSU Law building from the southeast.

Joan Howarth began her deanship at Michigan State University College of Law on July 1, 2008 and was the first female dean in MSU Law's 117-year history. Beforehand, she was a professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, since 2001.[14] She retired at the end of the 2015-16 school year.[15] Lawrence Ponoroff became the Dean in the fall of 2016, and he served in that role until the end of December 2019. Melanie B. Jacobs, professor of law, was then appointed as the law college’s interim dean, beginning in January 2020.

On October 26, 2018, MSU's board of directors voted to fully integrate the College of Law into the university, thereby converting it from a private to a public law school. Then-Dean Lawrence Ponoroff said, "Since the original affiliation in 1995, the relationship between the university and the law college has grown increasingly closer and, at each stage, resounded in benefits to both institutions." The full integration was undertaken in order to facilitate collaboration between the law school and other divisions of MSU, opening up development in core areas of curricular strength such as social justice; innovation and entrepreneurship; and business and regulatory law. The integration was finalized on August 17, 2020.

View of the MSU Law building from the north.

MSU Law also houses the Center for Law, Technology & Innovation (CLTI), formerly named the ReInvent Law Program, and LegalRnD; the Indigenous Law & Policy Center (ILPC); and the Geoffrey N. Fieger Trial Practice Institute (TPI).

Law journals at the law school are nationally ranked and include:

• Michigan State Law Review, the school's flagship journal, ranked 48th among flagship printed journals ranked by Washington and Lee in 2020.[16]
• Michigan State International Law Review[17]
• Animal and Natural Resource Law Review[18]

Additionally, the school also publishes Spartan Lawyer, the law college's bi-annual magazine.[19] Formerly, the school published the Journal of Business & Securities Law.[20]

• Official website
• ABA Disclosures