The Four-Year Course—A Brief Statement Concerning Its Content and the Reasons for the Change

Effective with the class entering the University of Washington Law School in the autumn quarter of 1938, the law course has been lengthened from three to four years. The plan was approved by the Board of Regents at their meeting on Saturday, January 15th, 1938. It is has been obvious for a long time that a lengthening of the standard law course was inevitable, and we have concluded that it is not wise to defer it longer. Our purpose is to bring the standards and requirements of the school into line with the necessities of present day conditions.

For approximately a half century the standard law course has been fixed at three years. But during that period there has been not only a tremendous development in what may be roughly called the old fields of the law, but there have been created and are, of course, in the process of continual development, many new and important fields or branches of the law with respect to which, we are convinced, the average practitioner of the future ought to receive some training and instruction.