The John Randolph Tucker Lectures were established by the Board of Trustees of Washington and Lee University in honor of Mr. Tucker's distinguished service as Professor of Law and first Dean of the School of Law. The initial lectures were delivered in 1949 during the Bicentennial of the University by the Honorable John W. Davis, an 1895 graduate under Dean Tucker. The year 1949 also marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Lexington Law School which became the School of Law of Washington and Lee University.
Though the lectures were established on October 25, 1940, World War II and the accelerated instruction in the years following, delayed their beginning by almost a decade. The initial format was a series of two to three lectures delivered on consecutive days in April or May of each year.
The 1958 event included a colloquy between Arnold Toynbee and John J. McCloy, moderated by President Francis P. Gaines, on "The Role of the Lawyer in a Changing World." By the mid-1960's, the format had become a single lecture still given in the Spring. In the late 1980s, the Lecture was moved to the Fall
| 1949 | John W. Davis | John Randolph Tucker: The Man and His Work |
| 1950 | Arthur T. Vanderbilt | Forensic Persuasion |
| 1951 | John J. Parker | The Significance of the Nurnburg Trials in Establishing a World Order Based on Law |
| 1952 | John Lord O'Brian | Changing Aspects of Freedom |
| 1953 | Joseph C. Hutcheson, Jr. | Law and Liberty Reconciled |
| 1954 | Harold Medina | The Spiritual Quality of Justice |
| 1955 | Robert G. Storey | Current Peril of the Legal Profession |
| 1956 | William T. Gossett | Corporate Citizenship |
| 1957 | F.D.G. Ribble | Policy Making Powers of the United States Supreme Court |
| 1958 | John J. McCloy | The Extracurricular Lawyer. Also a Colloquy between Arnold J. Toynbee and Mr. McCloy, on The Role of the Lawyer in a Changing World |
| 1959 | Whitney North Seymour | Horizons for Young Lawyers Today |
| 1960 | Ross L. Malone | The Lawyer and His Professional Responsibilities |
| 1961 | E. Barrett Prettyman | Three Modern Problems in Criminal Law--The Juvenile, The Indigent, The Incompetent |
| 1962 | Orison S. Marden | Equal Access to Justice: The Challenge and the Opportunity |
| 1963 | Colgate W. Darden, Jr. | Random Thoughts on Government |
| 1964 | John Ritchie | Legal Education in the United States |
| 1965 | Arthur L. Goodhart | Is Our Law Just? |
| 1966 | Lewis F. Powell, Jr. | A Lawyer Looks at Civil Disobedience |
| 1967 | Hardy C. Dillard | Law and Conflict: Some Current Dilemmas |
| 1968 | Albert V. Bryan | For a Swifter Criminal Appeal--To Protect the Public as Well as the Accused |
| 1969 | Charles Alan Wright | Restructuring Federal Jurisdiction: The American Law Institute Proposals |
| 1970 | Huntingdon Cairns | What is Law? |
| 1971 | J. Edward Lumbard | Trial by Jury and Speedy Justice |
| 1972 | Louis B. Sohn | The Impact of Technological Changes on International Law |
| 1973 | Edward H. Levi | The Collective Morality of a Maturing Society |
| 1974 | George D. Gibson | Law in the Coming Years |
| 1975 | Charles L. Black, Jr. | The Presidency and Congress |
| 1976 | Erwin N. Griswold | Equal Justice Under the Law |
| 1977 | Herbert Wechsler | The Appellate Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court: Reflections on the Law and the Logistics of Direct Review |
| 1978 | Paul J. Mishkin | Federal Courts as State Reformers |
| 1979 | Soia Mentschikoff | Decision-Making and Decision-Consensus |
| 1980 | Wade H. McCree, Jr. | Partners in Process: The Academy and the Courts |
| 1981 | Frank I. Michelman | Property as a Constitutional Right |
| 1982 | Benjamin Aaron | Labor Relations in the United States from a Comparative Perspective |
| 1983 | Dr. Eugene Genovese | The Law and Slave Society in the Thought of Antebellum Southern Political Economists |
| 1984 | Arthur S. Miller | Taking Needs Seriously: An Observation on the Necessity for Constitutional Change |
| 1985 | Robert B. Stevens | Tax Dollars and the Idea of a University |
| 1986 | Boris Bittker | Federal Income Tax Reform: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow |
| 1987 | Harry T. Edwards | The Future of Affirmative Action in Employment |
| 1988 | Stanley Fish | Force |
| 1989 | Richard A. Epstein | Race and the Police Power: 1890-1937 |
| 1990 | Thomas D. Morgan | A Defense of Legal Education in the 1990's |
| 1991 | Floyd Abrams | The First Amendment in the Year 2000 |
| 1992 | Morton J. Horwitz | The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice |
| 1993 | A. Leon Higginbotham | Race and the American Legal Process |
| 1994 | Paul D. Carrington | The Twenty-First Wisdom |
| 1995 | Carol M. Rose | A Dozen Propositions on Private Property, Public Rights and the New Takings Legislation |
| 1996 | Steven B. Bright | Is Fairness Irrelevant? Indifference to Fundamental Rights in the State Criminal Courts and the Evisceration of Federal Habeas Corpus |
| 1997 | Linda R. Hirshman | Hard Bargins: The Politics of Heterosexuality |
| 1998 | Pauline Maier | The Strange History of "All Men are Created Equal" |
| 1999 | Lawrence Lessig | Closing the Commons, Killing the Net |
| 2000 | Lawrence M. Friedman | The Shattered Mirror: Identity, Authority & Law |
| 2001 | Jeremy Waldron | "One Law for All? - The Logic of Cultural Accommodation" |
| 2002 | Dan M. Kahan | "What is the American Gun Debate About?" |
| 2003 | Grainne de Burca | |
| 2004 | John C. Coffee, Jr. | |
| 2005 | Winnifred Fallers Sullivan | "Comparing Religions, Legally" |
| 2006 | Dahlia Lithwick | "The Roberts Court" |
| 2007 | Joan Lefkow | A District Judge's Thoughts about the Independent Judiciary Debate |
| 2008 | Erwin Chemerinsky | The First Amendment and the Internet |
| 2009 | Leonie Brinkema | Managing Perfect Storms: A Judicial Perspective on the Challenges Presented by High Visibility Cases |