Harvard Law School

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Harvard Law School
File:Harvard shield-Law.png
TypePrivate
Established1817
EndowmentUS$1,445,077
DeanElena Kagan
Students1,800
1680 JD
150 LLM
50 S.J.D.
Location
Cambridge
,
Massachusetts
,
USA
CampusUrban
Websitewww.law.harvard.edu

Harvard Law School (colloquially, Harvard Law or HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard Law is considered one of the most prestigious law schools in the United States. It is the country's second-oldest law school, and the oldest in continuous operation. It is also home to the largest academic law library in the world.[1] The school's frequent referencing in American culture has led the Wall Street Journal 's law blog to declare that there was "no doubt...Harvard Law School holds a special place in our nation’s collective consciousness".[2]

Harvard Law introduced what would become the standard first-year curriculum for American law schools - including classes in contracts, property, torts, criminal law, and civil procedure - in the 1870s, under Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell. At Harvard, Langdell also developed the case method of teaching law, which became the dominant model for U.S. law schools.

The current dean of Harvard Law School is Elena Kagan, who succeeded Robert C. Clark in 2003.

The size of each cohort in the J.D. program numbers approximately 550 students and the first-year (1L) class is broken into seven small sections of approximately 80 students, who take all first-year classes (with the exception of one distribution requirement and one elective) together. Harvard Law has 246 faculty members.[3]

Admission to Harvard Law is extremely selective: For the class beginning in 2007-2008, 11.7% of 6984 applicants were admitted, and 67.9% of those admitted enrolled. Half of the class that entered in 2007 had a GPA between 3.75 and 3.95 (out of 4.0) and an LSAT score between 170 and 175 (out of 180). Harvard Law's admissions process includes the unusual feature of telephone interviews conducted amongst students likely to be accepted.

Campus

Austin Hall
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 1884 by architect H. H. Richardson. The law school's student center, Harkness Commons, 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 complex is scheduled to rise on the northwest corner of the law school campus, to be designed by traditionalist architect Robert A. M. Stern. The complex is set to marry the architectural themes present in Austin and Langdell Halls, as well as the Gropius buildings.

History

Harvard Law School was established in 1817, making it the oldest continuously-operating law school in the nation. (The Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary opened in 1779, but was forced to close at the outset of the American Civil War, and did not reopen until 1920.[4])

The Royall estate

Its origins can be traced to the estate of Isaac Royall, who sold most of his Caribbean slaves and plantations to move to Medford, Massachusetts. His Medford estate, the Isaac Royall House, is now a museum, and includes the only remaining slave quarters in the northeast United States. The estate was passed down to Royall's son, Isaac Royall, Jr., who fled Massachusetts as the American Revolution broke out. Just prior to his death in 1781, Royall, Jr. left land to Harvard, the sale of which was intended for the "endowing of a Professor of Laws at said college, or a Professor of Physics and Anatomy". Harvard took the opportunity to fund its first chair of law. The Royall chair remains today. It traditionally was held by the Dean of the law school, but the current Dean, Elena Kagan, declined the Royall chair, instead giving herself the Charles Hamilton Houston Professorship.

In 1806, the Royall estate in Medford was returned to Royall, Jr.'s heirs, who sold it and donated the proceeds for the formal foundation of Harvard Law School. The Royall family coat-of-arms was adopted as the school crest, which shows three stacked wheat sheaves beneath the university motto (Veritas, Latin "truth").

Curricular evolution

While the law school had previously been located on Harvard Yard, Dean Langdell's new curriculum developed in the 1870s demanded lecture halls suited to the case and Socratic method of teaching. H. H. Richardson would later design the law school's first independent home, the Romanesque Austin Hall, to the north of the Yard. This would come to form the nucleus of the current law school campus.

In the second half of the 20th century, the school began to develop a reputation for being a cold and unfeeling place for students. Books and films such as John Jay Osborn, Jr.'s The Paper Chase and Scott Turow's One L, in particular, cast the academic experience in the school in a particularly harsh light.

Elena Kagan sought to reverse this perception when she assumed the deanship of the school, promising substantial reforms. Kagan has managed to significantly boost the school's involvement in international and public interest law and reduce its student:faculty ratio by hiring several new professors. She is also given credit for a host of quality-of-life improvements at the law school, including an ice-skating rink on campus, free coffee in classroom buildings, and free tampons in campus public restrooms.

In 2006, the faculty voted unanimously to approve a new first-year curriculum, placing greater emphasis on problem-solving, administrative law, and international law. The new curriculum is being implemented in stages over the next several years. In addition, a vast new complex under construction on the northwest part of the law school campus is intended to expand classroom space for additional courses and create more space for an expanding clinical program.

Programs

Harvard Legal Aid Bureau

The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau is the oldest (and perhaps only) student-run legal services office in the country, founded in 1913. The Bureau's mission is to provide an important community service while giving student attorneys the opportunity to develop professional skills as part of the clinical programs of Harvard Law School.

The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau is a student-run law firm. The Bureau serves clients in housing law (landlord-tenant relations, public housing, subsidized housing), family law (divorce, custody, paternity, child support), government benefits (Social Security, unemployment benefits, Veterans' benefits, welfare), and wage and hour cases (including unpaid or underpaid wages, benefits, and overtime). The Bureau employs seven supervising attorneys and elects approximately twenty student members annually. Students at the Bureau practice under the supervision of admitted attorneys; however, students are primarily casehandlers on all matters. As a result, students gain firsthand experience appearing in court, negotiating with opposing attorneys, and working directly with clients. Students receive both classroom and clinical credits for their work at the Bureau.

Unlike most clinical programs at Harvard (or other schools), the Bureau is a two-year commitment. This gives clients a chance to have a much more sustained and in-depth academic experience. In addition to the substantive legal experience, students gain practical experience managing a law firm. The student board of directors makes all decisions regarding case intake, budget management, and office administration.

Famous alumni include Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, activist Michelle Obama, and professors Erwin Chemerinsky and Laurence Tribe.

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. Charles Nesson, Lawrence Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain, John Palfrey, William W. Fisher hold appointments at the Berkman Center.

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

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. Housed at the LWP are the WorklifeWizard.org and ElMundoLaboral.org websites, the latter providing the only Spanish-language wage-checker available for the American workplace.

WilmerHale Legal Services Center

The WilmerHale 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 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 WilmerHale Legal Services Center is located in Boston’s culturally diverse Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

Other Harvard Law School programs

Pound Hall

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

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 Harvard Law Record, has been published continuously since the 1940s, 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

The law journals are:

Notable alumni

Main article: List of Harvard Law School graduates

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 without graduating. 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. Past Supreme Court justices from Harvard Law School include Harry Blackmun, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States, graduated from HLS, as did U.S. attorneys general Alberto Gonzales and Janet Reno, among others, and noted federal judge Richard Posner.

Famous legal academics who graduated from Harvard Law include Erwin Chemerinsky, Ronald Dworkin, Susan Estrich, W. Page Keeton, Arthur R. Miller, William L. Prosser, John Sexton, Kathleen Sullivan, and Laurence Tribe.

Past or current presidential candidates who are HLS graduates include Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Michael Dukakis and Pat Schroeder.

In addition to their achievements in law and politics, Harvard Law alumni have also excelled in other fields. Many have gone on to become influential journalists, writers, media and business leaders and even professional athletes.

Notable professors

Hauser Hall

In popular culture

Several movies and television shows take 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 also 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. The Paper Chase was also originally a novel, written by John Jay Osborn, Jr.

References

  1. ^ http://www.law.harvard.edu/about/, http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla67/visit-e.htm
  2. ^ http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/10/09/harvard-law-school-revamps-its-one-l-curriculum
  3. ^ "HLS Faculty Directory". Retrieved 2007-07-05.
  4. ^ "Quick Facts: W&M Law School". Marshall-Wythe School of Law. Retrieved 2007-08-24.

External links

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Template:Law schools in Massachusetts

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