For those who may not know, the Semester Abroad Program is an opportunity for HLS students to receive a semester of ungraded credit towards the Harvard JD degree for study at a law school overseas. The study abroad program is intended to afford students a valuable educational experience, immersion in a foreign legal culture. This includes exposure to what makes the legal system function as it does: its underlying assumptions, how local lawyers think about the law, what law is designed to do, and how it relates to the society more broadly.

“Study abroad gives you a chance to be a fish out of water,” said ILS staffer Ben Cook. “You gain a perspective on law you wouldn’t otherwise have if you stayed here.” Among the advantages cited is professional development. “Depending on what your post-HLS goals are, you may be at competitive advantage… by studying abroad. You’re having an uncommon experience and a substantive academic experience that can facilitate professional goals and personal development.”

In recent years students have developed individualized programs of study abroad that have enabled them to explore the following: commercial and capital market regulation in Argentina; rights of indigenous people in Australia; environmental law in China; and European take-over law, among others.

Concerned that your area of interest may not relate to a study abroad experience? Don’t be, said Cook. “It is not just for someone interested in human rights or business, but a wide range. In making a decision about whether it’s right for you, be sure to evaluate your goals; is there a program that fits? Also be sure to evaluate your foreign language proficiency if applicable and be mindful of the school’s academic calendar when planning your summer internships.

In addition to studying abroad, Cook urged students to think about the JD/LLM joint program with the University of Cambridge. “This can really set you apart from other students,” he said. “Particularly if your interests lie with the EU… this program can provide a leg up for those thinking about pursuing more in-depth academic work. The Cambridge JD/LLM joint degree program also benefits students interested in learning about British or European Law with an eye to practicing in Europe or for a transatlantic firm.”

For more information, be sure to visit the International Legal Studies website: http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/spotligh…

What is the public interest auction?
The public interest auction is a fundraiser run entirely by the 1L class that raises money to support students who do public interest work over the summer. We solicit donations from faculty, staff, alumni, parents, students, firms, and local businesses. Some donate money and some donate things to auction off. We receive all sorts of donations – things like Red Sox tickets, gift certificates to restaurants and salons, lunches and fishing trips with professors, cookies and brownies made by the librarians, and a tour of the Northwest Corner Construction project. The auction is one of the biggest social events of the year. Every year the auction has a theme, and we decorate Austin Hall accordingly. This year the theme was “Bright Lights: Bid City” and so the different rooms were decorated as different big cities – London, Paris, and New York.

What has gone into preparing for this event and what have you gotten out of the experience as a co-chair?
Almost all of the 1L class helps out with the auction. We divide the students up by committees and committees mostly help out either by asking for donations, calling alumni and asking them to donate, emailing firms, going door to door in Cambridge, or by helping process the donations and get them ready to sell, or by helping out on the night of the auction. As one of the auction co-chairs, I had the opportunity to work with a group of amazing people to try to plan and coordinate this huge event – it was definitely a  challenging experience for all of us. From coordinating hundreds of student volunteers to keeping track of hundreds of donations, to making sure everything comes together on the night of the auction, being a co-chair was a lot of work, but it was extremely rewarding. It was also a good opportunity to meet new students.

The event is always a lot of fun for students, faculty and staff. What was your favorite part of the evening? Did anything surprise you?
The event was a huge success. My favorite part of the evening was the live auction. Our auctioneers – this year Professors Elizabeth Warren and Jonathan Zittrain – were auctioning off the “right to be – or not be – in the 2010 parody.” The first bidder was the Dean of Students because they gave her a hard time this year in the parody, but then Professor Mann, who bought this item last year, got in a bidding war with Professor Warren and everyone was laughing so hard!

Why should admitted and prospective students seeking a strong public interest community choose Harvard? Why did you?
I think that students looking for a strong public interest community should choose Harvard because they can go anywhere and do anything with a degree from Harvard Law. We are a bigger law school, but as a result, we have so many more options to pick from than other law schools. Good public interest law jobs are really competitive – and since I want one, I’m glad I chose Harvard. I know that the connections and friends that I will make here, with professors and fellow students, will be of benefit for the rest of my life.

The question of whether to apply as a transfer student is the right move is up to you, but we think that a little research will show you the vast benefits of transferring to HLS. With 102 full-time professors and more than 300 courses, HLS is home to the most intellectually stimulating legal community in the world. Outside the classroom, there are 14 journals, over100 student organizations, clinical placements in approximately 30 areas of the law, and more than enough opportunities for you to experience the incredible diversity of the HLS community during your second- and third- year. For example, the Harvard Law Review encourages transfer applicants to apply for membership and several past transfer students have been successful in that endeavor.

Bottom line? Whether you are interested in constitutional law or environmental law or human rights advocacy or any number of other areas, the breadth and depth of our offerings is incredible. Whether you want to clerk at the circuit court level, follow the path to academia, or pursue a career in public service, the opportunities presented to our graduates are unsurpassed.

For more details on the transfer application process including eligibility guidelines, deadlines, and application requirements, please visit: http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/j…

Also, stay tuned in the coming days and weeks for blog entries of a few students talking about their experience transferring into Harvard Law School!

Self assessment is another big part of the process, including the type of court you envision for yourself and researching the judges to whom you apply to find personality and interest matches. “Trial courts tend to offer more practical work,” offered Solberg. “I think it’s the best complement to law school on a theoretical level.” Appellate courts on the other hand tend to focus more on legal arguments with more individual research on a fewer number of cases.

How many judges should one apply to? “That’s a difficult decision… most applicants apply to anywhere between 70 to 80 judges. This is a high number, but this process is by no means a sure thing. Be flexible and ask questions.”

For more information including tips and pointers, please visit the Office of Career Services website.

If you think it would be cool to be dean of admissions at HLS…you’re right!  It is a great job.  You get to represent the best law school on the planet.  You get to meet the best and brightest law students, and many other incredibly talented people aspiring to join their ranks.  You get to speak to interesting and accomplished alumni in a wide array of careers.  You get to change lives with a signature and a phone call.  You then get to see those admitted applicants become law students who are preparing to change the world.

I guess I caught the bug.  I’m looking forward to my new challenge–to have some small part in promoting important, even world-changing, ideas.  I start Monday!

Thanks for reading.

Skadden Fellows are paid a salary for two years by the Foundation in order to allow them to pursue work in public interest jobs.  With the assistance of our terrific fellowships advisor Judy Murciano (make sure to go see her when you’re a student!), HLS students compete successfully with students from other schools for these and other valuable fellowships.

Please visit the link to HLS Speaks off the JD Admissions home page if you’re interested in these subjects.

“We actually spend a lot of our time with students helping them design and implement clinical and pro bono projects (and sometimes even non clinical/pro bono things) and I like to think we are very supportive of student initiatives. Here are some examples:

“Students wanted to start a Spanish for Public Interest Lawyers course & came to us…we were able to do it quickly (by the next semester) and fairly cheaply by hiring LLM students who are native Spanish speakers; we run it out of the clinical office even though it is a non credit (and non clinical) course. It’s been very successful and now we offer two different levels of the course.

“A few years ago, students approached us about sponsoring trips during fly-out week. We now have established programs during fly out week and spring break and winter intersession—this year about 40 students did pro bono work over spring break and we arranged the placements through various HLS alumni and Lee Branson went as far as arranging housing and group activities for the students. We invited clinical instructors to go and provide extra on-site supervision. So, not only did we respond to the initial student idea, but we’ve continued to refine the idea and make it better each year.

“We also recently assisted a student who was trying to set up a program for local kids coming out of foster care—she was not seeking credit for this, but she wanted replicate a model she had learned about during her independent clinical work last winter. We gave her contacts with people both within HLS and outside of HLS and gave her advice on how to proceed and what she could do within HLS to ensure this program kept going after she had graduated. I met with her several times and last week she was in to report that a Cambridge non-profit had picked up the program and she has 1L students interested in keeping the program going.

“We work really hard to make sure students aren’t duplicating efforts (either within HLS or trying to start an organization that already exists in the community)…but even when we find students trying to reinvent the wheel we don’t turn them away, we talk to them to see if they can do something that hasn’t been done yet!”

A: The new 3L tuition initiative is something I’ve been dreaming about for many years but never thought would see happen because it is so revolutionary. In the beginning of my time at HLS, I thought we should put all of our back-end resources into our loan repayment program (which was the first in the country and remains one of the very best).

But after a while I began to realize that the specter of debt hanging over their heads deterred many students from going into public service, no matter how great our loan repayment program is. We knew they could afford to do it with our support, but the psychological debt aversion was real and we wanted to help with that. At the same time, we didn’t want to do an up-front, selective fellowship.

I’ve learned over the years that you can’t take out a crystal ball and figure out who will go into public service work. Some of the people most committed to post-law school public service work are the ones who worked in the private sector before law school and needed to use all of our wonderful resources to build a public interest track record while here.

We also didn’t want to use this as a recruiting tool and just select people on criteria like LSAT or GPA. We thought all of our students should get the extra help to boost them into public interest work. That’s why we’ve made it non-selective and that students can make the decision to participate as late as their 3L year. That’s what makes this unique (and we don’t even have any idea of how expensive it will be because it is an entitlement program). Students can still take advantage of our fabulous LIPP program for the rest of their debt, they’ll just enter it with one-third less tuition debt.

We are not naïve enough to think that the extra $41,000 is going to pull people who really want to go to a firm for a while from going there – but we do hope and think it will help more people take the plunge if they want to do public interest work but were just afraid of having too much debt hanging over their heads. We genuinely hope and expect that this new initiative, along with our other generous programs, will help a critical mass get into and stay in public interest work. I’m really grateful to Dean Kagan for her willingness to create what is potentially a very expensive program.