Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (HLS) is a graduate school of Harvard University located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, steps from Boston. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world.[1] For more than two centuries, HLS has shaped American legal education, produced prominent figures across government, the judiciary, and private practice, and served as a focal point for national debates over law, equity, and institutional responsibility.
History and Founding
Harvard Law School was established in 1817, making it not only the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States but also among the most consequential institutions in the development of American legal culture.[2] Its founding predates the formal systematization of legal education in the United States by decades, and the school played a central role in transforming the study of law from an apprenticeship-based profession into an academic discipline.
The school is situated on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, which borders Boston to the north and west. Though technically located outside Boston's city limits, HLS is deeply embedded in the broader Boston metropolitan legal, cultural, and academic landscape. Its graduates populate law firms, courthouses, and government offices throughout the region and the nation.
Over the course of its history, the school has developed a curriculum, faculty, and institutional structure that have influenced legal education at institutions across the country. Its adoption of the case method — learning law through the analysis of judicial decisions — became a model replicated widely in American law schools.
Academic Programs and Curriculum
Harvard Law School offers a range of degree programs at the graduate and postgraduate levels, including the Juris Doctor (J.D.), the Master of Laws (LL.M.), and the Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.). Its first-year curriculum for J.D. students has undergone significant evolution over the school's history.
Among the distinctive features of HLS's curriculum has been an ongoing engagement with legal history. Over sixty years ago, Harvard Law School created a required first-year course in legal history. From 1963 until 1970, that course was a mandatory component of the J.D. program, reflecting the school's belief that an understanding of law's historical development was fundamental to legal training.[3] That tradition has continued to shape how the school approaches the relationship between history and legal reasoning.
The school's academic law library, the largest of its kind in the world, supports research across all areas of law and houses an extraordinary collection of primary legal materials, rare manuscripts, and contemporary scholarship.[4] The library serves not only students and faculty at HLS but also visiting scholars and legal researchers from around the globe.
Enrollment and Student Body
Harvard Law School enrolls students from across the United States and internationally, with a first-year J.D. class that reflects wide geographic, professional, and academic diversity. Total first-year enrollments at the school increased slightly in the 2025 academic year to 579 students.[5]
The composition of the student body has been the subject of considerable attention and public debate, particularly following the United States Supreme Court's 2023 decision prohibiting the use of race-conscious admissions policies at colleges and universities. That ruling, which applied to Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at its center, had immediate and measurable effects on the demographic profile of incoming law school classes.
In the fall of 2024, the percentage of students of color in Harvard Law School's new entering class fell to 43 percent, down from 51 percent in 2023, according to data released by the school.[6] The number of Black students entering HLS dropped sharply that fall, drawing significant national attention and prompting discussion about the lasting consequences of the Supreme Court's ruling on elite legal education.[7]
By 2025, the school reported that Black student enrollment had recovered somewhat, with the Boston Globe reporting that HLS enrolled more Black students that year after the initial post-ruling decline.[8] The ongoing fluctuations in enrollment data underscored the continuing challenge law schools face in maintaining diverse student bodies in a legal environment that prohibits race as an explicit factor in admissions decisions.
The Harvard Law Review
The Harvard Law Review is a student-edited legal journal published at Harvard Law School and is among the most frequently cited law reviews in the United States. It operates independently from the law school's administration and is run entirely by law students who are selected through a competitive writing and editing process.
The Harvard Law Review has historically served as a platform for legal scholarship that shapes academic and judicial discourse on constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and a wide range of legal topics. The journal has been at the center of various public controversies in recent years, including scrutiny related to its editorial and selection practices during a period of heightened national attention to diversity and institutional accountability.[9]
Faculty and Academic Leadership
The Harvard Law School faculty includes scholars working across virtually every area of legal study, from constitutional and administrative law to international law, corporate law, and legal theory. Faculty members regularly publish in leading academic journals, testify before legislatures, and contribute to public policy debates.
In recent years, the faculty have engaged publicly and collectively on matters of institutional concern. In the spring of 2025, more than 90 Harvard Law School professors signed an open letter warning students about what they described as actions of "government leaders" against law firms, cautioning about the broader implications for the legal profession and the rule of law.[10] The letter reflected broader tensions in the legal community about executive-branch pressure on private law firms during that period.
Such collective faculty statements are notable in the context of a school whose graduates and professors are frequently involved in the highest-profile legal and political matters in the country. The willingness of the HLS faculty to speak publicly on political and institutional questions has been a recurring feature of the school's public profile.
HLS and the Boston Legal Community
Harvard Law School's proximity to Boston has made it a central node in the regional legal ecosystem. The city and its surrounding area host a dense concentration of law firms, federal and state courts, government agencies, and public interest organizations, many of which recruit heavily from HLS. The school's clinical programs and externship opportunities frequently place students in Boston-area legal institutions, giving students direct experience in local courts and agencies while contributing legal services to the community.
The school's connection to Boston extends beyond geography. Many of its faculty hold positions affiliated with Boston-area research institutions and policy organizations. HLS alumni hold prominent positions in the Massachusetts state government, the federal judiciary in New England, and at major firms headquartered in Downtown Boston and the Financial District.
The school also contributes to Boston's broader character as a center of education and intellectual life. Alongside Harvard Medical School, Boston University School of Law, and other institutions, HLS is part of the cluster of graduate and professional schools that define the region's reputation as an academic hub.
National Debates and Contemporary Issues
Harvard Law School has been at the center of several major national legal and policy debates in recent years. The aftermath of the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling has placed HLS in the middle of ongoing national conversations about diversity, access, and the future of legal education. The sharp decline in Black student enrollment following that ruling, and the partial recovery in subsequent years, has made the school a closely watched case study in how elite law schools adapt to changing legal constraints.[11]
The school has also navigated tensions with the federal government during a period of significant institutional pressure on Harvard University as a whole. Reporting by national outlets has documented disputes over federal funding and scrutiny of institutional practices at Harvard, with Harvard Law School among the entities affected by broader university-level controversies.[12]
These contemporary pressures sit alongside the school's long-established institutional stature. The debates playing out at HLS — over who gains access to elite legal training, what responsibilities law schools and their faculties bear in moments of political stress, and how the academic study of law connects to practice and power — are debates that resonate far beyond Cambridge and Boston.
See Also
- Harvard University
- Boston University School of Law
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Legal education in the United States