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We invite you to join with us in the Centennial Campaign that seeks to retain and enhance the very things that made your law school days a life-changing experience.
— Allan W. Vestal, Dean, UK College of Law

Our Vision

A Promising Future
Looking toward our second century, the College seeks to become one of the nation’s best public law schools and serve as a cornerstone of the University’s efforts to become one of the country’s top 20 public research universities.

As we celebrate our first 100 years, we are committed to assuring that everything that made your law school experience great will not change in our next 100 years: the importance of a well-rounded legal education; strong relationships between faculty and students; and accessibility of a legal education to students from all corners of our state and all backgrounds.

Starting in 2008, we will celebrate the College of Law’s centenary anniversary in an atmosphere of intellectual excitement and with a community confident that we are making an important contribution to the University and the Commonwealth. The key to this celebration is our new home.

A Proud Past
In September 1908, with only two blackboards, a few textbooks and a copy of the Kentucky Code and Statutes, the University of Kentucky College of Law began training its first 28 students. Under the leadership of our first dean, William T. Lafferty, the College was on the cutting edge of legal education – offering a holistic legal curriculum that prepared young attorneys for the practice of law. At a time when legal educators struggled to meld legal theory with legal practice in the classroom, the College established one of the nation’s first law school trial practice programs.

As the Commonwealth’s preeminent law school and one of the nation’s first state law schools, our graduates include five of the Commonwealth’s last twelve governors; senators and representatives in the U.S. Congress; leaders in the Commonwealth’s Legislature and justices and judges in the state and federal judiciary. Our graduates lead major law firms and corporations, hold faculty positions at respected law schools across the nation and are influential community leaders.

The Centennial Campaign

Launched in May 2007, the Centennial Campaign is designed to secure resources for the construction of the new Law Quad, to increase monies available for financial aid and to increase resources available for faculty. The Campaign is the largest fundraising effort in the College’s history and will span five years and seek a total of $18,000,000 in gifts and commitments.

The Campaign has three goals.

Priority / Goal
Law Quad / $15 million
Support for Students / $2 million
Support for Faculty & Academics / $1 million
The New Law Quad
In the Fall of 2012, the UK College of Law will move to its new home, a spacious group of six contiguous buildings set around three courtyards. The new Law Quad will mark a great leap forward for the College and ensure the traditions of our first 100 years last through our next century.

For additional information on the new Law Quad, please visit http://www.uky.edu/Law/newbuilding.html

Support for Students
One of our many unique features is that we have offer a first-tier legal education at a comparatively low cost. This makes it possible for students of all walks of life to afford a legal education. Tuition, however, continues to rise. Kentucky residents now pay almost three times as much as students did 10 years ago, which is beginning to limit the number of students we are able to offer financial assistance. In order to ensure a law degree remains accessible, we seek to raise $2,000,000 in financial aid.

Support for Faculty and Academic Programs
Oberst. Ham. Lawson. Bratt. Teaching remains at the core of the College’s mission and tradition. Eight members of the law faculty are named among the University’s Great Teachers. Our professors have published not only scholarly articles but treatises and textbooks. Our faculty represent a variety of educational backgrounds with degrees from such national law schools as Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Michigan and Texas. They bring to their teaching and scholarship a wealth of experience in judicial clerkships, private and public practice.

Faculty excellence can be supported through the award of endowed faculty chairs and professorships. These awards provide immediate prestige to donors and to the College, and provide significant recognition of teaching and scholarly excellence to the recipient. As part of the Centennial Campaign, we seek $1,000,000 to support faculty and their teaching and research endeavors.

You Can Make a Difference

You serve your county bar. Sit in corporate board rooms. Walk the halls of Congress. Aid the disadvantaged. Influence the creation, interpretation and application of law. You make a difference. And your journey started here at the College of Law.
— Allan W. Vestal, Dean, UK College of Law

Our past 100 years of excellence was made possible through the generous support of our graduates and friends. We ask that you consider stepping forward now in support of our future.

However you direct your gift, whether for the new Law Quad or to support students and faculty, all levels of gifts will be greatly appreciated and prudently used. Contributions may be fulfilled over a term of five years and will be applied toward membership as a Lafferty Society Fellow at the College of Law and the Fellows Society of the University of Kentucky.

For more information about making a gift, naming opportunities, and gift recognition, please contact Tom Hoffman, Assistant Dean of Development for the UK College of Law at 859-257-6725 or thoff2@email.uky.edu or Shawn Ray, Major Gifts Officer for the UK College of Law at 859-257-3370 or smray3@email.uky.edu.

Giving Opportunities
There are a variety of ways in which you may contribute. Options include the following.

Cash
Cash is often the most convenient form of giving. Cash gifts are fully deductible for federal income tax purposes, provided deductions are itemized. A cash gifts can be made by writing a check or authorizing a charge on your credit card. To make a cash gift online, please visit https://iweb.uky.edu/giveonline

Pledges
Pledges enable a donor to plan a personal giving program that is both convenient and tax-wise. A pledge may enable a donor to consider a more significant gifts than would have been otherwise possible as giving obligations can be fulfilled over a period of five years.

To make a pledge online, please visit https://iweb.uky.edu/giveonline/pledge.htm

If you prefer to make a cash gift or pledge through the mail, please click here to download a PDF of our pledge card. Pledge Card (PDF Format)

Securities
Securities may be transferred as outright gift s or as a payment on a pledge. Stock certificates may be reassigned directly to the UK College of Law or may be transferred through the donor’s broker. The mean market value on the date of the transfer will determine the value of the gift for tax purposes. It is best to consult with a Development Officer before a transaction is made. Donors with fully-appreciated stocks will find that this approach can significantly reduce capital gains taxes.

Planned Gifts
In certain instances, it may be preferable from an estate, financial or tax planning perspective to consider long-term planned giving as the best way to make a gift. This can be accomplished through various gift instruments, such as charitable remainder trusts, gift annuities, charitable lead trusts, life insurance and bequests. Depending on your personal circumstances, the gift you make could ease your tax burden and increase income for you and your heirs.

For more information on making a online gift of securities or planned gift, please visit https://iweb.uky.edu/giveonline/

For more information, please contact:
Tom Hoffman
Assistant Dean of Development
UK College of Law
859.257-6725
thoff2@email.uky.edu

Campaign News

Please check back for important news about the Centennial Campaign.

The Centennial Campaign Committee

Honorary Chair
Robert G. Lawson ’63, Lexington

Co-Chairs
Charles S. Cassis ’63, Louisville
Hon. James E. Keller ’65, Lexington
James E. Rogers ’74, Charlotte, NC

Members
Governor Steven L. Beshear ’66, Lexington
C. Michael Buxton ’71, Washington, D.C.
Hon. Jennifer B. Coffman ’78, Lexington
Marie A. Cull ’79, Frankfort
William H. Cull ’77, Frankfort
Charles E. English ’60, Bowling Green
C. Edward Glasscock ’69, Louisville
James G. Harralson ’79, Atlanta
John T. McGarvey ’73, Louisville
Orson Oliver ’68, Louisville
J. Michael Peffer ’86, Lexington
Hon. Tanya G. Pullin ’86, South Shore ex officio
William T. Robinson III, Esq. ’71, Covington
Robert D. Vance ’68, Maysville

Shortcuts

- Our Vision
- The Centennial Campaign

- You Can Make a Difference
- Campaign News
- The Centennial Campaign Committee

 

 
 


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TIMELINE:

1908
The University of Kentucky College of Law opens its doors to its first 28 students in September. They are housed in two rooms in Frazee Hall, then the Education Building.

1910
Then a two-year program, the College graduates its first class of students. A few weeks before graduation, the College moves into the top floor of Miller Hall.

1913
The Kentucky Law Journal, the tenth-oldest student-run law review, is founded.

1916
Under the leadership of the College’s first dean, William T. Lafferty, the College establishes one of the nation’s first law school trial programs now modeled by every law school in the country.

1917
Lena Madesin Phillips is the first female to graduate from the College – the only honors graduate in her class of 14 men. She goes on to be the founder and president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Inc. and is a senior member of the New York law firm Phillips and Muffs.

1926
The growing College moves into today’s Gillis Building next door to the Main Building.

1937
The College moves into its newly built home – Lafferty Hall.

1940s
After graduating a class of four students in 1944, the College graduates its largest class ever – 76 students – in 1948. The following year 83 students graduate. Professors like Paul Oberst teach 4-5 classes each semester as the College seeks to handle the sudden volume of students returning from World War II.

1955
Ollen B. Hinnant, Jr. is the first African-American to graduate from the UK College of Law.

1965
The College moves into its current location on South Limestone close to Memorial Hall.

1966
Professor Robert Lawson joins the College faculty.

1968
The UK Black Law Student Association is founded.

1970
The infamous orange carpet is installed in the law library to cut down on sound reverberation from the tile floor.

1977
William James, Associate Professor of Law and Law Librarian, is the first African American faculty member of the College.

1978
A major addition to the current law school building expands the library and adds new classrooms and faculty offices.

1984
Carolyn Bratt becomes the first female full professor on the College’s faculty.

1985
One of the first Colleges to adopt the new technology university wide, the College orders 10 IBM-PCs for the College’s faculty and staff. Unless they had their own electronic resources, students are required to write assignments long-hand and have them typed.

1997
Under the leadership of Professor Allison Connelly, the UK Legal Clinic opens its doors as an elder law clinic. In 1999, it expands representation to a general civil law clinic.

1999
Forty-two years after her father Robert Harding graduated with the Class of 1957, Roberta Harding becomes the first female African-American full professor on the College’s faculty.

2003
The College tests a program that allows students to type their final exams on their laptops. Today almost all exams are given electronically.

2006
The College’s Black Law Student Association places second in the nation in the Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial National Competition.

2008
The Centennial Celebration begins with the 100th anniversary of the first class of the University of Kentucky College of Law.