Study Abroad

Harvard Law School offers several opportunities for students to earn credit abroad: a joint J.D./LL.M. program in which students are able to earn both a Harvard J.D. and an LL.M. from Cambridge University in England in three-and-a-half years; a semester abroad at an institution selected by the student and approved by the HLS faculty; and independent study under the supervision of a Harvard Law School faculty member.

The Cambridge University program enables HLS J.D. students to spend their 3L year studying law in a new framework with students from throughout the world while living in a historic "Oxbridge" collegiate setting.

The semester-long program enables J.D. students to earn a semester of credit from an educational institution abroad. Participating students immerse themselves in a foreign legal culture; study substantive areas of law that may be covered in greater depth overseas; learn about a legal system in which they may be planning a career; and/or obtain broader exposure to the civil law system. Since the program's inception in 2003, students have gone to such countries Argentina, Belgium, Ghana, Israel, the Netherlands, Spain and the West Indies to study intellectual property, human rights, corporate law and economic development, among other subjects. HLS has signed formal exchange programs with the University of Geneva Faculty of Law and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, the University of Sydney Law School, the Fudan University Law School in Shanghai, the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Law and Politics, the Fundação Getulio Vargas Schools of Law in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the University of Chile School of Law in Santiago, and the University of Witwatersrand School of Law in Johannesburg.

Harvard Law School students are also able to conduct research abroad for credit during the School's winter term under the supervision of a member of the Harvard faculty. In recent years, students have traveled to China, Guyana, Haiti, and Switzerland, among other places.

For more information about studying abroad, please e-mail ils@law.harvard.edu.