Our Notable Alumni

Distinguished New York Law School graduates in public service, business, and the arts

• John Marshall Harlan ’24, United States Supreme Court Justice from 1955 to 1971
• Robert F. Wagner, Class of 1900, U.S. Senator from New York, 1927 to 1949; author of the National Labor Relations Act
• New York City Mayors John F. Hylan, Class of 1897 and John Purroy Mitchel, Class of 1901
• Conrad A. Johnson ’13, an immigrant from Barbados who became the first black Republican alderman in New York City
• Emilio Nuñez ’27, the first Latino judge in New York City
• James S. Watson ’13, a judge and the first African American admitted to membership in the American Bar Association
• Barbara M. Watson ’62, daughter of James S. Watson (above), the first woman to attain the rank of assistant secretary of state of the United States
• Wallace Stevens, Class of 1903, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
• Elmer Rice ’12, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
• Chester Carlson ’39, invented the xerography photocopy process while a law student

Countless New York Law School alumni have started their own firms, some of which rank among the country’s most prominent

• Henry Hurlbut Abbott ’66, of Breed, Abbott & Morgan
• William Parke ’76, of Chadbourne, Parke, Whiteside & Wolff
• Edwin Sunderland ’86, of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Sunderland & Kiendl
• Jacob Scholer ’10, of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler
• Reid Carr ’55, of Kelley, Drye, Warren, Clark, Carr & Ellis
• Albert Milbank ’45 and Walter Hope ’65, of Milbank, Tweed, Hope & Hadley
• Alfred Mudge ’73 of Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander
• Randolph E. Paul ’35 and John R. Wharton ’36, of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
• Alfred Rose ’57, of Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn