History

The sun shining through the stone arch to Hearn Plaza on the Wake Forest campus.
Gavel on table in front of American flag and North Carolina State flag in the North Carolina Business Court at the Wake Forest School of Law.
Worrell Professional Center Building, home to Wake Forest Law, with a bright blue partly cloudy sky in the background.

What began in 1894 as a fledgling department within Wake Forest College has grown into the prominent and highly-ranked Wake Forest University School of Law, one of the top law schools in the country.

In 1956, the University, including the Law School, relocated from Wake Forest, North Carolina to Winston-Salem. Thirty-seven years later, the Law School moved to its new space at the Worrell Professional Center, which it shared with the School of Business until 2013. In 2017, the Law School became home to the newest North Carolina Business Court, which is still housed at Worrell today.

Beginning with the 1905 appointment of Needham Yancey Gulley as the first dean of the Law School, Wake Forest Law’s tradition of exceptional leadership has persisted throughout the years, as has its reputation for outstanding teaching, scholarship, and service.

In keeping with the University’s motto of Pro Humanitate, the Wake Forest University School of Law has continued to build on its legacy of developing not just lawyers, but “citizen lawyers,” who will have a positive impact at the local, state, national, and international levels.

To learn more, visit the WFU Timeline at ZSR Library, Special Collections & Archives.