Harvard Law School : Ask Biography

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Harvard Law School (also known as Harvard Law or HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University and is regarded as one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S. News and World Reports as the second best law school in the United States, behind Yale Law School.

The current Dean of Harvard Law School is Martha Minow, who assumed the role on July 1, 2009. Harvard Law has 246 faculty members. Many are preeminent legal scholars; Harvard Law School faculty were responsible for more downloaded papers on the Social Science Research Network than any other law school, a fact only partially explained by the school's size.

Harvard Law School has produced a large number of luminaries in law and politics, including the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, and former President Rutherford B. Hayes. World leaders counted among its graduates include the current President of the Republic of China, Ma Ying-jeou; the current President of the World Bank Group, Robert Zoellick; the current United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay; and the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson. Some 149 sitting United States federal judges are Harvard Law School graduates; six of the nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States attended the law school (Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia and Elena Kagan). Seven sitting U.S. Senators graduated from the school.

Harvard Law School has also educated a significant number of leaders and innovators in the business world. Business leaders counted among its graduates include the current Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, current Chairman of the Board and majority owner of National Amusements, billionare Sumner Redstone, current President and CEO of TIAA-CREF, Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., current CEO and Chairman of Toys "R" Us, Gerald L. Storch, and former CEO of Delta Air Lines, Gerald Grinstein, among many others.

Each class in the three-year J.D. program has approximately 550 students. The first-year (1L) class is broken into seven sections of approximately 80 students who take most first-year classes together. Harvard Law School graduates have accounted for 568 judicial clerkships in the past three years, including one-quarter of all Supreme Court clerkships. More than 120 from the last five graduating classes have obtained tenure-track law teaching positions.