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History

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John Marshall School of Law

Cleveland State University College of Law is the direct descendant of two proprietary night law schools: the Cleveland Law School, founded in 1897, and the John Marshall School of Law, founded in 1916. In 1946, the two schools merged to become Cleveland-Marshall Law School. In 1969, the law school joined Cleveland's new state university and was renamed the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law of Cleveland State University. In 2022, the law school was once again renamed to Cleveland State University College of Law.

From their earliest days, the Cleveland Law School and John Marshall School of Law had law libraries. The 1905 bulletin of the Cleveland Law School mentions in a description of its facilities a "large library" in the "commodious American Trust Building" near Public Square; by 1934, the school's law collection had grown to "many thousands of volumes." The 1919 bulletin of the John Marshall School of Law proclaimed its "excellent law library" and by 1937 its holdings contained most of the basic tools of general practice. The merged 1946 Cleveland-Marshall Law School library collection included 45,000 volumes.

In 1955, the law school employed its first librarian, Winifred Higgins. Professor and alumnus Jack Smith succeeded her the following year. Five years later, Rudolf Heimanson was appointed law librarian. Assistant professor Helen Garee, a 1933 alumna of the law school, held the position until 1969. From 1969 until 1972, professor J. Patrick Browne served as the school's associate librarian. Bardie C. Wolfe, Jr. was the school's library director from 1973 until 1977.

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Law Library Construction
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Law Library Blossom

By 1977, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law had moved into a new $7,500,000 building on the corner of East 18th and Euclid. The bookshelves in the library's new home were only half filled and the library's 130,000 volumes formed the smallest academic law collection in the state. Anita Morse became the new library director in 1978 and initiated a period of rapid expansion and collection development. In 1979, attorney and CSU trustee Melvin Arnold was the driving force behind one of the law school's most successful fundraising campaigns. Under Mr. Arnold's leadership, the library raised approximately $750,000 from law firms, corporations, community foundations, alumni, and friends. In 1978, the library was named a selective federal depository for government documents. By 1981, the collection numbered close to 200,000 volumes.

In 1988, when Steven Smith was appointed the law school's dean, the law library collection was the second-largest academic law collection in the state and had outgrown the building that in 1977 had seemed so spacious. Recognizing the need for a new facility to accommodate the ever-expanding holdings and increasingly necessary electronic resources, dean Smith, assisted by new library director Scott Finet, organized efforts to secure funding for a new law library building. When construction on the building began in 1995, Michael Slinger succeeded to the post of library director. He supervised the completion of the project and the move into the new library. By the time Steven Steinglass was appointed dean of the law school in 1997, the library's collection had grown to 400,000 volumes.

The new building was dedicated on September 26, 1997. In 2004, during a ceremony in the College of Law's Moot Courtroom, dean Steinglass, library director Slinger, the law school community, and best-selling author Scott Turow added the landmark 500,000th volume to Ohio's second-largest legal collection: The History The History of Law School Libraries in the United States: From Laboratory to Cyberspace, by Glen-Peter Ahlers. In preparation for the event, library staff created a multi-media presentation tracing the 100-year history of the law library, which won the 2005 American Association of Law Libraries Best Use of Technology award.

In 2008, dean Geoffrey Mearns appointed Kristina Niedringhaus library director. During her tenure, the library accelerated the transition of the print collection to electronic formats to meet the changing priorities and patterns of modern legal research. In 2013, dean Craig Boise announced the appointment of Lauren Collins to library director and associate professor; the 25th anniversary of the law library was marked in 2022 during her tenure. CSU|LAW alumnus Kevin Garewal was brought on as director in 2024.

Sources

  • Carrington T. Marshall, ed., A History of the Courts and Lawyers of Ohio, American Historical Society, 1934.
  • Samuel P. Orth, A History of Cleveland Ohio, S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1910.
  • Elroy McKendree Avery, A History of Cleveland and Its Environs: the Heart of New Connecticut, Lewis Pub, Co., 1918.
  • Bulletins of the John Marshall School of Law, Cleveland Law School, and Cleveland-Marshall Law School.

Adapted from text prepared in celebration of the 500,000 volume celebration in 2004.