Founded in 1959, its first Dean was former Supreme Court of Canada justice, the Honourable Ivan Cleveland Rand, who saw the school as developing "in the minds of its students the habit of thinking in terms of the dynamic tradition, in the broadest sense, of our law."

The current Dean of Law is Erika Chamberlain, former clerk to Supreme Court Justice John C. Major, who began her tenure in May 2017.

[3] The law school is situated in the southwest portion of Western's main campus and is housed in the Josephine Spencer Niblett building.

Pro Bono Students Canada is a national program that started a branch at the University of Western Ontario, Faculty of Law in the 1998–99 academic year.

Law student volunteers complete legal research or other law-related projects for member organizations over the course of the academic year under the supervision of a lawyer mentor.

Students carry their own files, and gain valuable experience in client correspondence, legal research and drafting of pleadings.

Further, students that take upper-year advanced litigation practice courses, also work at CLS for academic credit.

The Sport Solution is a joint project of Athletes CAN and the Dispute Resolution Centre at Western Law.

The program is nationally available and provides assistance in resolving sport-related problems and offers support throughout the dispute resolution process.

Western Law students participate in many intramural sports, competing with other faculty and residence based teams on campus.