New York Law School, one of the oldest independent law schools in the United States, was founded in 1891 by the faculty, students, and alumni of Columbia College Law School led by their founding dean, Theodore Dwight, a major figure in the history of legal education. In 1894, the Law School established one of the nation’s first evening
divisions to provide those in the workforce, or with family
obligations, a flexible alternative to full-time legal studies.

From its inception, New York Law School’s lower Manhattan location, in the midst of the country’s largest concentration of government agencies, courts, law firms, banks, corporate headquarters, and securities exchanges, has made immersion in the legal life of a great city an essential part of the School’s identity and curriculum.