The Law Department at Cornell opened in 1887 in Morrill Hall with Judge Douglass Boardman as its first dean.

In 1917, two years of undergraduate education were required for admission, and in 1924, it became a graduate degree program.

Future Governor, Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the United States, Charles Evans Hughes, was a professor of law at Cornell from 1891 to 1893, and after returning to legal practice he continued to teach at the law school as a special lecturer from 1893 to 1895.

Hughes Hall, one of the law school's central buildings, is named in his honor.

In 1892, the school moved into Boardman Hall, which was constructed specifically for legal instruction.

In 1948, Cornell Law School established a program of specialization in international affairs and also started awarding LL.B.

The first phase created additional classroom space underground, adjacent to Myron Taylor Hall along College Avenue.

[7] As a result, Myron Taylor Hall saw the addition of 40,000 square feet of underground classroom space.

In addition, Cornell has joint program arrangements with universities abroad to prepare students for international licensure: The JD/Master en Droit lasts four years and prepares graduates for admission to the bar in the United States and France.

[citation needed] Cornell Law School runs two summer institutes overseas, providing Cornell Law students with unique opportunities to engage in rigorous international legal studies.

[16] Along with consideration of the quality of an applicant's academic record and LSAT scores, the full-file-review admissions process places a heavy emphasis on an applicant's statement, letters of recommendation, community and extracurricular involvement, and work experience.

The law library contains 700,000 books and microforms and includes rare historical texts relevant to the legal history of the United States.

[17] The library is one of the 12 national depositories for print records of briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court.

Also, there is a large collection of print copies of the records and briefs of the New York Court of Appeals.

[18] The library also has a large collection of international, foreign, and comparative law, with the main focus being on the Commonwealth of Nations and Europe.

[19] On the public service front, Cornell Law is known for the Cornell Law Death Penalty Project;[20] its Tenants Advocacy Practicum;[21] and for housing the Legal Information Institute, a non-profit, public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to legal research sources online at law.cornell.edu, serving over 47 million unique visitors per year.

[22] Approximately 92% of the Class of 2022 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment within ten months of graduation.

[29] The LII offers all opinions of the United States Supreme Court handed down since 1990, together with over 600 earlier decisions selected for their historic importance.

[28] The LII is a public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to legal research sources online at law.cornell.edu, serving over 47 million unique visitors per year.

Secretaries of State Edmund Muskie and William P. Rogers, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Samuel Pierce, the first female President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, federal judge and first female editor-in-chief of a law review Mary H. Donlon, former President of the International Criminal Court Song Sang-Hyun, as well as many members of the U.S. Congress, governors, state attorneys general, U.S. federal and state judges, diplomats and businesspeople.