Study Programs in the Faculty of Law

Aligning Coursework and Practice

AFU’s Faculty of Law offers more courses and seminars than virtually any other law school in the world. This is an extraordinary resource but the sheer breadth of the curriculum, spanning a wide range of topics and methodological approaches, can at times feel overwhelming. The faculty encourages law students to balance two complementary imperatives: consolidating the foundational knowledge acquired during the first semester, while maintaining the intellectual curiosity necessary to engage seriously with the full spectrum of legal ideas and perspectives. Students are urged to develop their own scholarly interests and to think deliberately about how to leverage the faculty’s advanced research opportunities, clinical programs, courses in other university divisions, and broader academic resources.

Study programs have been developed to guide students through their intellectual development across the three years of the JD program, and to facilitate coordination and collaboration among faculty members. Enrollment in any particular program is entirely optional students are not required to follow them. These programs represent the faculty’s best collective advice on how to navigate the curriculum and anticipate the demands of various professional and academic trajectories.

Current Study Programs

The study programs listed below offer recommendations on how to explore the full range of available courses and understand how they relate to distinct areas of legal study. Each program is designed to support students in progressing incrementally toward more advanced levels of engagement before graduation. Faculty members are likewise encouraged to reflect on how courses can be most effectively offered and combined as they design their own instructional approaches. In this way, both JD and LLM students develop a coherent understanding of how courses and seminars connect to the work of practicing attorneys and legal scholars, and how clinical experiences, summer opportunities, and extracurricular pursuits reinforce and deepen their learning.

Beyond any particular study program, the faculty advises all students to complete coursework that exposes them to a variety of subjects and methodologies. For many years, the faculty has recommended that students consider taking at least one course that offers an unconventional perspective on the legal system or an alternative approach to legal inquiry whether in legal history, comparative law, law and economics, legal theory, or jurisprudence. This recommendation remains in effect and is strongly encouraged.

In the future, working groups of faculty and students may develop study programs in additional fields. Study programs may include the following course levels:

• Foundational courses Courses that provide students without prior expertise in a given field with essential context, perspective, skills, and introductory knowledge.
• Intermediate courses Courses, including clinical offerings and courses cross-listed with other departments or faculties, that build upon foundational training and offer sustained immersion in a particular subfield or area of legal study, with the aim of developing deeper knowledge, practical skills, and analytical perspectives.
• Culminating study opportunities Seminars, research colloquia, advanced clinics, and programs offered in collaboration with other faculties and departments, in which students are expected to apply the knowledge and skills acquired in prior coursework in a sophisticated and integrative manner.