The only law school in the state to precede it was a small institution conducted by Peter van Schaack in Kinderhook, New York, from 1785 to his death in 1832.

The school was founded by Benjamin Franklin Butler, the United States Attorney General, at the request of the Council of the New York University.

[8] This plan was formally accepted by the university council on June 2, 1835, marking the inception of the school of law.

[6] The curriculum he instituted was the first in the country to teach law using the "course method," which came to be adopted as the standard for legal education in the United States.

[9] The law school relocated to its present location of 40 Washington Square South in Greenwich Village in 1951, under the direction of its dean, Arthur T. Vanderbilt.

students are permitted to enroll in a general course of study or specialize in specific areas such as business taxation or estate planning.

Other notable faculty[18] include: Ed Amoroso, Judi Germano, Zach Goldman, Ira Rubinstein, Rob Silvers, and Chris Sprigman.

[20] NYU Law offers a dual-degree program with the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

Graduates of the law school routinely obtain employment in elite public and private-sector positions.

[31] According to New York University School of Law's 2013 ABA-required disclosures, 93.7 percent of the Class of 2013 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.

[32] According to New York University School of Law's official 2013 ABA-required disclosures, 93.7 percent of the Class of 2013 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.

[36] In 2012, NYU Law had the second-highest number of faculty who are members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences with 19 inductees, behind only Harvard.

Senators Lamar Alexander, Rudy Boschwitz and Jacob Javits; former New York City mayors Fiorello La Guardia, Ed Koch, and Rudy Giuliani; former New York City Councilman and Council Consumer Affairs Committee Chairman David B. Friedland; New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly; Republic of China President Ma Ying-Jeou; former president of Panama Guillermo Endara; former FBI director Louis Freeh; suffragette and college founding president Jessica Garretson Finch; Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School and first female SEC Commissioner Roberta Karmel; sportscaster Howard Cosell; former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue; NHL commissioner Gary Bettman; John F. Kennedy, Jr.; Jared Kushner, Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Neil Barofsky; U.S.

Representatives, such as Hakeem Jeffries; Mitchell Jenkins, Jefferson Monroe Levy, and Isaac Siegel; former chairman of Paramount Pictures Jonathan Dolgen; Hollywood and Broadway producer Marc E. Platt; Hollywood producer and former chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment; comedian Demetri Martin (did not graduate); Peter Guber; journalist Glenn Greenwald; civil rights leader Vanita Gupta; president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sherrilyn Ifill; several corporate leaders including Interpublic Group of Companies chairman and CEO Michael I. Roth; ConocoPhillips president and COO John Carrig; Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher; Marvel Entertainment vice-president John Turitzin; and Nobel Peace Prize laureates Elihu Root and Mohamed ElBaradei.

[40] NYU Law private practice lawyers include the four founders of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore chairman Evan Chesler.

The building's West 3rd Street facade incorporates the remaining part of the facade of a townhouse that Edgar Allan Poe lived in from 1844 to 1846, near the site where the house originally stood, the result of a settlement between NYU and preservationists who objected to the university's 2000 plan to tear down the building, which had already lost two stories from the time that Poe dwelled there.

The second (above-ground) floor, houses numerous administrative offices (Development, Alumni Relations, Special Events, Communications, Human Resources and Financial Services).

Later in life, Ms. D'Agostino donated $4 million to support residential scholarship and faculty research; the school responded by naming their new apartment building after her.

This building was renovated in 2009 by Morris Adjmi Architects, has a green wall, and should meet silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

Wilf Hall, at 139 Macdougal Street, houses approximately a dozen of the schools centers, programs and institutes as well as the admissions offices (Graduate and JD).

Per the NYU Law Magazine, it is a "campus destination for faculty, students, and research scholars from an array of disciplines to exchange ideas and, through their work, shape the public discourse around the leading social and political issues of the day."