Supreme Court Justices by Law School

Where all 116 justices learned the law — and why nearly half of them never saw a law school classroom.

The Short Answer

Harvard Law School has trained more Supreme Court justices than any other — 19 in all (17 with degrees). Yale is second with 11, Columbia third with 5. But the deeper story is that 45 of the 116 justices never attended law school at all — for the Court's first six decades, justices learned the law as apprentices, "reading law" in a practicing attorney's office.

Which law school has produced the most Supreme Court justices?

Harvard Law School, by a wide margin: 19 justices trained there (17 earned degrees; the rest attended without graduating). Yale Law School is second with 11, and Columbia Law School third with 5.

How many Supreme Court justices never went to law school?

45 of the 116 justices — including John Marshall, whose entire formal legal education was about six weeks of lectures. Before the Civil War, aspiring lawyers "read law" as apprentices in a practicing attorney's office; the law degree only became the standard route in the twentieth century.

Where did the current Supreme Court justices go to law school?

Four went to Harvard Law School (Roberts, Kagan, Gorsuch, Jackson), four to Yale Law School (Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh), and one — Amy Coney Barrett — to Notre Dame Law School, making her the only sitting justice without an Ivy League law degree.

Who was the first Supreme Court justice with a law degree?

Benjamin R. Curtis (appointed 1851), who earned his degree at Harvard Law School in 1832 — where he studied under a sitting Supreme Court justice, Joseph Story. Every justice before him read law as an apprentice or trained at London’s Inns of Court.

Who was the last Supreme Court justice without a law degree?

Robert H. Jackson (appointed 1941), who completed a one-year certificate at Albany Law School but never received a degree — and went on to become the chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg. Stanley Reed (appointed 1938) also attended law schools without taking a degree.

The Full Ranking

#Law SchoolJusticesDegrees
1Harvard Law School1917
2Yale Law School117
3Columbia Law School54
4University of Michigan Law School31
5Cincinnati Law School22
6Cumberland School of Law22
7Northwestern University School of Law22
8Stanford Law School22
9Albany Law School21
10University of Virginia School of Law21
11Washington and Lee University School of Law21
12Litchfield Law School20
13Middle Temple (Inns of Court, London)20
14Centre College law department11
15Howard University School of Law11
16Indiana University School of Law11
17New York Law School11
18Notre Dame Law School11
19St. Paul College of Law11
20UC Berkeley School of Law11
21University of Alabama School of Law11
22University of Colorado School of Law11
23University of Kansas City School of Law11
24University of Pennsylvania Law School11
25University of Texas School of Law11
26Benicia Collegiate Institute10
27College of William & Mary (Wythe's law lectures)10
28Transylvania University10
—No law school — read law / self-taught450

Every Justice, School by School

Harvard Law School · 19

Benjamin R. Curtis1851–1857Horace Gray1882–1902Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.1902–1932Louis D. Brandeis1916–1939Edward T. Sanford1923–1930Felix Frankfurter1939–1962Harold H. Burton1945–1958William J. Brennan Jr.1956–1990Harry A. Blackmun1970–1994Antonin Scalia1986–2016Anthony M. Kennedy1988–2018David H. Souter1990–2009Stephen G. Breyer1994–2022John G. Roberts Jr.2005–presentElena Kagan2010–presentNeil M. Gorsuch2017–presentKetanji Brown Jackson2022–presentMelville W. Fuller1888–1910attendedWilliam H. Moody1906–1910attended

Yale Law School · 11

Potter Stewart1958–1981Byron R. White1962–1993Abe Fortas1965–1969Clarence Thomas1991–presentSamuel A. Alito Jr.2006–presentSonia Sotomayor2009–presentBrett M. Kavanaugh2018–presentDavid Davis1862–1877attendedWilliam Strong1870–1880attendedHenry B. Brown1891–1906attendedGeorge Shiras Jr.1892–1903attended

Columbia Law School · 5

Charles Evans Hughes1910–1916Harlan Fiske Stone1925–1941William O. Douglas1939–1975Ruth Bader Ginsburg1993–2020Benjamin N. Cardozo1932–1938attended

University of Michigan Law School · 3

Frank Murphy1940–1949William R. Day1903–1922attendedGeorge Sutherland1922–1938attended

Cincinnati Law School · 2

Willis Van Devanter1911–1937William Howard Taft1921–1930

Cumberland School of Law · 2

Howell E. Jackson1893–1895Horace H. Lurton1910–1914

Northwestern University School of Law · 2

Arthur J. Goldberg1962–1965John Paul Stevens1975–2010

Stanford Law School · 2

William H. Rehnquist1972–1986Sandra Day O'Connor1981–2006

Albany Law School · 2

David J. Brewer1890–1910Robert H. Jackson1941–1954attended

University of Virginia School of Law · 2

James C. McReynolds1914–1941Stanley F. Reed1938–1957attended

Washington and Lee University School of Law · 2

Lewis F. Powell Jr.1972–1987Joseph R. Lamar1911–1916attended

Litchfield Law School · 2

Levi Woodbury1845–1851attendedWard Hunt1873–1882attended

Middle Temple (Inns of Court, London) · 2

John Rutledge1790–1791John Blair Jr.1790–1795

Centre College law department · 1

Fred M. Vinson1946–1953

Howard University School of Law · 1

Thurgood Marshall1967–1991

Indiana University School of Law · 1

Sherman Minton1949–1956

New York Law School · 1

John Marshall Harlan II1955–1971

Notre Dame Law School · 1

Amy Coney Barrett2020–present

St. Paul College of Law · 1

Warren E. Burger1969–1986

UC Berkeley School of Law · 1

Earl Warren1953–1969

University of Alabama School of Law · 1

Hugo L. Black1937–1971

University of Colorado School of Law · 1

Wiley B. Rutledge1943–1949

University of Kansas City School of Law · 1

Charles E. Whittaker1957–1962

University of Pennsylvania Law School · 1

Owen J. Roberts1930–1945

University of Texas School of Law · 1

Tom C. Clark1949–1967

Benicia Collegiate Institute · 1

Joseph McKenna1898–1925attended

College of William & Mary (Wythe's law lectures) · 1

John Marshall1801–1835attended

Transylvania University · 1

John Marshall Harlan1877–1911attended

Read law / self-taught · 45

The apprenticeship era: every justice appointed before 1851, and many after, learned the law in a practicing attorney's office rather than a classroom.

John Jay1789–1795William Cushing1790–1810James Wilson1789–1798James Iredell1790–1799Thomas Johnson1792–1793William Paterson1793–1806Samuel Chase1796–1811Oliver Ellsworth1796–1800Bushrod Washington1798–1829Alfred Moore1800–1804William Johnson1804–1834Henry Brockholst Livingston1807–1823Thomas Todd1807–1826Gabriel Duvall1811–1835Joseph Story1812–1845Smith Thompson1823–1843Robert Trimble1826–1828John McLean1829–1861Henry Baldwin1830–1844James M. Wayne1835–1867Roger B. Taney1836–1864Philip P. Barbour1836–1841John Catron1837–1865John McKinley1838–1852Peter V. Daniel1842–1860Samuel Nelson1845–1872Robert C. Grier1846–1870John A. Campbell1853–1861Nathan Clifford1858–1881Noah H. Swayne1862–1881Samuel F. Miller1862–1890Stephen J. Field1863–1897Salmon P. Chase1864–1873Joseph P. Bradley1870–1892Morrison R. Waite1874–1888William B. Woods1881–1887Stanley Matthews1881–1889Samuel Blatchford1882–1893Lucius Q.C. Lamar1888–1893Edward D. White1894–1910Rufus W. Peckham1896–1909Mahlon Pitney1912–1922John H. Clarke1916–1922Pierce Butler1923–1939James F. Byrnes1941–1942

Methodology

Each justice is credited to the law school where they principally trained. "Attended" marks justices who studied at a law school without taking a degree (common in the nineteenth century, when a few months of lectures supplemented office apprenticeship). John Rutledge and John Blair trained at London's Middle Temple — the Inns of Court, the closest thing the English-speaking world then had to a law school — and are grouped there. Justices who learned entirely by apprenticeship or self-study appear under "read law." Details and sources are on each justice's profile page.