Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School (CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. It was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The university was known for its legal scholarship dating back to the 18th century. Graduates of the university's colonial predecessor, King's College, include such notable early-American legal figures as John Jay, the first chief justice of the United States, and Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, who were co-authors of The Federalist Papers.

Columbia Law has many distinguished alumni, including United States presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt; ten justices of the Supreme Court of the United States; numerous U.S. Cabinet members and presidential advisers; US senators; representatives; governors; and more members of the Forbes 400 than any other law school in the world.