 Before the advent of modern law schools in the United States , justices , like most attorneys of the time , completed their legal studies by " reading law " ( studying under and acting as an apprentice to more experienced attorneys ) rather than attending a formal program . The first justice to be appointed who had attended an actual law school was Levi Woodbury , appointed to the Court in 1846 . Woodbury had attended Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield , Connecticut , the most prestigious law school in the United States in that day , prior to his admission to the bar in 1812 . However , Woodbury did not earn a law degree . Woodbury 's successor on the Court , Benjamin Robbins Curtis , who received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1832 , and was appointed to the Court in 1851 , was the first Justice to bear such a credential . 
