1950: The Florida Bar is founded in 1950.
1950: Grace "Betty" Taylor begins service to UF Law as legal librarian.
1954: Lawton Chiles, Florida's "He-Coon," hired as student law library assistant
1955: Stephen C. O'Connell is appointed to the Florida Supreme Court.
1955: The scholarly professional organization, Order of the Coif, is established at UF Law.
1958: Frank E. Maloney is appointed dean of UF Law (1959-1970).
1958: George H. Starke Jr. is admitted as the University of Florida's first black law student.
1959: UF Law Celebrates 50 Years!Click on the images in the film strip to navigate events in the decade.
The 1950s was a decade of can-do optimism and growing American affluence, and it brought social changes that would reverberate for generations — the most transformative included desegregation, the first wave of Baby Boomers, and an Interstate system that redistributed Florida’s traditional population centers and accompanying political clout. UF Law grew and flourished in the new-found prosperity of the era, and it graduated some of its most influential alumni.