University of Sydney Law School

The Sydney Law School was inaugurated in 1855. There were only two other faculties in the University at the time, Arts and Medicine. The Law School commenced its work in 1859, but this work in the main was examining rather than teaching for about 30 years.

In 1880, John Henry Challis, a merchant and landowner of Potts Point, NSW, died. Five years after the death of his wife in 1884, the substantial bequest of his real and personal estate began to pass to the University, "to be applied for the benefit of that institution in such manner as the governing body thereof directs". As a result of this bequest, eight University chairs, including those of Law, International Law and Jurisprudence, were founded, together with a number of specific lectureships, several of them in the Faculty.

In 1890, Pitt Cobbett was appointed to the first Chair of Law and became the first Dean of the Faculty. This marked the commencement of the Sydney Law School as we know it today. After Cobbett's resignation in 1910, Mr JB Peden (later Sir John Peden) was appointed to the Chair of Law and became Dean of the Faculty. A second chair was created after World War I, and AH Charteris of the University of Glasgow was appointed Challis Professor of International Law and Jurisprudence.

The earliest lectures in the Law School, before Cobbett's arrival from England, were given on the second or the top floor of an old building called Wentworth Court, which ran from Phillip to Elizabeth Streets on the site of the former Government Insurance Office. Soon after Professor Cobbett's arrival in 1890, the Law School, with its 14 students and teaching staff of five, four of whom were part-time lecturers, moved a few doors along Phillip Street to the premises that Sir John Peden, writing in 1940, described as 'attractive quarters' in what used to be the Australian Pioneers' Club at No. 173. In 1896 the Law School moved across Phillip Street to No. 174 Selbourne Chambers, a three-storey building on the site of the present Selbourne Chambers. It remained there until 1913, when it moved for a year to a 'cramped and noisy' upper floor in Martin Place, while Wigram Chambers (No. 167 Phillip Street) and Barristers' Court (to the rear, facing Elizabeth Street), both of which the University had recently purchased, were being converted into University Chambers for the Law School and tenants. Some time later, Barristers Court was resumed and demolished for the widening of Elizabeth Street, and in 1936 the University purchased all that remained of the original site. On this block, a 13-storey building was erected and opened in 1938. It was joined to the old Phillip Street Building, although the floors were at different levels, and it contained a well-appointed law library occupying three floors. The rest of the space was let. In 1939 there were 288 students and a teaching staff of 17 – two professors and full-time tutor (FC Hutley, later Mr Justice Hutley of the Supreme Court of NSW), and 14 part-time lecturers.

From Sir Bruce Williams' The Law School Shift: The Faculty has often been commonly referred to as the Law School.

Change in departmental structure: Senate noted that the VC had approved the restructure of the Faculty of Law involving the disestablishment of the former Departments of Law and Jurisprudence and the establishment instead of a single academic and administrative unit. [Senate Minutes, 7 December 1998]

As part of the University's strategic planning 2016-2020, Senate decided in December 2015 to reduce the number of faculties from 16 to six, with three additional schools reporting directly to the Provost to come into effect 1 January 2017.  The Faculty of Law was one of these schools. On 12 December 2016 Senate approved the University of Sydney (Governance of Faculties and University Schools Rule) 2016 [new] which under 2.3 (c) established the University of Sydney Law School.  [9. Vice-Chancellor's Report Resolution SEN-16/6-105]

New committee structure requirements for faculty and University schools came into effect from 1 January 2021. On 6 November 2020, Senate approved amendments to the Governance of Faculties and University Schools Rule 2016 (‘GOFUS’) enabling the creation of a consistent faculty/University school committee structure. Under this new rule from 2021, faculties and University schools were required to have the following five core committees:

•    Research Committee

•    Research Education Committee

•    Education Committee

•    Indigenous Strategy and Services Committee, and

•    Work Health and Safety Committee.

If required, faculties and University schools were able to establish up to three optional faculty layer committees to meet local requirements and could also establish sub-committees reporting to the core committees. [Staff News, 9 December 2020]