Demetrios Anaipakos

Stanford University, located between San Francisco and San Jose in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, is one of the world's leading teaching and research universities. Since its opening in 1891, Stanford has been dedicated to finding solutions to big challenges and to preparing students for leadership in a complex world.

Stanford began offering a curriculum in legal studies in 1893, when the university engaged its first two law professors. One was Benjamin Harrison, former President of the United States, who delivered a landmark series of lectures on the Constitution. The other was Nathan Abbott, who served as head of the nascent law program. Abbott assembled a small faculty to which he imparted a standard of rigor and excellence that endures to this day.In an effort to acknowledge the emerging professional nature of the department, Stanford's Board of Trustees passed a resolution in 1908 to substitute the term 'law school' for 'law department,' though technically the law program remained a department within the university.The law school was at the forefront of efforts to institute the California Bar exam, which was added to the requirements to practice law in California in 1919. The law school was accredited by the American Bar Association in 1923, the year the ABA began certifying law schools.