new york university phd in law

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A doctorate is the pinnacle of an arts and science education. Founded in 1886, the Graduate School of Arts and Science at NYU is among the oldest schools offering doctoral programs in the United States. Today NYU’s doctoral programs span the humanities, sciences, and social sciences, and students pursue cutting-edge research with the close supervision of NYU’s internationally recognized research faculty. New York City resources complement and enhance our vibrant intellectual communities. Use the links below to explore Doctor of Philosophy and dual advanced degrees at New York University.

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A graduate education brings the work you did as an undergrad to the next level and provides you with the opportunity to focus on the topics and ideas that you care about most. Expectations increase in graduate school. So do the chances to strengthen the skills and expertise that will help you cement yourself as a thought leader and innovator in your chosen field. When you pursue a graduate degree at New York University, you are part of a diverse, dynamic, dedicated community that pushes you every step of the way and supports you at every turn—in a city where resources and opportunities are second to none.

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New York University School of Law

The information on this page was provided by the law school.

Official Guide to ABA-Approved JD Programs

Founded in 1835, New York University School of Law has a long record of academic excellence, national scholarly influence, and innovative achievements. It has consistently been a pacesetter in legal education, pioneering new approaches to practical-skills training and the early recognition that law has an increasingly global dimension to which all students should be exposed in the classroom. Its innovative lawyering and clinical programs; interdisciplinary colloquia; public interest initiatives; and law-and-business transaction courses have all served as models for others. The law school has a proud history of fairness and openness: More than 100 years ago, NYU Law became one of the first law schools to routinely admit women and other groups discriminated against by many other institutions, and it continues to offer opportunities to exceptional students from groups historically underrepresented in the profession. The school’s location in one of the world’s financial and cultural capitals provides students ready access to the very best practitioners and policy makers, including top executives in business and finance, as well as leaders of international, governmental, and public interest organizations. Through its numerous clinics, centers, and institutes, the law school provides unparalleled professional experience for students who graduate to pursue careers in government, business, and, of course, the legal profession.

The JD Program

The curriculum at NYU School of Law is designed to offer students the best possible foundation in legal theory and practice, and to empower them with the skills they need to be successful lawyers—and leaders—in the 21st century. Taught by top-tier faculty, the curriculum is distinguished by its depth and breadth across all traditional areas of legal study, its interdisciplinary strength, and its global perspective. The law school is committed to providing students with a sophisticated understanding of how US law interacts with—and is informed by—the regimes of other nations and the international community, and to educating lawyers who will use their degrees to become leaders of the profession and of society.

Long an innovator in legal education, the law school continually updates its curricular and programmatic offerings to ensure that NYU Law graduates are optimally equipped to compete in the 21st century legal marketplace. Recent additions include foreign study programs in Buenos Aires and Paris; a Washington, DC-based Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic; increased training in business and financial literacy and leadership; and offerings in cybersecurity law, policy, and technology. Social entrepreneurship and artificial intelligence are also growing areas of focus and expertise.

Previous innovations have included the addition of a first-year Legislation and the Regulatory State course and a first-year elective that allows students to choose among Constitutional Law, Corporations, International Law, Tax, or Property. The Lawyering Program, recognized for its excellence by a Carnegie Foundation report on the state of law school education, complements the theoretical and doctrinal courses offered in the first year and sets the foundation for 40+ fieldwork clinics that students can choose from in their 2L and 3L years, including the recently added International Transactions Clinic.

Students take classes taught by faculty who are leaders in their fields, ranging from international, environmental, constitutional, and criminal law to civil procedure, torts, intellectual property, and administrative law and policy, among others. NYU Law’s distinguished interdisciplinary curriculum includes its preeminent law and philosophy program and a robust law and business program. The latter offers unique transactional courses that teach students how lawyers can add value to the strategic development, design, negotiation, and implementation of deals in law, finance, real estate, entertainment, tax, and business. Aside from these programs, students enjoy intellectual and pedagogical diversity, mixing traditional classes with a choice of courses in cutting-edge fields such as the law of democracy and compliance and risk management, as well as colloquia, clinics, independent research, journal work, study abroad, fellowships, and more.

Student Journals and Activities

There are 10 student-edited publications, and additional writing opportunities are available through the Moot Court Board. There are more than 80 student organizations, including Law Students for Human Rights, the award-winning Suspension Representation Project, and the school’s student government group, the Student Bar Association.

Institutes and Centers

A rich intellectual life outside the classroom is sustained by more than 30 institutes and centers, including the Brennan Center for Justice, the Hauser Global Law School Program, the Robert L. Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, the Frank J. Guarini Center on Environmental and Land Use Law, the Institute for Policy and Integrity, and the Pollack Center for Law and Business. These enterprises bring together leading faculty and professional teams of lawyers, economists, and policy experts to produce research and commentary that influence the real world of law, policy, and business. They also provide students with unique opportunities to travel to places where legal services are needed and to work on sophisticated projects in the areas of national security, real estate, criminal justice, human rights, and international law, among others. Among our newest centers are the Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, which serves as a hub for faculty and students who wish to pursue research on these issues, and our Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law, which supports the study of the relationship between race, ethnicity, and economic inequality on one hand, and the successes and failures of legal structures on the other. Also recently added are the Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance, dedicated to studying and encouraging the development of institutional investors as a responsible force in corporate governance, and the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship, which is committed to improving legal systems for entrepreneurs seeking to advance social justice.

Career Placement and Bar Passage

NYU School of Law has an extensive career services program. Career planning for first-year students includes personal career counseling, workshops on all aspects of the job search, specialty panels featuring speakers from all areas of practice, and a videotape mock interview program. Each year, more than 600 private law firms, public interest organizations, government agencies, corporations, and public accounting firms visit the law school to interview students. More than 70 percent of these employers are from outside New York.

The Public Interest Law Center provides students interested in public service with comprehensive support, including advice on courses and career opportunities. The Public Interest Summer Funding Program guarantees funding to all first- and second-year students who work in public interest positions. The Public Interest Law Center, in conjunction with other area law schools, also sponsors an annual public interest legal career fair, the largest event of its kind in the country.

Tuition and Aid

NYU School of Law has multiple avenues through which it helps eligible students meet their legal education costs. The school offers a substantial number of students awards based on their intellectual potential, evidence that they will enrich the educational environment, and financial need. In addition, the school offers a number of programmatic scholarships. The Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship Program selects entering students for their intellectual potential and demonstrated commitment to public service through law. AnBryce Scholarships are awarded to outstanding students who are among the first in their immediate families to pursue a graduate degree. Furman Academic Scholarships are given to students who show promise in becoming legal academics. Scholarships are also available in the areas of business law, international law, Latino human rights, public policy, cybersecurity, patent law, and law and technology. Additionally, under the school’s generous Loan Repayment Assistance Program, a JD graduate working in an eligible public interest position for 10 years—and earning up to $100,000 a year—may qualify to have all of his or her eligible federal law school loans forgiven.

Admission Decisions: Beyond the Numbers

The admission process is highly selective, seeking individuals of exceptional ability with diverse experiences, backgrounds, and points of view. The Committee on Admissions reviews each undergraduate transcript closely, with attention to factors such as trends in the applicant’s grades, class rank, the ratio of pass/fail to graded courses, the diversity and depth of coursework, and the length of time since graduation.

Other aspects of the application also influence the decision. For example, the committee evaluates work experience and extracurricular and community activities for evidence of advancement, leadership, and the capacity for assuming responsibility. Factors other than undergraduate grades and standardized test scores may be particularly significant for applicants who have experienced educational or socioeconomic disadvantages.

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• Human Rights International Law

Human Rights and International Law

Dear Prospective Student, International law is increasingly significant on a global stage and its breaches can be flagrant. Despite dramatic lapses in its observation, international law is invoked on a daily basis by states before international and regional organizations, and in their bilateral and multilateral relations. In short international law is a significant, but not always deciding, factor in international affairs. International law is relevant to all students at the NYU School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs (CGA). As part of the MS in Global Affairs, the Human Rights and International Law concentration provides a basic understanding of topics as diverse as state formation, rules on the use of force, transitional justice, laws of war, the "responsibility to protect," peacekeeping operations, protection of the environment, and international organizations. For those interested in focusing on human rights, this concentration explores women's rights, children's rights, the environment and human rights, as well as courses that help the would-be practitioner develop skills in human rights research and advocacy. Other courses cover rules on the use of force at the state level as well as post-9/11 challenges to the enforcement of international law, including detention, "enhanced interrogation," and the ways in which wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been conducted. Field intensives can take students out of the classroom to develop a deeper understanding of war crimes prosecutions, memorialization, and reconciliation in locations as diverse as Bosnia, Serbia, and The Hague, or Rwanda. These topics are particularly relevant for a student who wishes to pursue a career related to international law or human rights within a nongovernmental organization (NGO), a think tank, the United Nations, or in academia, or if a student wishes to explore a possible career as an international lawyer. To learn more, explore our courses in the Human Rights and International Law concentration.

Description

The proliferation of conflict in the post-Cold War era, often accompanied by gross violations of international law and abuses against civilian populations, has focused attention on the need to strengthen international standards of behavior and justice.  International law, transitional justice, international criminal tribunals, human rights, protection of the environment, and international organizations are playing an increasingly important role in the discourse of international affairs. The Human Rights and International Law concentration prepares students for careers with research and advocacy organizations, the media, the United Nations, and other international organizations, as well as the pursuit of a law degree or PhD. Students in the Human Rights and International Law concentration are required to take two courses -- the International Law core course, as well as the basic course in Human Rights.  Students must then select five concentration elective courses (3 credits each) that are offered on a regular basis.

Develop a basic understanding of key areas of International Law (including how international law is created, laws on the use of force and the conduct of war, and the work of international criminal tribunals). Develop familiarity with some of the key areas of international human rights (women's rights, children's rights, the environment and human rights, business and human rights, etc). Master practical tools necessary for effective human rights advocacy. Overall, develop the basic background knowledge in International Law and Human Rights to work proficiently and knowledgeably in these fields.

Prepare yourself for work at a research (think tank), human rights organization, or within the UN system. Or build the basic background knowledge to pursue a PhD or law degree.

Requirements

Concentration: human rights and international law.

The proliferation of conflict in the post-Cold War era, often accompanied by gross violations of law and abuses against civilian populations, has focused attention on the need to strengthen international standards of behavior and justice. International law, transitional justice, human rights, protection of the environment, national reconstruction, and international organizations are playing an increasingly important role in the discourse of international affairs. The Human Rights and International Law concentration prepares students for careers with research and advocacy organizations, the media, the United Nations, and other international organizations, as well as the pursuit of a law degree. Students in the Human Rights and International Law concentration are required to take the first course listed below. Students must then select five concentration elective courses (3 credits each) that are offered on a regular basis.

• GLOB1-GC2240 International Human Rights: Laws, Mechanisms, and Practices 3
• GLOB1-GC2005 Conflict Assessment: Theory and Practice 3
• GLOB1-GC2020 International Negotiation: Cases and Lessons 3
• GLOB1-GC2035 Ethics in International Affairs 3
• GLOB1-GC2060 Democratic Transitions: Setbacks and Successes 3
• GLOB1-GC2115 U.S. Use of Force and the "Global War on Terror" 3
• GLOB1-GC2135 Networks as Capacities for Peace 3
• GLOB1-GC2155 Post-Conflict Policies for Peace Consolidation: A Case Study Approach 3
• GLOB1-GC2165 Build Your Own NGO: Organizational Development for Global Affairs Professionals 3
• GLOB1-GC2190 Global Public Health 3
• GLOB1-GC2215 Transitional Justice in Theory and Practice 3
• GLOB1-GC2255 Human Security: A New Approach to Today's Global Challenges 3
• GLOB1-GC2275 Mediation Skills for Global Affairs 3
• GLOB1-GC2320 Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons: Protection and Practice 3
• GLOB1-GC2355 Human Trafficking and People Smuggling 3
• GLOB1-GC2360 Women and Human Rights: International Law and Policy 3
• GLOB1-GC2385 Gender and Development-Policy and Politics 3
• GLOB1-GC2390 Gender, Politics and the State in Development 3
• GLOB1-GC2415 Authoritarianism, Repression, and Corruption 3
• GLOB1-GC2425 Private Sector Partnerships 3
• GLOB1-GC2455 Mediation for Global Affairs Practicum 3
• GLOB1-GC2510 Cyber: Technical, Operational & Strategic Perspectives 3
• GLOB1-GC2514 Big Data, Prediction and Global Affairs: How to Use 21st Century Computing 3
• GLOB1-GC2535 Advanced Colloquium (Human Rights & International Law) 3
• GLOB1-GC2545 Human Rights Research and Advocacy 3
• GLOB1-GC2565 Advanced Research Workshop 3
• GLOB1-GC3045 Children and Youth in Conflict, Peacebuilding, and Development 3
• GLOB1-GC3075 Women, Peacemaking and Peacebuilding 3
• GLOB1-GC2227 International Investigations and Forensic Evidence 3
• GLOB1-GC2362 Business and Human Rights 3
• GLOB1-GC2516 Advanced Data Analysis for Global Affairs 3
• GLOB1-GC2322 Non-Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century: Refugees, Statelessness, and Forced Migration 3
• GLOB1-GC3920 Consulting Practicum 3
• GLOB1-GC2645 The United Nations and 21st Century Challenges 3
• GLOB1-GC2151 Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for Global Affairs 3
• GLOB1-GC2205 International Justice 3
• GLOB1-GC2345 Introduction to the United Nations 3
• GLOB1-GC2515 Applied Statistics and Data Analysis 3
• GLOB1-GC2540 Climate Change and Human Rights 3
• GLOB1-GC3055 Security Sector Governance and the Rule of Law 3
• GLOB1-GC2386 Gender & Migration 3
• GLOB1-GC1010 Peacemaking & Peacebuilding 3
• GLOB1-GC2340 Gender in International Affairs: Sex, Power, and Politics 3
• GLOB1-GC2590 Mobilizing for Social Change: Organizing Effectively 3
• GLOB1-GC2492 Fighting for the Rainforest: Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice in Amazon 3
• GLOB1-GC2493 Comparative Intelligence Systems 3
• GLOB1-GC2494 Astropolitik: The Politics, Policies, and Technologies of Outer Space 3

Student Experience

Osgoode’s PhD in law is a full-time advanced degree requiring research-intensive study and in principally aimed at students pursuing an academic career. It is designed to be completed in three to four years.

Prerequisites

An LLM is generally a precondition of admission to the PhD. Students without an LLM should apply initially to the Research LLM; after their first year of study they can apply to advance to the PhD.

Degree Requirements

Graduate seminar i: legal research (gs law 6610), graduate seminar ii: advanced legal research methodologies (gs law 6611).

• Study groups
• One elective course
• Extended dissertation proposal

Dissertation

• Final oral examination

The Graduate Seminar is the core course for the Graduate Program in Law. Designed to complement other courses, the seminar provides a venue for developing critical assessments of the law and facilitating students’ progress on their own research, papers and dissertation proposals. The seminar also creates an intellectual community and introduces students to Osgoode research resources.

This seminar offers a review of quantitative and qualitative methods employed in legal research. Specific sessions focus on interviewing, ethnographic methods, surveys and other quantitative methods, data collection and analysis, archival and document collection and analysis. The seminar is designed for PhD students and is completed in the winter term.

Study Groups

Students participating in study groups read and discuss a number of articles with their groups each week. The groups are not structured as courses but as venues for reflection and discourse. For doctoral students, study groups are equivalent to the comprehensive examinations required by other graduate programs.

Participation in a study group is required (for credit) in the first or second year of PhD studies, and then one year thereafter (non-credit) provided PhD students are registered full-time. Students can choose among five options, depending on their research interests and course availability:

• Regulation and Governance
• Law and Economic Relations
• Theoretical Perspectives in Legal Research
• Law and Social Justice
• Law in a Global Context

Elective Courses

PhD students can fulfil their elective course requirement through:

• a variety of graduate courses in law
• integrated courses with the JD program
• independent study
• courses in other programs

Research Outline, Ethical Review and University Guidelines

In the second term of their first year, each student must submit to the Program office a brief outline of their proposed research that has been reviewed and approved by the members of their supervisory committee. The work must be original, containing a new argument supported by research carried out by the student.

A declaration of the ethical issues around the underlying research must be made early in the student’s first year. Projects involving interactions of any kind (for example, through interviews, questionnaires, consultations or observations) require an ethics review.

Dissertations must be prepared in accordance with the Faculty of Graduate Studies thesis and dissertation guidelines .

Extended Dissertation Proposal

PhD students must submit an extended dissertation proposal (50 –70 pages) by the end of their sixth term. Students must defend their proposal in an oral exam before an examining committee (which must be done by the end seventh term).

The dissertation is a piece of original research that reflects a substantial contribution to existing legal literature. Expected to be between 300-350 pages, it should have the usual scholarly apparatus, footnotes and a bibliography prepared in accordance with the McGill Guide to Legal Citations. The dissertation should be of sufficiently high quality to warrant publication by an academic publisher or through a comparable venue.

With the permission of their supervisor and in consultation with the Graduate Program Director, PhD candidates may submit a Portfolio Dissertation in lieu of a conventional thesis. The Portfolio Dissertation must be composed of three to five articles (depending on the length and ambition of the articles) developed during the candidate’s graduate studies, published or accepted for publication, and combined with an introduction and conclusion.

Final Oral Examination

Students must succeed in an oral defence of their dissertation before an examination committee.

Time to Completion

PhD students are expected to complete all requirements within 18 terms (six years).

Residency Requirement

Students must be located such that they are able to progress on all program requirements requiring geographical availability on campus.

More Detail:

Faculty research advisors, related topics:, funding and fees, intellectual life, meet our current doctoral students, meet our phds.

Jake Okechukwu Effoduh

“This school propelled me to unearth the power of legal research in ways that have helped me uncover new insights, challenge existing paradigms and contribute to this ever-evolving landscape of scholarship.”

Deanne Sowter

“Attending Osgoode Hall Law School for my JD and PhD were two of the best decisions of my life, giving me the opportunities and skills to engage in important research supported by a thriving academic community.”

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Program in Law and Society

as.nyu.edu/sociology 295 Lafayette Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10012 • 212-998-8340

Professor Haney

Many of the liberal arts disciplines in the College of Arts and Science provide important perspectives on law and the legal profession. The law and society minor, administered by the Department of Sociology, offers undergraduates a meaningful concentration of these courses. The minor is designed to give students an interdisciplinary perspective on law as a social institution and on how law shapes, and is shaped by, a variety of political, religious, cultural, economic, and social forces.

The minor in law and society consists of five courses, which allows it to be substantial and broad. The requirement of a core course enhances its coherence. In addition, the minor gives capable and ambitious students opportunities to pursue advanced or specialized study. While prelaw students may well wish to take it, this minor is not aimed specifically at them.

Students wishing to declare this minor should speak with the academic administrator for the Department of Sociology, 295 Lafayette Street, Room 4168; 212-998-8340.

Public Policy - PhD

The doctoral field in public policy offers students mastery of the interdisciplinary concepts that form the basis of public policy analysis. With a focus on the preparation of students for careers in academic institutions, non-university research settings, government, and other institutional settings where public policy is made and influenced, the policy field promotes an understanding of the empirical, methodological, and theoretical issues that have framed and continue to frame policy analysis and research. Although students may choose to focus on a core area, such as urban poverty or housing, the overall objective is comprehensive exposure to the analytical methods and social science theory and research that frames public policy discourse.

Students in the public policy field must complete the modules in microeconomic analysis and in applied statistics and econometrics. While economics and political science have traditionally anchored the conceptual foundations of the policy process and rational models of policy activity, the field of public policy has witnessed an intellectual revolution among the social sciences that form the basis of research and policy analysis. Sociological, historical and anthropological methods and theories, for example, have begun to expand our conceptual approaches to public policy in different ways, particularly as questions about the role of decision-making, politics, and identity have become important considerations in the evaluation of policy action. Students will become familiar with how analytical methods and theories from these various disciplines and intellectual communities offer competing and/or complementary approaches to the rational model.

Bridging Disciplines: Northwestern Pritzker Law JD-PhD Alumni Redefine the Intersection of Law and Academia

In May 2024, Ryan Whalen (JD-PhD ’16), director of the University of Hong Kong’s Center for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, helped organize the school’s first “Law &…” conference on interdisciplinary legal research. “The goal was to get people from as many different places in as many different backgrounds who would talk about the benefits and the challenges interdisciplinarity brings to their research programs,” he says. Whalen quickly thought of two experts to invite: his fellow alumni from the Northwestern Pritzker Law JD-PhD program, Raff Donelson (JD-PhD ’17) and John Meixner (JD ’12; PhD ’13).

“John is a talented psychologist and does work that you don’t often see at law schools,” says Whalen. “Raff does law and philosophy. He’s interested in measurement and how we know things, and that’s super interesting from a methodological perspective.” Northwestern Pritzker Law’s JD-PhD program, in collaboration with the Graduate School and Kellogg School of Management, is designed for students interested in careers where degrees in law, teaching, and research can enhance their background, such as academia or policy research. Alumni have pursued a variety of PhD degrees to accompany their JDs, including African-American studies; computer science engineering; economics and finance; media, technology, and society; political science; psychology; and religion. The integrated, accelerated program is designed to allow students to complete both degrees more effectively (typically six to seven years) than through consecutive programs (three years for a JD in addition to four to six years for a PhD).

Whalen, Donelson, and Meixner’s paths from Northwestern Pritzker Law to their careers in academia and law exemplify the variety of interdisciplinary opportunities available to students who embark on a JD-PhD at the Law School.

From the lab to the Law Review

Ryan Whalen was interested in policy and law, but his career goals focused more on research rather than practicing law. “I wanted to understand the law, but I wanted to do research,” he says.  He was drawn to Northwestern Pritzker Law’s integrated offerings as well as its funding: it is the country’s most financially generous JD-PhD program, typically providing full funding for seven academic years. “I’m from a working-class, first-gen college background, and so taking on law school debt to me, especially American law school debt, was a scary prospect,” says Whalen, who is from Nova Scotia.

Whalen concentrated his PhD research in a lab conducting computational social science, where his advisor, Noshir Contractor, encouraged him devise his own project (rather than assist on one of Contractor’s research grant projects). Whalen says this was a “very formative experience” that helped him to grow as an independent researcher while leveraging data access and skills training. Whalen wrote his dissertation using patent data to measure innovation. Today, his academic research focuses on a data-driven approach to understanding the law and legal systems, with a particular focus on intellectual property law and innovation policy. Whalen says his time in the lab “is absolutely essential to most of the work I do today.”

Another formative experience for Whalen was his time as the editor-in-chief of the Law School’s Law Review from 2014-2015, which he says showed him “how the sausage is made in the context of legal scholarship.” The role taught him diplomacy and working in a managerial team, which was especially welcome because “for the most part, grad school is very solitary.” At the Review , he assigned tasks and made collaborative decisions, giving him experience he uses in his current position, especially in his committee work.

Whalen joined the University of Hong Kong as an associate law professor in 2022. He says that he directly applies what he learned at Northwestern Pritzker Law—the value of interdisciplinarity—to his daily work. “When it comes to actually investing in programs and structuring institutions in ways that foster interdisciplinarity, many institutions don’t do a good job of that. But Northwestern does. It is something that attracted me to the program that I continue to use and is a core part of my academic identity.”

The legal theory student becomes the teacher

After earning his master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago, Raff Donelson knew he wanted to be a researcher, and with academic experience in biomedical ethics, he knew he wanted to conduct research that crossed the border between philosophy and law. “To talk about the ethics of certain things, it helped to know about legal developments in those areas.” He wanted to remain in Chicago, and Northwestern Pritzker Law’s program funding made it an easy decision. “Given that I wanted to be a researcher and not, say, a corporate attorney, I was motivated to avoid the cost of law school.”

Donelson’s approach to the combined program was to begin in the philosophy PhD program and then transition so that he could take the GRE and the LSAT on his own timeline. As the Law School’s first JD-PhD in philosophy, Donelson cites Jim Lindgren’s Legal Scholarship Program, a course full of helpful guest speakers, as an especially useful entrée to his law education. “It was a nuts-and-bolts course on how legal scholarship is produced, how people actually get jobs as legal academics, and answering the question of ‘what does this all look like’?” As someone with expertise in another field, it quickly filled knowledge gaps he didn’t know he had. “How do you get a job and give a job talk, and what does that look like? It’s quite different in the legal field than in philosophy, as it turns out.”

Criminal theory was especially influential. “I went into law school knowing that I wanted to write about legal theory. But it is quite unusual, in the United States at least, to hire someone merely to teach legal theory. So, if you want to teach in a law school, the path I wanted to take, you have to be able to teach something else that’s a larger enrollment class.” Donelson’s course covered criminal procedure incidents like the police killing of Michael Brown, which at the time was not yet national news. “As a Black man and living in America, I had all sorts of thoughts about policing and justice in policing. Taking this course and actually learning how the law works [in the United States] was informative.”

Donelson currently teaches criminal procedure at Chicago-Kent College of Law, as well as criminal law and legal theory, a career that gives him much flexibility and autonomy to think about what he’d like to pursue. His supportive JD-PhD cohort helped him along his career path. Compared with people getting a single degree, “You have a different trajectory in terms of timeline, what you’re doing, what you’re thinking about, how you’re trying to get a job, who you’re trying to network with outside of the school. So, it draws you quite close together.” He says that both informal and formal community-building opportunities in the JD-PHD, such as weekly lunches, gave him and his classmates a chance to form a supportive connection over “opportunities to ask questions about things about this weird path that you were on,” he says. There’s no glossing over the workload, coordination—and ensuing stress—that come with pursuing two advanced degrees at once, but, Donelson says, he did not feel alone. “There were various mentors that I had who were willing to talk to me about how to cope with various parts of this. Shari Diamond is one such person, and she was really wonderful,” he says. ““Northwestern Pritzker Law is a collaborative and cooperative place.””

A detour through the court

When John Meixner, a psychology major, was considering graduate school, he focused on neuroscience programs at institutions like Northwestern. He never considered law school until he learned that his main principal investigator, Peter Rosenfeld, worked on law-related neuroscience. “He researched the neural basis of deception and other areas with a strong connection to law,” says Meixner, now an assistant professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.

During a recruitment visit, Meixner learned about the JD-PhD program from student Destiny Peery (JD-PhD ’14), now managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School. “I was really interested in the intersection between law and psychology,” said Meixner, and so, like Donelson, he transitioned from PhD to the joint program after taking the LSAT.

Meixner was the first JD-PhD student to focus on neuroscience, which he was “was very fun. I got to think a lot about exactly what I wanted my dissertation [‘Neuroscience Applications in Court’] to look like, and there was no set path to follow.” Following graduation, he planned to go into academia after clerking for one year on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Baltimore. In the meantime, his wife applied to and was accepted into medical school. “I ended up following her career for a while and delaying my academic path, which I think turned out to be a real benefit for me because I got to learn a lot about the on-the-ground practice of law,” he says.

In Michigan while his wife attended medical school, Meixner held a second clerkship with a district judge in Detroit, worked in a private law firm in Ann Arbor, and worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit. “I was a federal prosecutor for about five and a half years before becoming a professor at Georgia. I got to try cases and go to the grand jury and all these sorts of things that most academics rarely did. It’s been helpful for my long-term career.”

Meixner says he puts his skills from the JD-PhD program to use to this day, particularly those that draw on his methodological background. Currently he is researchinghow mitigating facts about defendants affect judges’ sentencing decisions.“I do a lot of hand coding of data sets: learning how to work with data was integral to everything I do now.” He also writes about neuro law and teaches a course called Law and the Mind. “A lot of being a lawyer is taking complicated topics and explaining them to other people in clear, straightforward ways. It’s very similar to conducting research.”

Meixner agrees with Donelson that the Law School fostered close relationships. When Meixner searched for jobs after his wife finished her residency, he reached out to professors Shari Diamond, who then directed the JD-PhD program, and Jay Koehler. “They spent a ton of time reading drafts, talking with me, and Shari set up a practice job talk. I was a student from 10 years ago that I’m sure not everyone remembered, and a bunch of people took the time to give me helpful feedback,” he says. “They didn’t have to do that, and it was very kind for them to do it. Northwestern is committed to interdisciplinary work and to the success of students.”

Months after the Hong Kong “Law & …” conference, Whalen deemed the event a success. “It brought together a diverse collection of interdisciplinary legal scholars from around the world to discuss legal interdisciplinarity  per se  in a way that doesn’t happen very often.” He reflected on how his fellow alumni’s varied backgrounds enhanced each other’s work. “Raff, John, and I are trained in quite different PhD fields. This means that we each approach scholarship, question formation, and research methods in distinct ways. It is my hope that learning about these differences can in turn help nurture more careful and intentional scholars.”

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Professor Ross Sandler Appointed as Inaugural Samuel Seabury Professor of Law

New York Law School Dean and President Anthony Crowell is proud to announce that Professor  Ross Sandler , has been appointed as the inaugural Samuel Seabury Professor of Law. Professor Sandler has been an indispensable part of the New York Law School faculty and academic community for three decades. He has made New York Law School and the Center for New York City Law a high-profile and influential voice in New York’s civic, legal, political, and public integrity communities.

Recruiting Professor Sandler in 1993 from Jones Day where he was a partner, was for New York Law School, a coup that has benefited the school in countless ways. Professor Sandler’s establishment of the Center for New York City Law in 1994 was a consequential moment in our school’s history. The Center’s publications,  CityLaw  and  CityLand , have become must reads for lawyers and professionals who work within and with city government. The Center has provided unmatched in-depth analysis of legal and policy activity that is vital to the development and functioning of the city, and which would otherwise have been largely out-of-view for the public The publications have also been essential learning opportunities for New York Law School students, many of whom have used the Center as a launching pad for successful careers in government at the local, state, and federal levels. 

The Center for New York City Law’s signature CityLaw Breakfasts have been a powerful civic forum and meeting place and have drawn the most important, high-level, and influential leaders to serve as keynote speakers. Speakers have included mayors, city commissioners from a wide selection of agencies, federal law enforcement leaders, citywide elected officials, state elected officials, and leaders from sectors that directly influence city government and its ability to serve New Yorkers.

Professor Sandler had an extraordinary career in government and legal practice. He served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, he was chief of the Environmental Enforcement Unit and worked on the cutting edge of newly emerging environmental law. Later, in the mid-1970s, as senior staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, he and NYLS Trustee Professor of Law Emeritus David Schoenbrod headed the Urban Environmental Unit, winning a pivotal Clean Air Act case. Professor Sandler joined New York City’s government in 1981 when Mayor Edward I. Koch appointed him to the newly created position of Special Advisor to the Mayor for Public Transportation. In that position Professor Sandler’s environmental law experience helped revitalize the city’s mass transit system.

In 1986, at the height of the Parking Violations Bureau scandals, Mayor Edward I. Koch appointed Professor Sandler Commissioner of the Department of Transportation. As commissioner, Professor Sandler reorganized and restored integrity to the department, and established a program of maintenance and repair of the city’s bridges that is still in place today. 

Professor Sandler is the author of numerous publications on environmental law, transportation, and government issues. In 2003, Yale University Press released his book,  Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government , written with Professor Schoenbrod. His book,  Jumpstart: Torts: Reading and Understanding Tort Cases , was published by Wolters Kluwer in 2012. Most importantly, Professor Sandler’s leadership of the Center for New York City Law reinforced New York Law School’s own legacy of alumni and faculty shaping the city and state, from alumni like Samuel Seabury and the three mayors who were in its first classes, to the one third of the Class of 2023 who have entered government and public interest careers. Our reputation with government agencies as a pipeline into public service has been cemented thanks in large part to Professor Sandler’s work.

Professor Sandler has also been a civic leader outside of NYLS, including serving as President of the City Club of New York. The City Club, one of the oldest civic organizations in New York, had acted as a critical partner to Samuel Seabury’s efforts to reform New York City government. This history adds another connection between Samuel Seabury’s life and Professor Sandler’s work.

New York Law School is proud to establish this new Professorship in honor of Samuel Seabury, an 1893 graduate. Samuel Seabury is one of our earliest and most historically influential graduates known for his relentless fight in the first half of the 20th Century against deep-rooted corruption in New York City and State government and the judiciary. Among Seabury’s many distinguished and high-level roles, he served as President of the New York State Bar Association, judge on the New York State Court of Appeals, and Democratic Nominee for Governor in 1916. He was known as a progressive reformer in New York City, fighting against the corruption of Tammany Hall. In 1932 Seabury served as the legal counsel for the Hofstadter Committee, a joint state legislative initiative charged with investigating corruption in New York City. The committee exposed mass corruption throughout the city’s judicial and law enforcement systems, eventually leading to the resignation of Mayor Jimmy Walker in 1932 (himself a member of the NYLS Class of 1904). Seabury has rightfully been held up as one of the earliest and most successful reformers who had a transforming effect on local government integrity.

Professor Sandler, as the Samuel Seabury Professor of Law, will continue to teach, serve as the Founding Director of the Center for New York City Law, continue to shape strategy for the Center, host the CityLaw Breakfasts, and write scholarship and commentaries in the Center’s publications. In honor of Professor Sandler and his wife Alice M. Sandler, the Center for New York City Law will establish an annual Samuel Seabury Lecture focused on public integrity. In May of 2024 Paul and Chandler Tagliabue and Arthur and Diane Abbey established the Ross Sandler and Alice M. Sandler Fellowship Fund to support current New York Law School students working for government. We are grateful for Professor Sandler’s leadership and congratulate him on this well-deserved appointment.

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Robert Howse   Lloyd C. Nelson Professor of International Law

Robert Howse's teaching and research focus on international economic law (trade, investment, and finance) and legal and political philosophy. He is a co-founder and co-convener of the New York City Area Working Group on International Economic Law and serves on the American Bar Association Working Group on Investment Treaties.  Read more about Professor Howse

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Tentative agreement reached between cornell-uaw.

Dear Cornell community,

We are pleased to share that Cornell and the United Auto Workers (UAW) have reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract that will substantially improve compensation and benefits for the University’s service and maintenance workers in Dining, Building Care, Grounds, and Transportation, and at the College of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Statler Hotel.

In addition to significant wage increases, the tentative agreement contains a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (“COLA”) to protect employee wages against inflation as well as increased flexibility in the use of health and personal time; floating holidays; greater vacation benefits for employees with less than five years of service; and greater access to University-provided clothing and shoe allowances. The parties have also agreed to compensate peer-to-peer training and solidify our collaborative approach to health and safety.

Our valued UAW-represented employees will vote on the tentative agreement on Sunday and Monday and, if it is approved, they will end the strike on Tuesday of next week. We look forward to welcoming them back. We continue to respect the right of our UAW-represented employees to strike. We continue to respect the right of those employees who decide to return to work in advance of the ratification vote. Updated guidance to assist supervisors with workforce reintegration can be found on the Working at Cornell website .

We extend our deep appreciation to the University’s bargaining team who worked tirelessly over many weeks and who negotiated in good faith with the UAW to reach a tentative agreement that benefits the entire community. We also recognize the efforts of our UAW-represented employees and their bargaining team in bringing both parties to this important, landmark agreement. All of our employees are an integral part of what makes our Cornell community so special.

To our students and their families, we understand the concerns that have been raised about the impact that the strike has had on Cornell Dining options, and we are eager to extend our operations to serve our entire community. We are grateful to the many staff and faculty filling the operational gaps in dining and elsewhere caused by the strike. Until we return to regular staffing levels, volunteers will continue to be needed and welcome .

Once the agreement is ratified, it will take a few days for campus operations to be fully restored. We continue to ask anyone without a meal plan that includes swipes (not Meal Choice) to explore dining alternatives other than Cornell Dining eateries until normal staffing levels have resumed.

Thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

Michael Kotlikoff Interim President

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