Why Harvard Law School Needs Your Money, continued
Going Global
In addition to bolstering financial aid for J.D.s, the school is also looking to increase support for its graduate students, most of whom are from other countries and so not eligible for federal student loans. Although HLS now provides grant money to the program's students (over $1 million last year), the school is far from being able to meet the full financial needs of all those it accepts. Professor Bill Alford ' 77, vice dean for the graduate program and international legal studies, believes Harvard Law School should do much more.
Nandan Kamath LL.M. '03, who has law degrees from his native India as well as Oxford, received a significant amount of financial aid to attend HLS. But without the aid, Kamath would have likely chosen another school. "There is a significant risk for many students," he said. "They have to spend an enormous amount on tuition fees, which when converted to local currency would take a lifetime to repay." And without financial aid, LL.M.s must gamble on getting a job in the United States after graduation. "I do know quite a few people who had to turn down the opportunity to study at Harvard Law on financial grounds," said Kamath. "It must be so heartbreaking."
 Aik Kor Sia LL.M. '04 from Singapore, I-San Ko LL.M. '04 from Taiwan, visiting researcher Arthur Weintraub from Brazil and Patricia-Ann Prodigalidad LL.M. '04 from the Philippines |
Applications to the program are on the rise, with many from prospective students in countries in economic and political transition. The number of students applying to the LL.M. program from the People's Republic of China alone has increased more than 15 fold over the last decade, according to Alford. "There's a growing need in countries whose legal systems are in formative stages of development for the kind of training that this institution provides," he said.
Alford believes it is similarly important to increase grants for S.J.D. students, many of whom become teachers. "With major change under way in the very nature of legal education in countries ranging from Japan to India to Germany," he said, "there is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a lasting imprint on legal education throughout the world."
Kamath imagines that the resources to provide more financial aid for graduate students "would give the school the opportunity to be not just a great law school with international students but a great international law school."
Beyond strengthening the graduate program, HLS looks to expand its international and comparative focus. As more and more faculty who teach the core subjects are including international or comparative elements in their work and classes, the school needs to help them realize these interests more fully, says Alford. Funding is needed for research and to bring in foreign scholars for collaboration. This spring, for example, Dennis Davis, a judge of the South Africa High Court, is co-teaching a course with Professor Frank Michelman '60 on comparative constitutionalism, which has recently become a focus of Michelman's work.
Alford is convinced that all J.D. students should take a course in international or comparative law, whether or not they intend to make this their professional focus. In fact, he says, such a course may be of the most value to those not intending to specialize in foreign affairs, in order to help them understand the assumptions underlying the U.S. legal system.
Crisarla Houston '04 didn't come to law school knowing she'd be interested in international law, and she's not sure what she wants to do when she graduates. But she's glad to have taken the plunge into international waters. "When you take the bar, you're going to learn the standard property and contracts and all that, but if you don't expose yourself to other areas of law, you'll never know," she said. "I think it's helping me to figure out where I fit in the big lawyer pool."
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