加州大学-伯克利

Legal Studies is interdisciplinary, liberal arts major that engages the meanings, values, practices, and institutions of law and legality. The Legal Studies curriculum examines how law shapes and is shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces. The major is designed to stimulate critical understanding of and inquiry about the theoretical frameworks, historical dynamics, and cultural embeddedness of law.

The Legal Studies faculty and students grapple with important questions of social policy within the framework of significant concerns in jurisprudence and theories of justice. These concerns include individual liberty, privacy, and autonomy; political and social equality; the just distribution of resources and opportunities within society; the relationship between citizens and the state; democratic participation and representation; the moral commitments of the community; and the preservation of human dignity.

The major’s course offerings examine law and legality from both humanist and empirical perspectives. Courses are organized into interdisciplinary topical areas that transcend disciplinary boundaries in the interest of collaborative inquiry.

The Legal Studies major is under the academic supervision of the School of Law faculty.

Learning Goals for the Major

The faculty strongly supports an undergraduate liberal arts education that teaches students to develop their intellectual capacities: how to research topics independently, how to ask penetrating questions, how to analyze problems, how to construct arguments based on critical thinking, how to make well-founded judgments, how to identify issues of importance for the future. The intent of the program is that courses be framed with this perspective. In addition, the program is committed to introducing students to multiple disciplinary approaches to the study of law and legal institutions, as well as conveying important basic knowledge about the core features of the American legal system.

Honors Program

With consent of the major adviser, a student majoring in Legal Studies with an overall UC Berkeley grade point average (GPA) of 3.5 and a GPA of 3.5 in Legal Studies courses by the end of the spring semester junior year may be admitted to the honors program. The student must have completed at least half of the major requirements before being admitted to the honors program.