| Harvard Law School | |
|---|---|
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| Motto | Veritas, Lex et Iustitia (Latin for 'Truth, Law and Justice') |
| Parent school | Harvard University |
| Established | 1817; 208 years ago (1817) |
| School type | Privatelaw school |
| Dean | John C. P. Goldberg[1] |
| Location | Cambridge,Massachusetts, US |
| Enrollment | 1,990 (2025)[2] |
| Faculty | 135[3] |
| USNWR ranking | 6th (tie) (2025)[4] |
| Bar pass rate | 99.4% (2021)[5] |
| Website | hls |
| ABA profile | Standard 509 Report |
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Harvard Law School (HLS) is thelaw school ofHarvard University, aprivateresearch university inCambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United States.
Each class in the three-yearJD program has approximately 560 students, which is among the largest of the top 150 ranked law schools in the United States.[6] The first-year class is broken into seven sections of approximately 80 students, who take most first-year classes together. Aside from the JD program, Harvard also awards bothLLM andSJD degrees.
HLS has the world's largest academiclaw library.[7][8] The school has an estimated 115 full-time faculty members.[3] According to Harvard Law's 2020ABA-required disclosures, 99% of 2019 graduates passed the bar exam.[9][10][11] The school's graduates accounted for more than one-quarter of allSupreme Court clerks between 2000 and 2010, more than any other law school in the United States.[12]
Harvard Law School's founding is traced to the establishment of a 'law department' at Harvard in 1819.[13] Dating the founding to the year of the creation of the law department makes Harvard Law School the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.William & Mary Law School opened first in 1779, but it closed due to theAmerican Civil War, reopening in 1920.[14] TheUniversity of Maryland School of Law was chartered in 1816 but did not begin classes until 1824, and it also closed during the Civil War.[15]
The founding of the law department came two years after the establishment of Harvard's first endowed professorship in law, funded by a bequest from the estate of wealthy slave-ownerIsaac Royall Jr., in 1817.[13] Royall left roughly 1,000 acres of land in Massachusetts to Harvard when he died in exile in Nova Scotia, where he fled to as aLoyalist during theAmerican Revolution, in 1781, "to be appropriated towards the endowing a Professor of Laws ... or a Professor of Physick and Anatomy, whichever the said overseers and Corporation [of the college] shall judge to be best."[13] The value of the land, when fully liquidated in 1809, was $2,938 (equivalent to $59,100 in 2024); theHarvard Corporation allocated $400 from the income generated by those funds to create the Royall Professorship of Law in 1815.[13] The Royalls were so involved in the slave trade, that "the labor of slaves underwrote the teaching of law in Cambridge."[16] The dean of the law school traditionally held the Royall chair; deansElena Kagan andMartha Minow declined the Royall chair due to its origins in the proceeds of slavery.
The Royall family'scoat of arms, which shows three stacked wheat sheaves on a blue background, was adopted as part of the law school's arms in 1936, topped with the university's motto (Veritas,Latin for 'truth').[17] Until the school began investigating its connections with slavery in the 2010s, most alumni and faculty at the time were unaware of the origins of the arms.[18] In March 2016, following requests by students, the school decided toremove the emblem because of its association with slavery.[19] In November 2019, Harvard announced that a working group had been tasked to develop a new emblem.[20] In August 2021, the new Harvard Law School emblem was introduced.[21]
Royall's Medford estate, theIsaac Royall House, is now a museum which features the only remaining slave quarters in the northeast United States. In 2019, the government ofAntigua and Barbuda requested reparations from Harvard Law School on the grounds that it benefitted from Royall's enslavement of people in the country.[22]
By 1827, the school, with one faculty member, was struggling.Nathan Dane, a prominent alumnus of the college, then endowed the Dane Professorship of Law, insisting that it be given to then Supreme Court JusticeJoseph Story. For a while, the school was called "Dane Law School."[23] In 1829, John H. Ashmun, son ofEli Porter Ashmun and brother ofGeorge Ashmun, accepted a professorship and closed hisNorthampton Law School, with many of his students following him to Harvard.[24] Story's belief in the need for an elite law school based on merit and dedicated to public service helped build the school's reputation at the time, although the contours of these beliefs have not been consistent throughout its history. Enrollment remained low through the 19th century as university legal education was considered to be of little added benefit to apprenticeships in legal practice. After first trying lowered admissions standards, in 1848 HLS eliminated admissions requirements.[25] In 1869, HLS also eliminated examination requirements.[25]
In the 1870s, underDeanChristopher Columbus Langdell, HLS introduced what has become the standard first-yearcurriculum for American law schools – including classes incontracts,property,torts,criminal law, andcivil procedure. At Harvard, Langdell also developed thecase method of teaching law, now the dominantpedagogical model at U.S. law schools. Langdell's notion that law could be studied as a "science" gave university legal education a reason for being distinct from vocational preparation. Critics at first defended the old lecture method because it was faster and cheaper and made fewer demands on faculty and students. Advocates said the case method had a sounder theoretical basis in scientific research and the inductive method. Langdell's graduates became leading professors at other law schools where they introduced the case method. The method was facilitated by casebooks. From its founding in 1900, theAssociation of American Law Schools promoted the case method in law schools that soughtaccreditation.[26][27]
During the 20th century, Harvard Law School was known for its competitiveness. For example,Bob Berring called it "a samurai ring where you can test your swordsmanship against the swordsmanship of the strongest intellectual warriors from around the nation."[28] When Langdell developed the original law school curriculum, Harvard PresidentCharles Eliot told him to make it "hard and long."[29][30] An urban legend holds that incoming students are told to "Look to your left, look to your right, because one of you won't be here by the end of the year."[31]Scott Turow's memoirOne L andJohn Jay Osborn's novelThe Paper Chase describe such an environment. Trailing many of its peers, Harvard Law did not admit women as students until 1950, for the class of 1953.[32]
Eleanor Kerlow's bookPoisoned Ivy: How Egos, Ideology, and Power Politics Almost Ruined Harvard Law School criticized the school for a 1980s political dispute between newer and older faculty members over accusations of insensitivity to minority and feminist issues. Divisiveness over such issues aspolitical correctness lent the school the title "Beirut on the Charles."[33]
InBroken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School, Richard Kahlenberg criticized the school for driving students away from public interest and toward work in high-paying law firms. Kahlenberg's criticisms are supported by Granfield and Koenig's study, which found that "students [are directed] toward service in the most prestigious law firms, both because they learn that such positions are their destiny and because the recruitment network that results from collective eminence makes these jobs extremely easy to obtain."[34] The school has also been criticized for its large first year class sizes (at one point there were 140 students per classroom; in 2001 there were 80), a cold and aloof administration,[35] and an inaccessible faculty. The latter stereotype is a central plot element ofThe Paper Chase and appears inLegally Blonde.
In response to the above criticisms, HLS eventually implemented the once-criticized[30] but now dominant approach pioneered by DeanRobert Hutchins atYale Law School, of shifting the competitiveness to the admissions process while making law school itself a more cooperative experience. Robert Granfield and Thomas Koenig's 1992 study of Harvard Law students that appeared inThe Sociological Quarterly found that students "learn to cooperate with rather than compete against classmates," and that contrary to "less eminent" law schools, students "learn that professional success is available for all who attend, and that therefore, only neurotic 'gunners' try to outdo peers."[34]
Under Kagan, the second half of the 2000s saw significant academic changes since the implementation of the Langdell curriculum. 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 was implemented in stages over the next several years,[36][37] with the last new course, a first-year practice-oriented problem-solving workshop, being instituted in January 2010. In late 2008, the faculty decided that the school should move to an Honors/Pass/Low Pass/Fail (H/P/LP/F) grading system, much like those in place at Yale and atStanford Law School. The system applied to half the courses taken by students in the Class of 2010 and fully started with the Class of 2011.[38]
In 2009, Kagan was appointedsolicitor general of the United States by PresidentBarack Obama and resigned the deanship. On June 11, 2009, Harvard University president,Drew Gilpin Faust namedMartha Minow as the new dean. She assumed the position on July 1, 2009. On January 3, 2017, Minow announced that she would conclude her tenure as dean at the end of the academic year.[39] In June 2017,John F. Manning was named as the new dean, effective as of July 1, 2017.[40]
In September 2017, the school unveiled a plaque acknowledging the indirect role played byslavery in its history:
In honor of the enslaved whose labor created wealth that made possible the founding ofHarvard Law SchoolMay we pursue the highest ideals of law and justice intheir memory.[41]
In 2025, an original copy of theMagna Carta was found, kept in Harvard's library for nearly 80 years.[42]
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Thegoverning body of the university voted to retire the law school'scoat of arms. The school's shield incorporated the three garbs of wheat from the armorial bearings ofIsaac Royall Jr., a university benefactor who had endowed the first professorship in the law school. The shield had become a source of contention among a group of law school students, who objected to the Royall family's history of slave ownership.[43][44]
The president of the university and dean of the law school, acting upon the recommendation of a committee formed to study the issue, ultimately agreed with its majority decision,[45] that the shield was inconsistent with the values of both the university and the law school. Their recommendation was ultimately adopted by the Harvard Corporation and on March 15, 2016, the shield was ordered retired.[46][47][48]
On August 23, 2021, it was announced that a new emblem was approved by the Harvard Corporation. The new design features Harvard's traditional motto,Veritas (Latin for 'truth'), resting above the Latin phraseLex et Iustitia, meaning 'law and justice'. According to the HLS Shield Working Group's final report, the expanding or diverging lines, some with no obvious beginning or end, are meant to convey a sense of broad scope or great distance — the limitlessness of the school's work and mission. The radial lines also allude to the latitudinal and longitudinal lines that define the arc of the earth, conveying the global reach of the Law School's community and impact. The multifaceted, radiating form — a form inspired by architectural details found in both Austin Hall and Hauser Hall — seeks to convey dynamism, complexity, inclusiveness, connectivity, and strength.[49]
HLS was ranked tied for sixth best law school in the United States byU.S. News & World Report in its 2023 rankings.[50] HLS was ranked first in the world by QS World University Rankings in 2023.[51] It is ranked first in the world by the 2019 Academic Ranking of World Universities.[52]
In November 2022, the law school made a joint decision along with Yale Law School to withdraw from theU.S. News & World Report Best Law Schools rankings, citing the system's "flawed methodology."[53]
Harvard Law School has more than 90 student organizations that are active on campus.[54] These organizations include the student-edited journals,Harvard Law Record, and the HLS Drama Society, which organizes the annualHarvard Law School Parody, theHarvard Legal Aid Bureau as well as other political, social, service, and athletic groups.
HLS Student Government is the primary governing, advocacy, and representative body for Law School students. In addition, students are represented at the university level by theHarvard Graduate Council.
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Students of theJuris Doctor (JD) program are involved in preparing and publishing theHarvard Law Review, one of the most highly cited universitylaw reviews, as well as several other law journals and an independent student newspaper. TheHarvard Law Review was first published in 1887 and has been staffed and edited by some of the school's most notable alumni.[55]
In addition to the journal, the Harvard Law Review Association, in conjunction with the Columbia Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, andYale Law Journal also publishesThe Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, the most widely followed authority for legal citation formats in the United States.
Thestudent newspaper, theHarvard 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.[56][57]
TheHarvard Law Bulletin is themagazine of record for Harvard Law School.[58] TheHarvard Law Bulletin was first published in April 1948. The magazine is currently published twice a year, but in previous years has been published four or six times a year. The magazine was first published online in fall 1997.[59]
The cost of tuition for the 2022–2023 school year (9 month term) was $72,430. A mandatory student health fee was $1,304, bringing the total direct costs for the 2022–2023 school year to $73,734.[64]
The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Harvard Law for the 2021–2022 academic year was $104,200.[65]
According to the school's employment summary for 2020 graduates, 86.8% were employed in bar passage required jobs and another 5.3% were employed in J.D. advantage jobs.[66]
| Employment Status | Percentage | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employed – Bar Passage Required | 86.84% | |||
| Employed – J.D. Advantage | 5.26% | |||
| Employed – Professional Position | 1.75% | |||
| Employed – Non-Professional Position | 0.0% | |||
| Employed – Undeterminable | 0.0% | |||
| Pursuing Graduate Degree Full Time | 0.0% | |||
| Unemployed – Start Date Deferred | 0.0% | |||
| Unemployed – Not Seeking | 1.23% | |||
| Unemployed – Seeking | 1.23% | |||
| Employment Status Unknown | 0.0% | |||
| Total of 570 Graduates | ||||
Harvard Law School's large class size has enabled it to graduate a large number of distinguished alumni.
Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States, graduated from HLS. Additionally,Barack Obama, the 44thpresident of the United States, graduated from HLS and was president of theHarvard Law Review. His wife,Michelle Obama, is also a graduate of Harvard Law School. Past presidential candidates who are HLS graduates includeMichael Dukakis,Ralph Nader andMitt Romney. Eight sittingU.S. senators are alumni of HLS:Ted Cruz,Mike Crapo,Tim Kaine,Jack Reed,Chuck Schumer,Adam Schiff,Tom Cotton, andMark Warner.
Other legal and political leaders who attended HLS include former president ofTaiwan,Ma Ying-jeou, and former vice presidentAnnette Lu; the incumbentPrime Minister of Luxembourg,Luc Frieden; formerChief Justice of India,Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud; the incumbentChief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong,Andrew Cheung Kui-nung; formerchief justice of theRepublic of the Philippines,Renato Corona;Chief Justice of SingaporeSundaresh Menon; former president of theWorld Bank Group,Robert Zoellick; formerUnited Nations high commissioner for human rights,Navanethem Pillay; the formerpresident of Ireland,Mary Robinson;Lady Arden,Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom;Solomon Areda Waktolla, Judge of theUnited Nations Dispute Tribunal, Judge of the Administrative Tribunal of theAfrican Development Bank and Former Deputy Chief Justice of theFederal Supreme Court of Ethiopia. He is also member of thePermanent Court of Arbitration atHague,Netherlands.
Lobsang Sangay is the first electedsikyong of theTibetan Government in Exile. In 2004, he earned aS.J.D. degree from Harvard Law School and was a recipient of the 2004 Yong K. Kim' 95 Prize of excellence for his dissertation "Democracy in Distress: Is Exile Polity a Remedy? A Case Study of Tibet's Government-in-exile".
Sixteen of the school's graduates have served on theSupreme Court of the United States, more than any other law school. Four of the current nine members of the court graduated from HLS: thechief justice,John Roberts;associate justicesNeil Gorsuch;Ketanji Brown Jackson; andElena Kagan, who also served as thedean of Harvard Law School, from 2003 to 2009. Past Supreme Court justices from Harvard Law School includeAntonin Scalia,David Souter,Harry Blackmun,William J. Brennan,Louis Brandeis,Felix Frankfurter,Lewis Powell (LLM), andOliver Wendell Holmes Jr., among others.Ruth Bader Ginsburg attended Harvard Law School for two years.[97]
Attorneys GeneralLoretta Lynch,Alberto Gonzales, andJanet Reno, among others, and noted federal judgesRichard Posner of theSeventh Circuit Court of Appeals,Michael Boudin of theFirst Circuit Court of Appeals,Joseph A. Greenaway of theThird Circuit Court of Appeals,Laurence Silberman of theD.C. Circuit Court of Appeals,Lawrence VanDyke of theNinth Circuit Court of Appeals, andPierre Leval of theSecond Circuit Court of Appeals, among many other judicial figures, graduated from the school. The former Commonwealth solicitor general of Australia and current justice of theHigh Court of Australia,Stephen Gageler,senior counsel graduated from Harvard with an LL.M.[98]
Many HLS alumni are leaders and innovators in the business world. Its graduates include the current senior chairman ofGoldman Sachs,Lloyd Blankfein; former chief executive officer ofReddit,Ellen Pao; current chairman of the board and majority owner ofNational AmusementsSumner Redstone; current president and CEO ofTIAA-CREF,Roger W. Ferguson Jr.; current CEO and chairman ofToys "R" Us,Gerald L. Storch; and former CEO ofDelta Air Lines,Gerald Grinstein, among many others.
Legal scholars who graduated from Harvard Law includePayam Akhavan,Henry Friendly,William P. Alford,Rachel Barkow,Yochai Benkler,Alexander Bickel,Andrew Burrows,Erwin Chemerinsky,Amy Chua,Sujit Choudhry,Robert C. Clark,Hugh Collins,James Joseph Duane,I. Glenn Cohen,Ronald Dworkin,Christopher Edley Jr.,Melvin A. Eisenberg,Susan Estrich,Jody Freeman,Gerald Gunther,Andrew T. Guzman,Louis Henkin,William A. Jacobson,Harold Koh,Richard J. Lazarus,Arthur R. Miller,Gerald L. Neuman,Eric Posner,Richard Posner,John Mark Ramseyer,Jed Rubenfeld,Lewis Sargentich,John Sexton,Jeannie Suk,Kathleen Sullivan,Cass Sunstein,Luke W. Cole,Laurence Tribe,Edwin R. Keedy,C. Raj Kumar[99] andTim Wu.
In sports,David Otunga is the first and only Harvard Law alum to work forWWE. He is a two-timeWWE Tag Team Champion.
john ashmun northampton harvard law school.
America's longest-running law school speaker series; The Forum is a non-partisan student organization of Harvard Law School dedicated to bringing open discussion of a broad range of legal, political and social issues to the Harvard Law School campus. For 50 years, the Forum has been dedicated to bringing interesting speakers to Harvard Law School to discuss a wide range of cultural, legal, social and political issues.
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