[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-205567-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":81,"doc-detail-205567-en":131},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":74,"head_meta":76,"extra_data":78,"updated_unix":80},105,"en","the-rebuilding-of-duke-universitys-school-of-law-part-i","The Rebuilding of Duke University's School of Law - Part I","","The text examines the demanding process of building Duke University’s full-fledged, nationally recognized School of Law from 1925 to 1947, beginning with President William Preston Few’s leadership after the December 1924 Duke Endowment announcement. It traces the law school’s institutional roots in Trinity College, including Trinity’s early legal instruction, the 1904 law school founding, and high standards supported by the case method. It also details Few’s dean-search, the roles of William R. Perkins and Justin Miller, and the later disenchantment by 1934.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-rebuilding-of-duke-universitys-school-of-law-part-i/205567/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-rebuilding-of-duke-universitys-school-of-law-part-i/205567.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Ava Thompson","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-18","2026-09-05",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",17,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What major event enabled the creation of Duke University’s law school?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"In December 1924, James B. Duke announced the Duke Endowment and designated Duke University as a primary beneficiary, launching the university and setting the stage for building a full law school.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"How did Trinity College influence Duke’s law school development?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"Trinity established early legal instruction and created a law school in 1904, requiring entrants to complete two years of college work and using the case method while maintaining small size and high standards.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"Why did President Few initially prefer a southern candidate for dean?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"Few privately believed this place should give preference to a man with southern antecedents or associations, believing law’s regional peculiarities were more pronounced than in fields like medicine or theology.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},205567,1788581337,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,92,96,101,106,111,115,120,123,127],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":97,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":102,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":103,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":105},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":107,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":108,"show_sort_weight":109,"slug":110},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":112,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},8,30,"research-report",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":118,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":122},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":124,"slug":126},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":128,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":130},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":132},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":133,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":112,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":55,"language":140,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":80,"read_time":144,"preview_page_count":4},1649267921044,"https://us-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/1800007509477c92dfb?_k=1786009248482753345","The Rebuilding of Duke University'sSchool of Law,1925-1947  \n# Part I\n\nBy RoBERT F.DURDEN*  \nThe creation of a full-fledged,nationally recognized law school proved tobe one of the most difficult tasks that President William Preston Few facedas he led in the organization of a major research university around TrinityCollege after December,1924.Early in that month James B.Duke hadannounced the creation of the Duke Endowment and specified that theuniversity,which Few had proposed to him several years earlier,was to beaprime beneficiary of the perpetual trust.When the trustees of Trinity Collegelaterin December,1924,accepted the philanthropist's offer,Duke Universitywas officially launched.¹Although Few began almost immediately tosearch for an outstanding legal scholar to serve as dean and help plan andstaff thelaw school,the searchended uptaking five,frustration-filled years.Once found,the new dean of Duke'slaw school,Justin Miller,played the keyrole in getting it off to a brilliant start insofar as its faculty and programwere concerned.Yet by 1934 President Few and some of his close advisershad,for avariety ofreasons,grown disenchanted with theyoung,ambitiousdean,and Miller resigned from his position at Dukein somewhat ambiguouscircumstances early in 1935.Prior to that time,however,Few at one pointfelt that the long,careful search for a dean of the law school had ended upmost auspiciously indeed.What initially justified that verdict and whathappened subsequently to change it?  \nIn launching a full-fledged law school,Duke built on a respectablefoundation that had been laid in Trinity College.Although Trinity hadoffered an undergraduate course in law as early as 1868 and there had beenintermittent attention toinstruction inlaw after that date,not until1904 didTrinity establish a school oflaw.Underwritten by annual payments fromBenjamin N.Duke and his younger brother,James B.Duke,the school washeaded by SamuelFox Mordecai,a colorfulteacher and strong legalscholar.At a time when many law schools required no previous college work of its  \nstudents—indeed many persons still prepared to become lawyers by\"reading\"law with a practitioner rather than by attending any college orlaw school—Trinity joined a select group in requiring from the first thatentrants in the law school had to have completed two years of college work.In its second year Trinity's law school was invited to join the newAssociation of American Law Schools,which then had among its thirtymembers only one other institution from the South,the University ofTennessee.Employing the case method that Harvard had pioneered in thelate nineteenth century,Trinity's law school remained small,butit stuck byits high standards and remained indifferent to numbers.2  \nWith Dean Mordecai in his mid-seventies and unwell by the time DukeUniversity was under way,Few at first took what was for him a mostuncharacteristic stance:he soughta southerner to head the expanded,full-fledgedlaw school.Few,like his predecessor at Trinity,John C.Kilgo,andlike others in key faculty and administrative posts at Trinity,took greatpride in Trinity's maintaining a broadly national and \"reconstructed”outlook.Shunning both neo-Confederate romanticism and embitteredsectional defensiveness,Trinity College sought to exemplify forward-looking aspects ofthe New South.The fact that both Washington Duke andhis sons were staunch Republicans who combined deep Tar Heel roots andattachments with national economic interests only served to strengthenand underscore Trinity's orientation.Yet when Few began the search for adean of the law school,he privately confessed:“For this particular place Ifeel that the preference should begiven to a man of Southern antecedents orassociations,though Ihave never beforeintimated this as a requirementformen in any of the posts here.In fact more than half the men on the TrinityCollege staffarenot from the South.\"3Few never elaborated on his regionalpreference concerning thelegaldeanship,but the ","cbCaibhCNrqja7Ix","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaibhCNrqja7Ix","pdf",16395631,"English","# Part I\n## Duke Endowment and the Law School Launch\n## Trinity College Foundations\n## Dean Selection and Institutional Direction","[{\"question\":\"What major event enabled the creation of Duke University’s law school?\",\"answer\":\"In December 1924, James B. Duke announced the Duke Endowment and designated Duke University as a primary beneficiary, launching the university and setting the stage for building a full law school.\"},{\"question\":\"How did Trinity College influence Duke’s law school development?\",\"answer\":\"Trinity established early legal instruction and created a law school in 1904, requiring entrants to complete two years of college work and using the case method while maintaining small size and high standards.\"},{\"question\":\"Why did President Few initially prefer a southern candidate for dean?\",\"answer\":\"Few privately believed this place should give preference to a man with southern antecedents or associations, believing law’s regional peculiarities were more pronounced than in fields like medicine or theology.\"}]","The Rebuilding of Duke University's School of Law - Part I | PDF",43]