S.J.D. Program: Application Deadlines and Materials

Application Deadlines

The deadline for submission of applications for admission to S.J.D. degree candidacy beginning in the fall of 2013 is April 1, 2013. The Graduate Program Admissions Office must receive all application materials (including recommendations) by this date. Admission decisions will generally be made in early June.

Application Materials

To apply to the S.J.D. program, applicants must complete the relevant parts of the Graduate Program's online application. Applicants will be asked to provide information about themselves and the ideas they propose to pursue in their S.J.D. studies, copies of their LL.M. paper, letters of recommendation from their LL.M. paper supervisor and the Harvard Law School faculty member proposed to serve as their dissertation supervisor, transcripts from the university at which they received their highest law degree, and certain other information. 

An important part of the application is the dissertation proposal. The proposal (which should be between 3,000 to 4,500 words, not including the preliminary reading lists) should be sufficiently detailed to permit the Committee on Graduate Studies to judge whether it is likely to make a significant contribution to legal scholarship. The dissertation proposal should contain an overall description of the applicant's research objectives: the ideas the applicant hopes to advance in the dissertation; why achieving those objectives would be valuable; and more specific descriptions of the applicant's proposed fields of study, including the courses the applicant intends to pursue and the proposed reading list for each field. Applicants may wish to indicate how the proposed dissertation relates to their experience and the writing they have done to date, including the LL.M. paper (or the equivalent).

As part of the dissertation proposal, applicants must identify and describe three or four underlying fields of study and the proposed faculty supervisor for each field. Fields are areas of study in law or other disciplines which are relevant to the dissertation topic and in which the applicant plans to gain working knowledge. Frequently, these are areas in which the applicant can imagine teaching a course. Applicants may wish to include one interdisciplinary field – that is, a field that seeks to combine study of the law with insights from a discipline other than law (such as economics, history, philosophy, or political science).

Definition of fields may be difficult and require some thought. While applicants are advised to consult their proposed supervisors about field definition, some general guidelines follow. First, a field may be viewed as a community of people who communicate with each other in writing. Thus field definition goes together with creating a bibliography. Second, fields should not be so broad that they would be impossible to master in one year. Third, skills areas such as statistics, calculus, languages, etc. generally are not considered fields. However, a course in such a subject may appropriately be included as part of the study plan for a particular field. Finally, in identifying possible fields, applicants are asked to be realistic about their abilities and experience to date in particular areas of study.

Application Checklist

Please refer to the instructions included with the online application for complete details on application requirements. In general, a completed application includes:

• Online application form
• Curriculum vitae or Résumé
• Recommendations (at least two)
• Transcripts
• Official TOEFL report (if applicable)
• Personal Statement (no more than 1,000 words)
• Description of LL.M. Paper (1,100 – 1,300 words)
• LL.M. Paper or Thesis (or the equivalent)
• Dissertation Proposal (3,000 – 4,500 words, not including preliminary reading lists)
• Financial aid application (if applicable)
• Application fee of US$85

Click Here to Apply