The Valley

Lincoln Law School of San Jose is a private, non-profit law school in San Jose, California. It is an independent institution, formerly a part of Lincoln University. The school traces its roots to 1919 when Dr. Benjamin Lickey and his wife Susan Lickey founded a law study program in San Francisco as a way to provide veterans and working-class students a part-time night school for law studies.

The school also has been instrumental in increasing the diversity of the legal profession in California; 1932 graduate Kenneth Fung, the first Chinese American to be admitted to practice law in the state.

The school was incorporated in 1926 as a part of Lincoln University and located in San Francisco, becoming a non-profit institution in 1949. In 1961, a second law school campus was opened in San Jose, graduating its first class in 1965. By 1987, Lincoln University's entire law school program was concentrated in San Jose. In 1993, the San Jose campus formally separated from Lincoln University becoming an independent, public benefit, non-profit corporation, changing its name to Lincoln Law School of San Jose. The school moved to downtown San Jose in 1999. In 2000, the 25-year-old Peninsula University School of Law merged into Lincoln Law School.