UB Law’s famed legal historian headlines the fall Mitchell Lecture
Prof. John Henry Schlegel to speak on the evolution of legal education
One of UB School of Law’s oldest traditions will feature one of its most familiar—and most thought-provoking—voices.
This fall’s James McCormick Mitchell Lecture will be delivered by Professor John Henry Schlegel, whose talk, “Reflections on Legal Education and the Post-War Middle Class,” promises a historically rich exploration of how American legal education has evolved alongside shifting social class dynamics.
Drawing on decades of scholarship and experience, Schlegel will revisit the foundational moments of legal pedagogy—from Langdell’s case method to the rise of Legal Realism—and offer a compelling argument for why class, often overlooked, must be part of the story. The lecture will be held on Nov. 14 in the Charles B. Sears Law Library beginning at 2:30 p.m., followed by a panel discussion and a reception celebrating Schlegel’s more than 50 years of distinguished scholarship and service. The event is free and open to the public.
Prof. John Henry Schlegel
Our Mitchell Lecture Speaker
Event Details
Friday, Nov. 14, 2025
Lecture 2:30 p.m. / Panel Discussion 3:30 p.m.
Charles B. Sears Law Library
O’Brian Hall, UB (North Campus)
Free and open to the public.
Following the lecture, please join us as we celebrate Prof. Schlegel on his 50+ years of distinguished teaching and scholarship.
Prof. Paul Linden-Retek
Chair of the Mitchell Lecture Committee
“Professor John Henry Schlegel’s brilliance as a historian—of the American Legal Realists, the Critical Legal Studies movement, the economic development of the United States—is to treat historical writing as a careful, humane and ongoing search for self-criticism,” says Associate Professor Paul Linden-Retek, chair of the Mitchell Lecture Committee. “And if Schlegel’s subjects have been the ambitions and frustrations of American legal scholars as they tussled with social reality, his work casts light, too, on the changing culture of American legal education and on our own ambitions and frustrations.”
Schlegel, who joined the law school faculty in 1973, is a UB Distinguished Professor and holds the endowed position of Floyd H. and Hilda L. Faculty Scholar. His scholarship and teaching have focused on American Legal Realism and economic legal history, with special interest in the redevelopment of Rust Belt cities like Buffalo. His most recent book While Waiting for Rain: Community, Economy and Law in a Time of Change (University of Michigan Press, 2022) was the subject of a special symposium issue of the Buffalo Law Review.
Schlegel describes the topic of the fall lecture in this way: “The history of American legal education … begins with Christopher Columbus Langdell, the first dean of the Harvard Law School, who discovered, not a continent, but case law, the large class and the cold call, and used them to wrestle legal education from practicing lawyers who apparently didn’t understand what they did every day. Thereafter, Legal Realism moved the focus of the classroom from what the case law was to what it should be. … Matters of social class, while not verboten, are seldom adverted to in this story. [The lecture] attempts to repair this historical absence by inserting aspects of class into the story.”
The Mitchell Lecture Series was endowed in 1950 by a gift from Lavinia A. Mitchell in memory of her husband, James McCormick Mitchell. An 1897 graduate of the Buffalo Law School, Mitchell later served as chairman of the Council of the University of Buffalo, which was then a private university.
Mitchell Lecture programs have brought many distinguished speakers to UB Law, including Derrick Bell, Paul Freund, Lawrence Friedman, Carol Gilligan, Sheila Jasanoff, Duncan Kennedy, Karl Llewellyn, Stuart Macaulay, Catharine MacKinnon and Richard Posner.
“The Mitchell Lecture Series aims traditionally to bring distinguished speakers from afar to UB School of Law,” Linden-Retek says. “This fall, we bring a speaker already here nearer still, appreciating his voice to be as cherished as it is distinguished. We invite Schlegel’s colleagues, students and friends—over the span of many years—to come listen, talk and celebrate together.”