Welcome back to Trivia Tuesday, Clear Admit’s weekly look at special programs and opportunities offered by leading U.S. law schools. This week we’re exploring the wealth of interdisciplinary study opportunities available to students at UC Berkeley School of Law, which we discuss in greater detail in the recently released Clear Admit Guide to University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
In recent years, Berkeley Law has made a concerted effort to provide its students with an interdisciplinary legal education in which instruction in traditional legal subjects is supplemented by an exploration of related academic disciplines. By emphasizing cross-disciplinary study, Berkeley Law encourages its students to not only acquire a comprehensive knowledge of doctrinal law and a well-honed ability to “think like a lawyer,” but also to become deeply familiar with the issues and methodologies of other disciplines, which they can later draw upon to more completely understand their clients’ needs. At Berkeley Law, students may earn up to 8 of their 85 required units of credit from classes offered outside the law school. These eight units count toward the maximum of fifteen units that can be earned for work completed outside of law school classes, whether in student-run journals, independent research projects, externships or clinics. Many Berkeley Law students take advantage of courses offered by the Walter A. Haas School of Business, the Goldman School of Public Policy and the law school’s Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, as well as the UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science’s Departments of Economics, History and Journalism.
Another option for students interested in pursuing a multidisciplinary course of study is to follow one of the school’s Curricular Programs. Developed by Berkeley Law faculty members, the Curricular Programs are structured suggestions for courses, research projects, practical opportunities and extracurricular activities, both inside and outside the law school, that are designed to give students both breadth and depth of knowledge within a single subject area. Through this concentrated multidisciplinary study, students are expected to acquire a broader perspective on legal practice in their chosen field, which prepares them to pursue advanced research in that area and to become effective legal practitioners immediately after graduating from Berkeley Law.
For each of the school’s six Curricular Programs, which include areas such as Environmental Law, Social Justice and Law and Technology, faculty members have suggested a mix of law and non-law courses to help students develop a nuanced understanding of the legal issues involved in a specific practice area, as well as contextual knowledge about the industries covered by that practice area. For example, students who are focusing on Intellectual Property law through the Law and Technology Curricular Program, one of the school’s most popular, can take at two or more relevant law courses, including Patent Law and Cyberlaw, as well as courses from UC Berkeley’s MBA program at the Haas School of Business.
For more information about interdisciplinary opportunities at Berkeley Law, such as certificate programs and the role of extracurricular activities in some Curricular Programs, be sure to read the Clear Admit Guide to University of California, Berkeley, School of Law – available now for immediate download!
