Pioneering Chinese Law Students in American Law Schools

Chen Li
J.S.D. Washington University in St. Louis 

Chen Li is a Lee Foundation Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis and Global Associate at National University of Singapore. His current main research interest is in Chinese legal history with a concentration upon early Chinese students' legal education in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. He is currently working on a project to chronicle the story of these early law students' experiences and academic performance in various law schools and programs, and their subsequent impact on reshaping the Chinese Diplomatic Service and creating modern legal education in China in the late 19th and early 20th century.

In this talk, Chen Li will discuss early Chinese students' varied experiences in American law schools, and the Chinese Exclusion Act's pernicious effect on denying early Chinese law graduates to gain admission to the bar in the U.S.