Law School History
Formal legal education began in Milwaukee on October 12, 1892, when eleven students gathered to study the law under the tutelage of local attorneys. The group called itself the Milwaukee Law Class and secured volunteer services of their instructors, William H. Churchill, Sr., and Franklin Spies, thus avoiding the need to charge tuition. Mr. Churchill was the regular lecturer on Torts and related subjects; Mr. Spies taught Contracts. In 1896, with the addition of several other faculty members, the institution changed its name to Milwaukee Law School. Historical records show that the school operated on a trimester basis with tuition charges of $12 per term or $36 for the year. All classes were held at night and were conducted in various rented locations in downtown Milwaukee.
In 1908, neighboring Marquette University was looking to expand its academic offerings, already having added the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry to the original College of Arts and Sciences. At the time, there were two law schools in the city: the more-established Milwaukee Law School and the barely two-year-old and financially strapped Milwaukee University Law School. Marquette assumed sole ownership of both schools in September 1908, naming its newly acquired unit the Marquette University College of Law. A day division was added for full-time students, and all classes initially were held in Johnston Hall. Two years later, the College of Law moved to the adjacent Mackie Mansion, a remodeled residence at the corner of North 11th Street and Grand Avenue, the early twentieth-century name of Wisconsin Avenue. The first dean was the Hon. James G. Jenkins, age 74, a retired judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In 1923, the college's name was changed to Marquette University Law School.
The sketch of Sensenbrenner Hall is taken from a June 1924 Marquette Law Review article announcing the completion of the "$200,000 Law Building which will be ready for occupancy next fall." The article praises the "modern, fire-proof, well-equipped law building" which was "the earnest desire of our dean and every student and alumnus." Features of Sensenbrenner Hall include "four large lecture rooms and a large Moot Court room" and a "third floor [to] be occupied entirely by the library capable of holding 50,000 volumes." The law review article ends with a request for alumni contributions for "immediate and insistent needs": faculty salaries, additional professorships, expanded library resources, student scholarships, and financial support of the Marquette Law Review.
Eighty plus years after the doors opened to the "new" law building, Marquette University Law School students continue to reap the benefits of a legal education taught by expert faculty. Changes abound: laptop computers, online research, additional Marquette law journals, and courses with titles such as Cyberlaw and Amateur Sports Law were not part of the Law School in 1924. Physical changes include the addition of the library wing in 1968, with more-significant changes on the horizon. What has not changed over the past eight decades—and will not change in any new home—is the values-based mission of Marquette University Law School to prepare lawyers who both are highly skilled and seek to be, in the Jesuit phrase, homines pro aliis— "men and women for others."
