The year 1945, which is assumed to be the date of the establishment of the University of Lodz, was the culmination of many decades of efforts to establish a higher education institution in our city. The foundations of the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Lodz were laid in 1928 by the Institute of Administrative Law, founded by a lawyer, Dr Tadeusz Hilarowicz. Simultaneously with the Institute, a branch of the Free Polish University was established in Lodz. In 1935, the name of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences was changed to the Faculty of Law and Social&Economic Sciences, leaving it with only two faculties: Law and Economics. It was precisely this faculty that was most popular with students from its inception. The first lawyers were taught by lecturers commuting from Warsaw: docent Dr Zygmunt Graliński, docent Dr Włodzimierz Kozubski, Władysław Namysłowski, docent Dr Michał Orzęcki, docent Dr Adam Pragier, as well as from Lodz: Alfred Biły, Dr Witold Czechowicz, Józef Gercz MA, Józef Litwin MA, Jerzy Szreter, Dr Michał Sztykgold. As a result of the Second World War, the academic centres of the capital were devastated, and the Polish academic centres in Lviv and Vilnius were closed down. Many academics found themselves in a very difficult situation. Relatively little damage to the buildings in Lodz and many years of efforts by the local intelligentsia, led to the commencement of lectures in March 1945, although the University of Lodz was still not formally established at that time. It was officially established by a Decree of 24 May 1945. The Decree specified that the University would be comprised of the faculties of humanities, mathematics and natural sciences as well as law and economics.