Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (
HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of
Harvard University. It is one of the world's leading
law schools, with about 1,800 students in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is home to the largest law library in the world.
HLS routinely places as one of the top three schools in rankings, along with
Yale Law School and
Stanford Law School, and usually receives the highest reputational scores from judges, academics and practitioners. According to
U.S. News & World Report, its entering class boasts the highest
LSAT scores in the nation and its graduates have a higher bar passage rate and average salary upon graduation than do graduates of its closest rivals
Yale Law School and
Stanford Law School. Harvard Law School is also noted for its size -- in its
JD program, each class has approximately 550 students, compared to about 180 in each of Stanford, Yale and Chicago's, and 350 in each of Columbia and NYU's.
Fourteen of the school's graduates have served on the
Supreme Court of the United States, more than any other law school, and another four justices have attended the school. Six of the current nine members of the court attended HLS:
Roberts,
Scalia,
Kennedy,
Souter,
Ginsburg and
Breyer. (Ginsburg transferred to and graduated from
Columbia Law School.)
The current dean of Harvard Law school is
Elena Kagan, who took over for
Robert Clark in 2003.
Harvard Law School was established in
1817. It has operated continuously since its founding, making it one of the oldest law schools in the nation.
Students of the
Juris Doctor (JD) program are involved in preparing and publishing the
Harvard Law Review, one of the most renowned university
law reviews. The
Harvard Law Review was first published in 1887 and has been staffed and edited by some of the school's most famous alumni.
The Harvard Law School is home to the
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, which focuses on the legal study of
cyberspace. The Center sponsors conferences, visiting lecturers, and residential fellows. Members of the Center do research and write books, articles, and
weblogs with
RSS 2.0 feeds, for which the Center holds the specification. The Center's present location is a small
Victorian wood-frame building which sits next to the larger-scale buildings of the Harvard Law School campus. It is in the process of relocating to a larger site ont he campus' perimeter. Its newsletter, "
The Filter", is on the Web and available by e-mail, and it hosts a
blog community of Harvard faculty, students and Berkman Center affiliates. The Berkman Center is funding the
Openlaw project. One of the major initiatives of the Berkman Center is the OpenNet Initiative, which is a joint worldwide study of the filtering of the web, along with the Universities of Toronto and Cambridge (UK). The Berkman Center is a co-sponsor of
Wikimania 2006.
''see also: prof
Lawrence Lessig,
John Palfrey,
Jonathan ZittrainThe
Labor and Worklife Program (LWP) is Harvard University's forum for research and teaching on the world of work and its implications for society. Located at the Harvard Law School, the LWP brings together scholars and policy experts from a variety of disciplines to analyze critical labor issues in the law, economy, and society. The LWP also provides unique education for labor leaders throughout the world via the oldest executive training program at Harvard University, the Harvard Trade Union Program, founded in 1942. As a multidisciplinary research and policy network, the LWP organizes projects and programs that seek to understand critical changes in labor markets and labor law, and to analyze the role of unions, business, and government as they affect the world of work. By engaging scholars, students, and members of the labor community, the program coordinates legal, educational, and cultural activities designed to improve the quality of work life.
The faculty, staff, and research associates of the Program include some of the nation's premier scholars of labor studies and an array of internationally renowned intellectuals. The executive training program (HTUP) works closely with trade unions around the world to bring excellence in labor education to trade union leadership. The LWP regularly holds forums, conferences, and discussion groups on labor issues of concern to business, unions, and the government.
WorklifeWizard
The
WorklifeWizard is an international collaboration between the European
WageIndicator, the Labor and Worklife Program and the
National Bureau of Economic Research. The project began this year and will become a salary checker, a database and a resource for information about American work life.
Harvard Law School has one of the country's best clinical programs. Along with the
Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center is one of Harvard Law School's oldest and largest clinical teaching facilities. The Legal Services Center is a general practice law firm that provides legal counsel to over 1,200 clients annually. It offers students an opportunity to gain practical legal experience and earn academic credit by handling real cases for real clients under the supervision of clinical instructors who are experienced practitioners and mentors. The Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center sponsors up to 70 students each semester through several clinical courses offered at Harvard Law School and, during the summer, sponsors a program for volunteer law students from across the country.
Students working at the Center are placed in one of the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center's clinics housed in its five substantive practice groups and work with clinical instructors, experienced practitioners and mentors, who supervise student work and provide guidance as students build and manage their own caseload. The Center provides substantive training in each practice area and also offers general instruction on topics such as client interviewing and intake, case management, legal investigation and discovery, creative legal analysis, research and drafting.
The Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center is located in Boston's culturally diverse Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
Students at Harvard Law publish thirteen well-regarded law journals and an independent student newspaper, The Record. The Record has been published continuously since the 1950s, making it one of the oldest law newspapers in the country, and has included the exploits of fictional law student Fenno for decades.
The law journals are:
*
Harvard Law Review*Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review
*Black Letter Law Journal
*Environmental Law Review
*Human Rights Journal
*Harvard International Law Journal
*Journal of Law & Gender (formerly Women's Law Journal)
*Journal of Law and Public Policy
*
Journal of Law and Technology*Journal on Legislation
*Latino Law Review
*Negotiation Law Review
*
Unbound: Harvard Journal of the Legal Left*The Ames Moot Court Competition
*The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice
*Child Advocacy Program
*East Asian Legal Studies Program
*European Law Research Center
*Fund for Tax and Fiscal Research
*Human Rights Program
*Islamic Legal Studies Program
*John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics and Business
*Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics
*Program on Corporate Governance
*Program on Emprical Legal Studies
*Program on International Financial Systems
*
Program on Negotiation*Program on the Legal Profession
*
Harvard Legal Aid BureauThere are two additional programs affiliated with Harvard Law School, the Ames Foundation and the Selden Society.
*
Stephen Breyer*
Archibald Cox*
Alan Dershowitz*
Roger Fisher*
Felix Frankfurter*
Charles Fried*
Mary Ann Glendon*
Erwin Griswold*
Lani Guinier*
Jon Hanson*
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.*
Morton Horwitz*
Christopher Columbus Langdell*
Randall Kennedy*
Duncan Kennedy*
Daniel Meltzer*
Arthur R. Miller*
Martha Minow*
Robert Mnookin*
Charles Nesson*
Charles Ogletree*
Roscoe Pound*
Todd Rakoff*
William Stuntz*
Laurence Tribe*
Roberto Unger*
Alvin Warren*
Elizabeth Warren |
Langdell Hall, home of the HLS library. December 2004 |
See List of notable Harvard Law School graduates.
See also: Harvard University peopleThe story of several movies takes partially place at the School. Most of them have scenes filmed on location at or around
Harvard University. They include:
Legally Blonde (2001)
The Firm (1993)
Soul Man (1986)
The Paper Chase (1973)
Love Story (1970)
Many popular movies feature characters introduced as Harvard Law graduates. Some of these movies include:
Two Weeks Notice (2002)
Quiz Show (1994)
The Firm (1993)
A Few Good Men (1992)
Scott Turow, a novelist, has also written a book about his experience as a first-year law student in his memoir
One L.
*
HLS website*
HLS programs*
Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center*
HLS blogs*
The Record - HLS's independent student newspaper
