Paul M. Hebert Law Center

Facade of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center

The Paul M. Hebert Law Center is a law school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, part of the Louisiana State University System and located on the main campus of Louisiana State University.

Because Louisiana is a civil law state, unlike its 49 common law sister states, the curriculum includes both civil law and common law courses, requiring 97 hours for graduation, the most in the United States. In the Fall of 2002, the LSU Law Center became the sole United States law school, and only one of two law schools in the Western Hemisphere, offering a course of study leading to the simultaneous conferring of a J.D. (Juris Doctor), which is the normal first degree in American law schools, and a B.C.L. (Bachelor of Civil Law), which recognizes the training its students receive in both the Common and the Civil Law. As of June 2008, the LSU Law Center will no longer confer the B.C.L., but will confer a Graduate Diploma in Civil Law instead. This is due to a conflict with the Southern Association of Colleges (SACS) over the requirements of a bachelor degree.

The Paul M. Hebert Law Center is an autonomous campus of, rather than a dependent college of, its larger university. This structure has been criticized^{[citation needed]} for impeding the development of joint degree programs and indirectly lowering the university's rankings due to a lowering of aggregate aid to the university system. Its designation as a Law Center, rather than Law School, derives not only from its campus status but from the centralization on its campus of J.D. and post-J.D. programs, foreign and graduate programs, including European programs at the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 School of Law, Lyon, France, and University of Louvain Belgium, and the direction of the Louisiana Law Institute and the Louisiana Judicial College, among other initiatives.

History

The Louisiana State University Law School was founded in 1906 as a whites-only institution. It was ordered desegregated in 1951 by Judge J. Skelly Wright. The Law Center was renamed in honor of Dean Paul M. Hebert [1] (1907-1977), the longest serving Dean of the LSU Law School, serving in that role (with brief interruptions) from 1937 until his death in 1977. One of these interruptions occurred in 1947-1948 when he was appointed as a judge for the United States Military Tribunals in Nuremberg.

Famous alumni

• Walter O. Bigby, State representative and appeals court judge
• John Breaux, United States Senator from Louisiana from 1987 until 2005, lobbyist
• Henry Newton Brown, Jr., Chief Judge, Second Circuit Court of Appeal.
• Ossie Brown (1926-2008), former East Baton Rouge Parish district attorney
• James Carville, American political consultant, commentator and pundit
• James L. Dennis, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit judge
• Edwin Edwards, Four Term Governor of Louisiana. Prisoner. Convicted of extortion, racketeering, and fraud.
• C.B. Forgotston, 1970 J.D., political activist and state government watchdog
• Russell B. Long, American politician who served in the United States Senate from Louisiana from 1948 to 1987
• Gillis W. Long, United States Representative during the 1960s.
• Speedy Oteria Long, United States Representative from 1965 to 1973.
• Patrick Thomson Caffery, United States Representative from 1969 to 1973
• Bennett Johnston Jr., United States Senator from 1972 to 1997.
• J. Lomax "Max" Jordan, Jr., Louisiana State Senator from Lafayette and Acadia parishes, 1992-2000
• Anthony Claude Leach, Jr., United States Representative from 1979-1981.
• James O McCrery, III, United States Representative from 1988 to present.
• John Willard "Jack" Montgomery, Minden attorney and state senator from 1968-1972
• William Henson Moore, United States Representative from 1975 to 1987. Unsuccessful Republican candidate for the United States Senate; Commissioner, Panama Canal Consultative Committee, 1987-1989; Deputy Secretary of Energy, 1989-1992; White House Deputy Chief of Staff, 1992-1993; Professional Advocate.
• Bernette Johnson, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice
• Catherine D. "Kitty" Kimball, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Louisiana
• Tom Stagg, United States District Judge in Shreveport
• Wilbert Joseph "Billy" Tauzin, Jr., Member of the United States House of Representatives from 1980-2005
• Ralph E. Tyson, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana
• John L. Weimer, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of Louisiana
• Henry L. Yelverton, district and appellate court judge based in Lake Charles
• H. Alston Johnson, III, former federal judicial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit

See also

• Joseph T. Bockrath

References

• W. Lee Hargrave. LSU Law: The Louisiana State University Law School from 1906 to 1977. Louisiana State University Press, 2004.

External links

• LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center