About
Timeline - Looking Back at 40 Years
1980
Inaugural class begins in the historic Yale Club building on W 44th Street in Manhattan
1982
Distinguished scholar and legal educator John S. Bainbridge is named Dean
School moves to Long Island for the fall semester of 1982, the fifth of the school’s existence, occupying a former junior high school building in Huntington. Shortly before a scheduled ABA inspection there was a fire in the main reading room of the library, damaging thousands of books and the floor of the new library.
1983
Provisional ABA accreditation
First annual intramural moot court competition (renamed in 1985 as the Bainbridge Competition)
First graduation for the full-time day class of 1983
1984
First graduation for part-time day and evening programs
1985
First issue of the Touro Law Review is published
1986
Touro Law School renamed Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center
Dean Howard Glickstein begins his tenure
Distinguished Jurist in Residence Program begins - some of the international jurists have included Justice Gabriel Bach, Judge, Supreme Court of Israel & Adolph Eichmann prosecutor; Justice Richard Goldstone, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa; Justice Rosalie Abella, Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada; Justice Robert Shelton French, Chief Justice of Austria, and the Right Honorable Lord Woolf of Barnes, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales
1988
Touro students meet in Washington, D.C. with United States Supreme Court Justice, the Hon. William Brennan
1989
Full ABA accreditation
1990
First annual Bruce K. Gould Award presented for the best book for the past year on law presented to Mordecai Rosenfeld for "The Lament of the Single Practitioner - Essays on the Law". Other distinguished recipients include US Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Sandra Day O'Connor, US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Alumni Association holds its first Winter Alumni reception in NYC
The Legal Education Access Program (LEAP) is established
1991
Pioneer Long Island attorneys Sidney R. and Walter Siben establish the first endowed scholarship
Distinguished Public Interest Lawyer in Residence Program established, the inaugural recipient is Arthur Kinoy, Center for Constitutional Rights
1993
First Summer Abroad Program Launched in Moscow, Russia
1994
AALS membership
Justice Antonin Scalia visits as Distinguished Jurist in Residence
Bruce K. Gould ’84 establishes the first endowed faculty chair
First graduating class to complete the groundbreaking Public Interest Law Perspective requirement
LLM in American Legal Studies for foreign law graduates established
1997
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg visits as Distinguished Jurist in Residence
School purchases 16 acres of state land in Central Islip, NY – first step toward new campus
1999
First-ever Capital Campaign kicks off with an initial $2M gift from Shirly Fuchsberg, followed by another $2M gift from the Gould family to name the library
General LLM degree established
2000
The final design for new Central Islip building completed
2001
Touro Law hosts Milton Handler Conference on Legal Education
2002
Internationally acclaimed Simon Bond International Wansee Seminar: Tyranny, Justice and the Law: The Nazis and Beyond is held in Berlin, Germany
2004
Howard Glickstein becomes Dean Emeritus
Former Creighton Law Dean Lawrence Raful named Dean
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor Receives the Gould Book Award
2005
Groundbreaking of new campus in Central Islip
Touro produces the International Conference, Judging Nuremberg: The Laws, The Rallies, The Trials with visits to Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg and Dachau in Munich. The video Hitler’s Courts is produced as a result of the Conference and distributed with a study guide throughout the United States
2007
United States Senator Charles Schumer and Judith Kaye, Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals participate in dedication ceremony for new Law School building in Central Islip
William Randolph Hearst Public Advocacy Center (PAC) opens – first such Center in the Country. First classes were held in January.
Capital Campaign ends, having raised more than $15m
2010
US Supreme Court Justice John Roberts welcomes Touro alumni sworn into the Supreme Court Bar at a ceremony in Washington DC
2011
Touro produces Persecution through Prosecution, Alfred Dreyfus, Leo Frank and the Infernal Machine – a 3-day international conference in Paris
2012
Albany Law Professor, Administrator and prolific author Patricia Salkin named first female dean
2013
The Long Island Community Justice Center opens first legal incubator on Long Island providing affordable legal services to the community and offering training and mentoring to grads in solo and small firm practice.
Disaster Relief Clinic launched to assist community members with legal problems arising from Hurricane Sandy
Justice Sonia Sotomayor is Gould award recipient
2014
Second endowed chair named at Touro Law – The Kermit Gitenstein Chair in Health Law and Policy
First annual National Moot Court Competition in Law & Religion
Law and Society: The Jews of Shanghai, a 3-day international conference in Shanghai, China, cosponsored by the SUIBE Law School of Shanghai on the 70th Anniversary of the survival of Jewish refugees in Shanghai.
1st Annual Scholarship Dinner to celebrate named scholarships with student recipients and donors.
2015
$10M + raised from 2012-2015 for student scholarships, Institutes, Clinics and Programs
2016
Davis Polk partner Harry Ballan named Dean
2017
Office of Diversity & Inclusion formed
2018
FlexTime Program launched
2019
Nationally known lawyer and educator Elena B. Langan named Dean
2020
Classes move to fully remote in response to global pandemic (March)