"[2] The organization was founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1961 by four lawyers (Paul Bernard, Gerrit P. Groen, Henry Luke Brinks, and Elmer Johnson) who met to pray together at a 1959 convention of the American Bar Association.
The Christian Legal Society holds an annual convention in the United States as well as various regional conferences.
[4] The organization's members includes attorneys, judges, law students, and others who profess their commitment to the CLS Statement of Faith.
[10][11][12] Their case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez reached the Supreme Court of the United States in 2010.
The court upheld, against a First Amendment challenge, the policy of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law governing official recognition of student groups, which required the groups to accept all students regardless of their status or beliefs in order to obtain recognition.