He was replaced by Richard Preston, who offered to resign in 1838 in favour of "any gentleman who can secure a class"; Edward Bullock took over the chair in December of that year.

[7] This did not lead to any change in the fortunes in the law department and on the departure of Bullock in 1849 the college established a committee to consider the teaching of law, which advised that "What should be aimed at is to give to all, whether intended to be practical lawyers or not, such sound elementary information as may make the former more fitted to enter readily and usefully on a strictly professional course of study; and to give to the latter that acquaintance with the constitution of the country and the spirit and outline of its legal system without which no gentleman or member of any profession can be considered completely educated."

The professorship was thus revived in 1851, with G. K. Richards being initially appointed in March 1851 but then resigning without ever lecturing and being replaced by James Stephen in November 1851.

[9] The teaching of commercial law began in 1853, with the appointment of Leone Levi as an external lecturer – unable to be appointed a professor as he was a member of the Free Church of Scotland, and all professors except those in modern languages and oriental literature were required to be members of the Church of England.

After some controversy, Levi joined the Church of England in 1855 and was appointed professor of commerce and commercial law the same year, a post he held until his death in 1888.

From 1904 the teaching became aligned with the London LLB degree curriculum and in 1906, due to continuing low student numbers, an inter-collegiate scheme was launched with UCL and the LSE to avoid overlapping teaching, with King's teaching jurisprudence at intermediate level and laws of contract, tort, evidence, property, commerce and private international law at final exam level.

On 7 December 2009, it was announced that the school would relocate to the East Wing of Somerset House, a prominent example of neo-classical architecture, designed by Sir William Chambers in the late eighteenth century on the site of an earlier Tudor palace.

[13][14] In February 2012, the refurbished East Wing was officially opened by the patron of the college, Queen Elizabeth II.

Caron describes the typical graduate of the school as "a transnational, global, lawyer with [...] roots in the historic tradition of the English common law that has influenced, and in turn been influenced by, much of the world, and in the more recent tradition of European Union law.

Since 2007 the school has conferred its own Master of Laws (LLM) degree, having previously been a contributor to the University of London intercollegiate programme.

[23] The school offers a full-time graduate research programme leading to the award of the PhD in law.

The faculty at the school are regular authors of monographs, scholarly treatises and articles, and contributions to periodicals.