WHAT IS THE J.D. PROGRAM?

First Year Experience

Harvard Law School’s first-year curriculum for J.D. (Juris Doctor) students provides them with a solid intellectual foundation on which to build their legal education, covering core principles and concepts, theory, and skills of legal practice and providing a thorough grounding in fundamental legal reasoning and analysis.

First-year students take courses in civil procedure, constitutional law, contracts, criminal law, legislation and regulation, property, and torts, which collectively provide a foundation for understanding the common law tradition and governing structures of the U.S. legal system and the role of statutes and regulations within that system.

All first-year students participate in the January Experiential Term. During this term, students enroll in one of several skills-based courses that emphasize teamwork, practical training, and self-reflection. First-year students also participate in a legal research and writing course, and other opportunities to practice the various forms of writing used in legal practice. During the spring term of the first year, students choose an elective based on their individual interests from a wide array of upper-level courses.

The first-year class is divided into seven sections of eighty students each. Faculty section leaders, generally senior faculty members who teach one of the section’s basic courses, provide guidance and support to the students in their sections and develop a program of extra-curricular activities related to the law.

In addition to section-based activities, during the fall term, students participate in first-year reading groups of 10-12 students. Led by faculty members, who also serve as advisors to the students in their groups, these ungraded groups allow students to explore an intellectual interest outside the scope of the foundational first-year curriculum. Topics are as diverse as legal responses to terrorism, regulation of climate change, Biblical law, detective fiction, conservative jurisprudence, artificial intelligence, and bioethics.

Upper-Level Years Experience

Seven optional Programs of Study – Law and Government; Law and Social Change; Law and Business; Law and History; Criminal Justice; International and Comparative Law; and Law, Science and Technology – developed by the Law School faculty provide pathways through the upper-level curriculum. The Programs of Study offer students guidance on structuring an academic program that will give them extensive exposure to the law, policy, theory, and practice in their chosen areas of focus.

The Law School encourages students to engage in their third year in a capstone learning experience: advanced seminars, clinical practice, and writing projects that call on students to use the full extent of their knowledge, skills, and methodological tools in a field to address the most interesting and complicated legal problems of today.

WHAT IS THE LL.M PROGRAM?

The LL.M. (Master of Laws) program is a one-year degree program that typically includes 180 students from some 70 countries. The Graduate Program is interested in attracting intellectually curious and thoughtful candidates from a variety of legal systems and backgrounds and with various career plans.

Harvard’s LL.M. students include lawyers working in firms, government officials, law professors, judges, diplomats, human rights activists, doctoral students, business men and women, and others. HLS claims that the diversity of the participants in the LL.M. program contributes significantly to the educational experience of all students at the School.

WHAT IS THE S.J.D. PROGRAM?

The Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) is Harvard Law School’s most advanced law degree, designed for aspiring legal academics who wish to pursue sustained independent study, research and writing. In recent years HLS has created a vibrant intellectual community of young scholars from around the world, most of whom will secure teaching positions in their home countries, the U.S., or third countries.

They currently have over 60 S.J.D. candidates overall (some 50 in residence) representing more than 30 countries, drawn primarily from among Harvard’s top LL.M. graduates. Ultimately, candidates are expected to produce a dissertation that will constitute a substantial and valuable contribution to legal scholarship.

There are five stages to the S.J.D. program:

• Completion of a study plan which includes course work
• Successful completion of an oral examination
• Two presentations at the S.J.D. Colloquium
• Submission and acceptance of a doctoral dissertation
• Successful oral defense of the dissertation

Each S.J.D. candidate pursues the degree under the supervision of an overall faculty supervisor selected by the candidate and approved by the Committee on Graduate Studies. Normally this supervisor must be a full-time member of the Harvard Law School faculty.

Many S.J.D. students also teach their own workshops, under the aegis both of the Graduate Program and other research programs, which attract S.J.D., LL.M. and J.D. students, graduate students from elsewhere in the University, and some faculty. S.J.D. candidates also work as teaching assistants, research assistants, and even co-teachers with various faculty members, within the Law School and elsewhere at Harvard.