Paul Tractenberg

A Centennial History of Rutgers Law School in Newark: Opening a Thousand Doors

In A Centennial History of Rutgers Law School in Newark: Opening a Thousand Doors, Professor Tractenberg and the students in his Centennial Seminar class chronicle the law school's century-long evolution from a private, profit-making establishment to a public institution of higher learning that has prominently shaped legal doctrine in New Jersey and the United States. Present for 40 of its 100 years serving as a law school professor, Tractenberg has helped shape the law school's rich culture of ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, social justice and public service. The subtitle of the book, Opening a Thousand Doors, is taken from remarks made by Elizabeth Warren, an alumna of the law school ('76) and a Harvard law professor who, in 2008, was appointed to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel, the body overseeing the expenditure of the federal $700 billion bailout funds. Warren expressed her deep appreciation for the law school because it "took a poor kid from Oklahoma and kicked open a thousand doors for me."

Tractenberg, who is Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor and Alfred C. Clapp Distinguished Public Service Professor of Law, is writing another book scheduled for publication in 2011 entitled New Jersey Goes A-Courting: 10 Legal Cases That Shook the Nation.