1853: The University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is established by Act of Parliament in 1853. Construction of the first university building (now the Old Quadrangle) begins the following year, and the first classes are held in 1855.
1857: Law teaching begins
The Chancellor, Redmond Barry, proposes courses in law and medicine to attract more students to the struggling university. Teaching begins in Australia's first university law course on 11 March 1857, and the University Council records that the School of Law has been established. Barry's plan succeeds: law students make up more than half of the University's enrolments into the early 1860s.
The University confers Australia's first law degree on its inaugural law lecturer, Richard Sewell. He is entitled to the degree (a doctorate of laws) by virtue of his doctorate from the University of Oxford.
1860: Degree course established
The success of the law course leads the University to expand its offerings. Law students now have the choice of studying for a certificate (available since 1857) or a degree. The new LLB (Bachelor of Laws) course includes both arts and law subjects.
1873: The Faculty of Law
Growing student numbers allow law teaching to be expanded and reorganised. Two new part-time lecturers are appointed (bringing the total to four), along with a full-time dean, William Hearn.
The early University has no faculties, its teaching being managed by the Council and the Professorial Board. Now the lecturers, the dean and members of the Council make up the Faculty of Law, the University's first. It oversees the operation of the Law School.
1883: Graduate LLB
Changes in the arts course lead to the adoption of graduate entry for the LLB: students must have an arts degree before they start the LLB course. Most students prefer the shorter certificate course, and changes in the rules on admission to legal practice force the Law School to abandon graduate entry in 1895.
1889: First professor of law
Hearn is dean of Law but not a professor, and so able to fulfil his ambition to enter Parliament (professors are disqualified). Following his death in 1888, the University seeks a new dean who will also be a professor. Edward Jenks becomes dean and Australia's first professor of law.
1903: Flos Greig
Women are allowed to study at the University from 1880, but it is not until 1897 that Flos Greig becomes the first woman to enrol in the Law School. She graduates in 1903, and in 1905 becomes the first woman to enter the legal profession in Australia.
1931: New law course
A donation of £30,000 from the Supreme Court of Victoria funds the appointment of a second professor in the Law School. George Paton becomes Professor of Jurisprudence. Paton and dean Kenneth Bailey reshape the law course, expanding study of the social and theoretical context of law.
1935: Res Judicatae
The Law Students' Society establishes Res Judicatae, Australia's first student-run scholarly law journal. The journal is renamed the Melbourne University Law Review in 1957, and responsibility passes to the Melbourne University Law Review Association.
1940: Staff expansion
Dean Kenneth Bailey continues the long-term expansion of the full-time teaching staff with the appointment of a senior lecturer. Geoffrey Sawer becomes the Law School's first full-time teacher below the rank of professor.
1945: Federal funding
The end of World War II sees the start of significant funding from the Australian government, supplementing the Law School's income from fees, donations and the Victorian government. Over the next three decades, federal funding transforms the financing of the Law School and the University.
1951: Dean Zelman Cowen
Zelman Cowen, prize-winning graduate of the universities of Melbourne and Oxford, becomes dean when George Paton resigns to become vice-chancellor. Cowen establishes the chair of commercial law with funding from business and the legal profession, continues the expansion of the full-time staff and builds the Law School's international links.
1953: Women on staff
Rosemary Balmford becomes the first woman appointed to a permanent academic position in the Law School. She follows Airlie Blake (the first woman to be president of the Law Students' Society), who tutored in Jurisprudence and Property, and women on the administrative staff, led by Florence Scholes (a member of staff from 1932 to 1970). Mary Hiscock becomes the first woman appointed to the full-time teaching staff in 1963; Cheryl Saunders becomes the first female professor in 1989.
1961: Entrance quota
Rising enrolments force the Law School (still the only avenue for entry to the legal profession in Victoria) to limit student numbers. The Council of Legal Education opens an independent law school in 1962, and the Monash University Law School opens in 1964.
1986: Asian Law Centre
The Asian Law Centre becomes the Law School's first research centre, headed by Professor Mal Smith. Over the next twenty years, it develops into one of the largest teaching and research centres of its kind in the world.
1987–89: Critical scrutiny and higher education reform
Critical reviews of the Law School by the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission and the University lead to internal renewal. Amidst rapid changes in the University and Australian higher education, staff election of the dean ends, international fee-paying students are enrolled, and a new graduate program attracts large numbers of students to masters and graduate diploma courses.
1991: Information technology
The Law School's first student computer laboratory opens in 1991. The first computer-assisted tutorial follows in 1993, and the Law School's first home page on the World Wide Web goes live in 1996.
1999: The Melbourne JD
Australia's first JD (Juris Doctor) program begins at the Melbourne Law School. It offers graduates from other disciplines a qualification recognised for admission to legal practice. In 2006, an international review concludes that 'no faculty of law in North America comes close to replicating the rich array of offerings, and the scope and diversity of teachers’, in the Law School's graduate program.
2002: New law building
After more than fifty years' campaigning by successive deans, a new, purpose-built home for the Law School in University Square is opened by the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. The Law School moves from the Quadrangle, where it has taught continuously since 1857.
2007: A graduate school
The Melbourne LLB course accepts its final intake. From 2008, under the University's Melbourne Model, the Law School moves to fully graduate entry.
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