Overview

The Legal Studies program of Northwestern University is not a pre-law program; instead, students receive interdisciplinary training that emphasizes the reciprocal relationships between law and society key to understanding the social environment. Legal Studies majors and minors study legal actors, legal processes, and legal institutions through the perspectives and methods of a variety of disciplines—including history, sociology, political science, philosophy, economics, African-American studies, literature, gender studies, psychology, Latin@ studies, religious studies, and Asian-American studies. At the same time, students use the conceptual framework of the law to illuminate empirical and theoretical concerns in these fields.

Program highlights

Graduates of our program are well trained to become active and thoughtful citizens engaged with local and global questions of power and justice and with the role of law in everyday life. Our graduates are ideally situated to succeed in careers in law, policy, education, politics, and in graduate work in the social sciences and humanities.

Legal Studies offers undergraduates the chance to engage in exciting, critical work with professors from all over Northwestern, the Law School, and the professional world, with courses in a variety of innovative topics.