The Dean's Papers date back to 1912, which was eight years after the first dean was appointed, and go forward to the early twenty-first century. These records document the growth of the administration from a time when there was one dean, a part-time clerical assistant, a faculty of five, and two hundred students. Although the earliest extant document is dated 1912, substantial retention of administrative records did not begin until the late 1930s.
The 1978 accession of records spans the years 1912-1977, although the concentration of material covers 1937-1975, and touches the terms of deans William Minor Lile, Armistead Mason Dobie, Frederick D. G. Ribble, Hardy Cross Dillard, and Monrad G. Paulsen. Included are copies of the deans' reports to the president from 1904 to 1968; these reports are an excellent starting point for researching practically any facet of the Law School's history.
In the deans' correspondence files, the researcher may expect to find several issues which have concerned all the deans. The question of the best ratio of in-state to out-of-state students has been routinely debated, with the deans and faculty consistently arguing that a substantial proportion of non-Virginians would contribute to the school's maintaining national status and that a decline of out-of-state students would have a significant negative effect.
Through these records may also be traced the campaign for higher faculty salaries and for more funds for the library. The immediate result of this campaign was the rallying of alumni in the form of the Law School Foundation in 1952. Only in the late 1960s was the school relatively comfortable financially, no longer relying almost exclusively on state funds.
The library files in the Dean's Papers cover most of Catherine Lipop Graves's term as the first law librarian, all of Frances Farmer's term, and the selection of Larry Wenger as Farmer's successor. These records document particularly well the labor of Frances Farmer to raise the library's collection from average status to eleventh among American law libraries. There is ample evidence of alumni interest and support for this achievement.
In these papers are continuous files on visiting lecturers and the Doherty Lecture, established in 1954. There are also records on the development and growth of some of the student publications and organizations. And, finally, there is alumni correspondence which is primarily concerned with fundraising. There are, however, many letters from graduates who maintained close ties with the Law School and often voiced opinions about curriculum, grades, admissions, and other matters of policy.
With the exception of a few confidential files, these records are open, with the current dean's permission, to any legitimate scholar in the field of law or serious researcher of the history of the University. Researchers who wish to study the records should place a request with the archivist, who will submit it to the dean. The Dean's Papers are Record Group 100, and the accession for 1978 contains four series. This finding aid includes a complete box listing.
It was not until the University was almost ninety years old that its first president was appointed. Previously, the chairmanship of the general faculty was filled by a faculty member elected annually. By the turn of the century, however, the administrative duties had become too demanding for a teaching professor to handle efficiently, and so in 1904 Edwin A. Alderman assumed the newly created position of president. He appointed deans for each of the four "minor" faculties: academic, law, medical, and engineering; these men, in turn, carried out most of the administrative responsibilities of their departments.
William Minor Lile, an 1882 graduate of the Law School, became the first dean of the School of Law in September 1904. At that time, the law faculty was comprised of himself, Raleigh Colston Minor, and Charles A. Graves. Classes for about two hundred students met in a wing of the recently restored Rotunda and the law library was housed in a section of its basement. The size of the student body held at about two hundred until after the Law School moved to John B. Minor Hall in 1911, but the faculty had already begun expanding to include Armistead M. Dobie, Charles W. Paul, and George B. Eager Jr. Both Eager and Dobie filled in for Dean Lile at times when his health was poor. In 1932, when Dobie became dean, the administrative duties had grown to the point that the dean needed an assistant. Eager was the obvious choice. In that same year, and only twenty-one years after moving to Minor Hall, the Law School moved to a new, larger building donated and named after William Andrew Clark Jr., Class of 1899. During the 1930s the number of faculty members remained below ten, and administrative chores were relatively slight.
An alumnus and law professor since 1921, Frederick D. G. Ribble became the third dean in 1939. His service was soon interrupted by World War II, which came close, as had the Civil War and World War I, but did not succeed in bringing the Law School to a halt. After the war, as the size of the student body mushroomed, Ribble began his campaign for expanding the faculty and raising salaries to a level competitive with comparable law schools. It was not until the mid-1960s, when Ribble had retired and Hardy Cross Dillard had succeeded him, that these goals for the faculty were realized. During that decade, there were about seven hundred law students and thirty-five faculty members. This became too demanding for two administrators and another assistant dean was hired. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Monrad G. Paulsen, the first non-alumnus to become dean of the Law School, implemented an even greater increase in the size and quality of the faculty, as well as raises in their salaries, and oversaw continued growth of the student body. In 1974, the Law School changed quarters for the third time since the turn of the century, moving about a mile north of the Rotunda to North Grounds.
The Office of the Dean Records were recatalogued in September 2019, adding the University of Virginia classification for the Law School: RG 32 to the previous identifier.
The 1978 accession of Deans' Papers spans the years 1912-1977, although the concentration of material covers 1937-1975, and touches the terms of Deans Lile, Dobie, Ribble, Dillard, and Paulsen. Included are copies of the Dean's Reports to the president from 1904 to 1968; these reports are an excellent starting point for one researching practically any facet of the Law School's history.
In the deans' correspondence files, the researcher may expect to find several issues which have concerned all the deans of this century. The question of the best ratio of in-state to out-state students have been routinely debated, with the deans and faculty consistently arguing that a substantial proportion of non-Virginians would contribute to the school's maintaining national status and that a decline of out-o-state students would have a significant negative effect.
Through the deans' files one may also trace the campaign for higher faculty salaries and for more funds for the library. The immediate result of this campaign was the rallying of alumni in the form of the Law School Foundation in 1952. Only in the late sixties was the school relatively comfortable financially, no longer relying almost exclusively on state funds.a
The library files in the Deans' Papers cover most of Catherine Lipop Graves' term as the first law librarian, all of Frances Farmer's term and the selection of Larry Wenger as Farmer's successor. These records document particularly well the labor of Frances Farmer to raise the collection from average status to eleventh among American law libraries. There is ample evidence of alumni interest and support for this achievement.
In these papers are continuous files on visiting, often foreign, lecturers and the Doherty Lecture established in 1954. There are also good records on the development and growth of some of the student publications and organizations. And, finally, there is alumni correspondence which is primarily concerned with fund-raising. There are, however, many letters from graduates who maintained close ties with the school and often voiced opinions about curriculum, grades, admissions and other matters of policy.
Series I
The first group of correspondence and similar records in these papers range from 1912 (primarily 1937-1968) to 1975; while they cover the term of all the law school deans, they bulk largest in material from Ribble's and Dillard's administrations. These files were kept in a systematic fashion, and virtually all the original headings have retained. Regrouping of certain files under one rubric --Scholarships, Student Organizations, and Student Publications-- should facilitate research of these topics.
The records which are called Series I were apparently "retired" just before or after Paulsen took over the deanship. It is impossible now to determine why some files were put in storage and others were not; in any case, this accounts for the overlap of dates: files that Dillard kept are split almost evenly between Series I, which came from a closet, and Series II, which came from an unused file cabinet in the current dean's office.
Series II
This group of papers which spans 1940 -(1963-1975) -1977 saw a change of deans and several changes of secretaries, so consequently the filing system was inconsistently maintained. Mr. Dillard's files contained only administrative materials, while Mr. Paulsen's other professional papers were interfiled with the administrative records. New files were started early in Paulsen's term but were not necessarily maintained, nor were those files which Dillard had originated. A voluminous amount of Paulsen's correspondence was simply filed in folder marked "Miscellaneous".
When these records were sorted, the original folder labels were transferred to the new folders, with only occasional changes for clarity or easier reference. The "Miscellaneous" folders were sorted and the correspondence interfiled under the proper topical headings. This sorting produced a few new headings, such as "Alumni Correspondence with Dean Paulsen" and "Faculty: Miscellaneous Concerns", because the volume of material justified such designations.
Series III
Each dean has been required to send an annual report for his school to the University president since the establishment of that office in 1904. Series III contains carbon or electrostatic copies of all these reports to 1968.
These files were transferred to the archives in June of 1978.
This addition contains the ABA Accredition Inspection Report and Minutes of the Law Faculty
Files transferred to the archives on 29 February 1980.
Minutes of Law Faculty meetings
Files transferred to the archives in 1985.
Files related to the Law School Alumni Association and the Law School Foundation.
These files were transferred to the archives in the Summer of 1986.
This installment of records was transferred to the library in the summer of 1988 when the dean's office area was being renovated. Also, that summer the Law School's eighth dean, Thomas H. Jackson, took office. The records transferred covered the deanships of Emerson G. Spies (1976-1980) and Richard A. Merrill (1980-1988).
Over half of these records were not organized in any way; that is, they apparently had never been in file folders and for the move were simply packed in boxes in random order. The remainder were either in folders or binders with some identifying heading. Although both deans had indicated how to file some of the correspondence, a vast amount of it is not marked for filing. Consequently the unfoldered material is now to be found arranged according to year and month, and labeled "General Correspondence."
For the entire period covered by the "general" files, there is a great deal of correspondence concerning alumni fund-raising. For the Spies years there is material regarding the construction of and move into Phase II of the North Grounds building; for the Merrill period, there is information regarding the renovation of Phase I and the allocation of faculty offices. During Spies term in office, the debate of the Law School's ratio of in-state and out-of-state students resumed for a time. Issues frequently discussed in Merrill's correspondence included minority admission, a variety of concerns of black students, and the hiring practices of interviewing law firms regarding sexual practices of potential employees. The Spies files have correspondence on the settlement of the estate of John Shaw Field; the Merrill files, concerning the establishment of the McCorkle lectureship and the name of Henry Malcolm Withers Hall. Merrill's files contain a great deal of information about concerns of students and faculty, including salary, teaching loads, research funds, appointments, and for this reason, the general correpondence for his term is particularly sensitive. For the most part the topical files are self-explnatory, but one should remember that the general files also contaim a great deal of information on some of these topics, especially "Admission," "appointments," and "Law School Foundation."
These records were transferred to the law library in the summer of 1988.
These files consist of personnel files: files of professors, visiting faculty, lecturers and instructors (some of them have extensive correspondence and administrative papers), and "general files": administrative file ex. ABA files, appointment files, budget and in general administrative regular papers, a mix of papers that we assumed were left at the Dean's office and run from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. This set did not have a good organization, each folder or notebook have a title but that doesn't reflect any kind of broader organization.
These files are divided in two sets: the Personnel Files (1926-early 1980s) and the "general files" (1950s to 1990s).
These files were transferred to Special Collections by Carole Milks the Summer of 1991.
These files consist of personnel filesAppointments files and Law School Alumni.
These files were transferred to the library in August of 1992.
This addendum consists primarily of faculty personnel forms and some admnistrative files.
These files were transferred to the library by Gail Branch, Assistant to the Dean in April of 2000.
Restricted personnel files.
These files were transferred to the library by Gail Branch in 2001.
This file consists of documents of the University of Virginia School of Law Self Study Report.
These papers were received in 2002
This addition consists of old administrative law school files; some correspondence between Dean Ribble and others re: Stone Bill, and student withdrawals.
This small addition to the Dean's Papers was given to Special Collections by Diddy Morris, Special Assistant to Dean Paul Mahoney in June of 2012.
This addition to the papers consist of eight files that Diddy Morris lent to Philip Hetherington while he was writing his book on the Law School Building history and two folders with miscellaneous materials that Virginia Rose Kane, assistant to Dean Risa Goluboff transferred to Special Collections in August of 2019.
Transferred to the archives by Diddi Morris, Special Assistant to the Dean, in 2019.
This small collection of UVA and Law School memorabilia was transferred to the archives in 2021 by Virginia Kane. Consists of brochures and programs.