Book Talk and Signing Sponsored by the Supreme Court of Louisiana Historical Society

A Book Talk and Signing by Professor Maria Isabel Medina, author of LOYOLA UNIVERSITY NEW ORLEANS COLLEGE OF LAW: A History, was held on Thursday, October 20, 2016 at Octavia Books in New Orleans, and sponsored by the Supreme Court of Louisiana Historical Society.

Maria Isabel Medina’s chronicle of Loyola University New Orleans College of Law examines the prominent Jesuit institution across its hundred-year history, from its founding in 1914 through the first decade of the twenty-first century. With a mission to make the legal profession attainable to Catholics, and other working-class persons, Loyola’s law school endured the hardships of two world wars, the Great Depression, the tumult of the civil rights era, and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to emerge as a leader in legal education in the state.

Exploring the history of the college within a larger examination of the legal profession in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana, Medina provides details on Loyola’s practical and egalitarian approach to education. As a result of the school’s principled focus, Loyola was the first law school in the state to offer a law school clinic, develop a comprehensive program of legal-skills training, and to voluntarily integrate African Americans into the student body.

The transformative milestones of Loyola University New Orleans College of Law parallel pivotal points in the history of the Crescent City, demonstrating how local culture and environment can contribute to the longevity of an academic institution and making Loyola University New Orleans College of Law a valuable contribution to the study of legal education.

Maria Isabel Medina is Ferris Family Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. She writes in the area of gender, immigration and constitutional law and her articles have appeared in the Connecticut Law Review, the George Mason Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal, the Louisiana Law Review and the Harvard Latino Law Journal. Her publications include Migration Law in the United States (Kluwer 2016) and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law:  A History (LSU Press 2016).  She contributed a feminist rewriting of the US Supreme Court case Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales in Linda Berger, Bridget Crawford, and Kathy Stanchi, editors,U.S. Feminist Judgments (Cambridge University Press 2016).