The names of seven former professors in the Harvard Law School, who were eminent as well in the shaping of American legal tradition, have recently been carved on the marble slab which extends below the roof of the new Langdell Hall addition. The names on the West side are Story, Greenleaf, Parsons, and on the East side, Gray, Ames, Thayer, Smith. They were chosen by Dean Roscoe Pound for their contributions to legal education.

Joseph Story in Supreme Court

Joseph Story (1779-1845) was Dane Professor of Law from 1829 to 1845. He was one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1813 to 1845. His treatises, published between 1832 and 1845, on different subjects of commercial law, on conflict of laws, on equity, and on constituional law, had much to do with the shaping of American law in its formative period. Story is one of the great figures in American judicial history, as well as in American law writing and law teaching.

Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853) was Royall Professor from 1833 to 1846, and Dane Professor, succeeding Story, from 1846 to 1848. The time when story and Greenleaf were associated in teaching is reckoned as one of the great periods in the school's history. Greenleaf's "Treatise on Evidence", embodying the results of his teaching of that subject in the school, was for a long time the standard work upon the subject, and is still an authority.

Parsons a Dane Professor

Theophilus Parsons (1797-1882) was Dane Professor of Law, succeeding Greenleaf, from 1848 to 1870. His "Treatise on Contracts", published originally in 1853, went through nine editions and was the standard treatise upon the subject until the publication of Professor Samuel Williston's '82 great book in 1920. The time when Parsons taught in association with Joel Parker and Emory Washburn is reckoned as another great period in the school's history.

John Chipman Gray (1839-1915) was in point of time the first of the great teachers who made the reputation of the school under Langdell and Ames. He taught in the school for 43 years. 41 of them consecutively. Beginning as a lecturer in 1869, in 1875 he became Story Professor, and was Royall Professor from 1883 to 1913. He was the leading authority on the law of real property of his generation, and his books on "The Rule Against Perpetuities", and on "Restraints on the Alienation of Property", are among the classics of the law.

James Barr Ames (1846-1910) became assistant professor of Law in 1873. Professor in 1877, Bussey Professor in 1879, and Dane Professor in 1903. In 1895 he succeeded Langdell as Dean. The time when he with Gray and Thayer were teaching at the school under Langdell is reckoned as another great period in the school's history.

James Bradley Thayer (1831-1902) became Royall Professor in 1873 and Weld Professor in 1883. His great work was done in constitutional law and the law of evidence, in both of which fields he left a conspicuous mark.

Jeremiah Smith (1837-1921) was one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire from 1867 to 1874. In 1890 he became Story Professor, retiring in 1910. Through his teaching, and the teaching of his pupils, he exercised a distinct influence upon the development of the law of torts.