Harvard Law School

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Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School crest
Established 1817
Type Private
Endowment US$840 million
Dean Elena Kagan
Staff 284
Students 1,800
Location Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Campus Urban
Website www.law.harvard.edu

Harvard Law School (HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is considered one of the world's most renowned law schools and is home to the largest academic law library in the world.

Harvard Law routinely places as one of the top three law schools in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, along with Yale Law School and Stanford Law School, and usually receives the highest reputational scores from judges, academics and practitioners. Harvard Law School is also noted for its size; in its JD program, each class has approximately 550 students, compared to about 180 at Stanford and Yale, and 350 at Columbia and New York University.

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 attended the school but did not graduate from it. 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 succeeded Robert C. Clark in 2003.

Contents

[edit] Campus

Langdell Hall, home of the Harvard Law School library
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Langdell Hall, home of the Harvard Law School library

Harvard Law School's campus is located just north of Harvard Yard, the historic center of Harvard University, and contains several architecturally significant buildings.

Austin Hall, the law school's oldest dedicated structure, was completed in the 1880s by architect H. H. Richardson. The Harvard Graduate Center, also known as Harkness Commons, is the law school's student center; it was designed by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, along with several law school dormitories.

Langdell Hall, the largest building on the law school campus, contains the HLS library, the most extensive academic law library in the world.

As of 2006, a new structure is scheduled to rise on the northwest corner of the law school campus, to be designed by traditionalist architect Robert A. M. Stern.

[edit] History

Harvard Law School was established in 1817, making it the oldest continuously-operating law school in the nation.

Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell introduced the case method of teaching in the 1870s. It became the model for most law schools in the United States.

The faculty recently voted unanimously to approve a new first-year curriculum.

[edit] Programs

[edit] Berkman Center for Internet & Society

The Harvard Law School is home to the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, which focuses on the study and construction of cyberspace. The Center sponsors conferences, courses, 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 on the 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 was a co-sponsor of Wikimania 2006.

see also: prof Charles Nesson, Lawrence Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain, John Palfrey

[edit] Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice

Established in the fall of 2005 at Harvard Law School, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice seeks to honor the contributions of Charles Hamilton Houston, who dedicated his life to using law as a tool to reverse the unjust consequences of racial discrimination. The Institute carries forth Houston's legacy by serving as a hub for scholarship, legal education, policy analysis, and public forums on issues central to current civil rights struggles.

see also Charles Ogletree

[edit] Labor & Worklife Program

The 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.

[edit] 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 in September 2006 as a research tool and resource about American worklife. Upon completing a 10-minute Internet survey, respondents may ask the WorklifeWizard any work-related question and receive an answer from a Harvard expert within 7 business days (in addition to being entered in drawings for a trip to South Africa or an Amazon.com gift certificate).

Headed by Richard Freeman, Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, the aim of the WorklifeWizard is to become the premiere resource for worklife issues in the US and to establish a cutting-edge research tool for management, labor, policymakers, scholars, journalists, the military, students, and others interested in the world of work. Freeman explains, “We want to know about American worklives beyond what surveys can tell us. When workers have questions about issues like discrimination, training, negotiating a raise, or switching careers, they can ask our team of experts. The WorklifeWizard seeks to be the best place for American employees to say how they're doing, what they think about workplace issues, and to get the latest economic information on working in America."

[edit] Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center

Along with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Centeris 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 its clinics housed in 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.

[edit] Other Harvard Law School programs

Pound Hall
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Pound Hall
  • 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
  • Public Interest Auction
  • Harvard Legal Aid Bureau

There are two additional programs affiliated with Harvard Law School, the Ames Foundation and the Selden Society.

[edit] Publications

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, as well as a number of other law journals and an independent student newspaper. The Harvard Law Review was first published in 1887 and has been staffed and edited by some of the school's most notable alumni. The student newspaper, The Record, has been published continuously since the 1950s, making it one of the oldest law school newspapers in the country, and has included the exploits of fictional law student Fenno for decades.

Classroom in Pound Hall
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Classroom in Pound Hall

The law journals are:

[edit] Notable professors

Hauser Hall
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Hauser Hall

[edit] Notable alumni

See List of Harvard Law School graduates.

See also: Harvard University people

[edit] In popular culture

Several movies takes place at least in part at the school. Most of them have scenes filmed on location at or around Harvard University. They include:

Many popular movies and television shows feature characters introduced as Harvard Law graduates. Some of these include:

Scott Turow, a novelist, has also written a book about his experience as a first-year law student in his memoir One L.

[edit] External links


Schools of Harvard University
Faculty of Arts and Sciences: College • Graduate School of Arts and Sciences • Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences • Continuing Education
Faculty of Medicine: Medical School • School of Dental Medicine
Divinity School • Law School • Business School • Graduate School of Design
Graduate School of Education • School of Public Health • Kennedy School of Government
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (successor to Radcliffe College)
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