The Temple University’s Beasley School of Law has been granted a charter to establish a chapter of the Order of the Coif, a prestigious honor society that has been around for more than a century. The law school’s Dean JoAnne Epps said, “This is fantastic news for our students and well-deserved recognition of our faculty’s commitment to excellence, particularly in scholarship.”
The Order of the Coif was established in the U.S. in 1902 as a national legal education honor society. The history of the society began with a tradition in the medieval era, when distinguished lawyers were entitled to the right to wear the coif, the wig or head-covering associated with an English barrister or medieval gentry. Members of the order were the only ones appointed to certain legal positions in medieval times, and in some cases, were the only people admitted to practice in certain courts.
Today, in US, the Order of the Coif exists to recognize those law students and lawyers who have distinguished themselves through a commitment to excellence and have set themselves apart in this very competitive field.
According to a statement made by the Beasley School of Law, only universities whose law school faculties have established a “record of encouraging excellence among their students, fostering a spirit of careful study, and supporting their students’ pursuit of high quality scholarship” are allowed to form a local chapter.
In forming a local chapter, law school students at Temple who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class would be invited to become full-fledged members of the order.
Epps wrote, “’I’m also pleased about Temple’s membership in the Order because I think it is an affirmation of our core philosophy that academic scholarship and experiential learning share a deeply reciprocal relationship … It’s not just that both are necessary for a legal education to be complete; it’s that they need each other to reach their full potential in the practice of law.”
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