The school was founded by Benjamin Franklin Butler, the United States Attorney General, at the request of the Council of the New York University. Butler submitted to the chancellor of the university, James M. Mathews, a "Plan for the organization of a law faculty in the University of the City of New York," which defined a three-year course of study. This plan was formally accepted by the university council on June 2, 1835, marking the inception of the school of law. Instruction began, and Butler was elected the school's first principal professor in March 1838. The curriculum he instituted was the first in the country to teach law using the "course method," which came to be adopted as the standard for legal education in the United States.