Best Schools for Civil/Human Rights Law? Forum

[thedragon5678]

It seems like Columbia and NYU get a lot of hype, but what other schools have strong programs for human rights? I am looking for schools with strong faculty, clinical, and/or law reviews in the area of human rights, civil rights, or public sector law. Its a bonus if they have strong international law programs as well.

[crazywafflez]

Yale would be my choice if I had the chance...

[cavalier1138]

The problem is that "human rights law" is both a very narrow and a very overbroad category, so it really depends.

If you're talking about international human rights law in the sense of being a lawyer for Amnesty/a similar NGO, flying around the world, helping oppressed populations, then Yale/NYU/Berkeley would be the top of my list because of the clinic and internship opportunities (faculty and journal reputation is meaningless outside of a few clinical programs; don't get suckered in by any of that). Even then, most of the burden is going to be on you to make the right connections and luck into the right jobs.

[humanrights]

hahaha, this is something i've also been looking into (my username gives it away). as you mentioned, nyu and columbia are always at the top of people's lists; however, i think others in the T14 (such as uva, georgetown, and berkeley) are sometimes overlooked. i'd also add wustl, vanderbilt (pretty sure they have a social justice law school track), and ucla.

obviously, those are all within the T20, but i've found myself being more attracted to schools like ucla, wustl, and vanderbilt than quite a majority of the ones in the T14.

[nixy]

The T14 are going to be better than UCLA, WUSTL, and Vandy for civil/human rights law, though, just because they offer better employment opportunities overall. If you’re looking at the very top schools anyway then I suppose it’s fine to worry about curricular/cultural differences; but basically the school with the best employment opportunities is going to be the best for whatever kind of law you want to do.

[cavalier1138]

obviously, those are all within the T20, but i've found myself being more attracted to schools like ucla, wustl, and vanderbilt than quite a majority of the ones in the T14.

I echo what nixy said, and I urge you (again, based on your prior posts) to not get taken in by your gut feel about these schools. WUSTL, UCLA, and Vanderbilt are all schools that will make much more effort to sell you on their programs than T13 schools because they have a much greater need to sell you on their programs.

[humanrights]

obviously, those are all within the T20, but i've found myself being more attracted to schools like ucla, wustl, and vanderbilt than quite a majority of the ones in the T14.

I echo what nixy said, and I urge you (again, based on your prior posts) to not get taken in by your gut feel about these schools. WUSTL, UCLA, and Vanderbilt are all schools that will make much more effort to sell you on their programs than T13 schools because they have a much greater need to sell you on their programs.

yeah, i've heard this. i hope I'm not hijacking the original post, but the reason i was so attracted to schools like ucla, wustl and vanderbilt is because of ucla's williams institute, wustl family, gender, and sexuality law path, and vandy's social justice law program. it just seems like those schools place more of an emphasis on what I'm wanting to do. maybe I'm just not doing the correct research, though!

[nixy]

You can do what you want to do from any of the top schools. You don’t need special programs to do so. It seems counterintuitive, but law isn’t a very specialist degree - pretty much all schools offer the resources to go into almost any legal fields.

For instance, if you look at what you call WUSTL’s family, gender, and sexuality path - that’s not actually a separate program. There’s no certificate or anything. They’ve just identified resources at the school you can use in that area. The classes listed (Domestic Violence & the Law, Employment Discrimination, Family Law, Feminist Theory/Feminist Judgments, Health Law, Regulating Sex: Historical & Cultural Encounters,Sexuality & the Law, Trusts & Estates) are going to be offered at any top law school (some of the more seminar-y titles will vary but you can study law and sexuality at any top school). There are going to be pertinent faculty at any top school because these are cool hip areas to study. WUSTL has a clinic it calls “Children’s Rights,” but juvenile law clinics are really common at lots of law schools (my definitely not top law school has one). Moreover, you can also pretty easily get internships with non-school institutions/organizations while a student to do juvenile law stuff if you want - you don’t need a focused clinic. The student organizations that WUSTL identifies exist at basically every law school over a certain size. The only thing that seems at all specific to WUSTL is teaching the Law, Gender, and Justice class to undergrads, which is kind of cool, but also absolutely not a strong enough reason to go to WUSTL over higher ranked schools (teaching an undergrad class in a subject isn’t super important experience for getting you a job, unless maybe if you want to go into academia, and if you want to go into academia publishing is way more important and you want to go to a tip top school anyway).

Just because the T14 schools haven’t broken out those resources into a separate page doesn’t mean they don’t offer exactly the same opportunities, if not more.

[nixy]

(UCLA’s Williams Institute is a think tank that does research. It’s not an academic program at the law school that would make your actual legal education any different from at any other school. You can be a summer fellow there, which doesn’t appear to be limited to UCLA students, or you can be an extern during the year. But you would essentially be working as a research assistant. You could get functionally the same experience being a research assistant for a professor working on related topics at any law school. They probably offer a lot of lectures on related topics, but 1) all top law schools have lots of speakers, and 2) that’s not actually going to be especially helpful for getting you a job in the field.

Vandy’s Social Justice program does appear to be the closest thing to what I think you’re looking for in researching this stuff, but again, if you drill down, it’s not unique, expect perhaps for the reading group. Again, you can access equivalents to those courses, intern/externships, and clinics at every top school. They have a link to a guide for entering public interest; all top schools will have that kind of assistance through their career offices. They also have more information about fellowships for after law school, but again, all top schools will have this information as well.

The fact that these schools may be presenting these things more prominently in their marketing doesn’t mean that that these schools are actually better options for those career paths than generic T14 schools with better employment options over all.)

[nealric]

The fact that these schools may be presenting these things more prominently in their marketing doesn’t mean that that these schools are actually better options for those career paths than generic T14 schools with better employment options over all.)

That's fundamentally what rubs me the wrong way about these sorts of programs. They are marketing exercises that hope to attract starry eyed 0Ls who dream of "making a difference" but are far more likely to end up at some midlaw firm doing insurance defense while slogging through the $200k in loans they incurred than jet setting around the world while standing up for human rights.

I suppose most specialty programs have that sort of vibe to them, but the "human rights" stuff tends to be particularly bad because it preys on people's sense of altruism.

[CanadianWolf]

Notre Dame, Northwestern, UConn, Columbia, UCLA, American probably have the most recognized programs.

There are other law schools which offer a couple of courses or LLM programs related to human rights. For Example: The University of Washington offers an LLM in Sustainable International Development (not sure if I have the exact designation, but it is close) which offers several courses which may be of interest to you. Check to see if JD students can take classes in this LLM program.

I would start any search in this area with Notre Dame Law & Northwestern University School of Law.

[cavalier1138]

Notre Dame, Northwestern, UConn, Columbia, UCLA, American probably have the most recognized programs.

In what universe?

[CanadianWolf]

Notre Dame, Northwestern, UConn, Columbia, UCLA, American probably have the most recognized programs.

In what universe?

I suggest that you do some research before criticizing these recommendations.

[nixy]

Specialized programs are not necessary for going into most practice areas (tax is probably an exception) and they virtually never outweigh a school’s general employment placement. The best school for human/civil rights is going to be Yale. Going to UConn for civil/human rights over, say, a T14 makes no sense when you can take a majority the courses they list as part of their human rights certificate at pretty much any law school above a certain size.

(The UConn human rights certificate requires a core course, International Human Rights, and three electives to be chosen from a list including comparative law, critical race theory, employment discrimination, immigration law, international law, refugee law, and a variety of other stuff with “human rights” in the title, many of which are likely taught at other large schools. That curriculum can be duplicated at a lot of schools; getting a certificate isn’t magical.

Notre Dame has what looks like actually a very good LLM in international human rights. But I also note that it states in bold: “Our program is carefully crafted to meet the intellectual and practical needs of lawyers practicing human rights law in their home countries and in regional or international institutions. Therefore, our curriculum is not designed for those seeking admission to the bar in the United States.” So that doesn’t sound like it’s going to help a standard JD student very much.

American does also have a lot of resources devoted to human rights law, but they are largely academic centers focused on scholarship, not programs that get students jobs. And its employment statistics are shaky enough, I would never recommend going there for human rights over, say, Berkeley or NYU, or frankly most other top schools with the best overall employment stats.)

Basically, programs centered around faculty generating scholarship don’t translate directly into student employment in those fields.

[polareagle]

Nixy's analysis is spot on.

To break through the hype/marketing/spin, I think the best thing for you to do is identify what job or jobs you want to hold, find the bios of young-ish lawyers at those organizations (anywhere up to say 10 years post law school), and look where they went (and where they landed in the class). Backwards planning is definitely the way to go here. People from any law school in the country, including Cooley and People's College of Law can go on to have very impressive careers and accomplish a lot. But the outcome for the vast majority of grads will be bleak. The schools listed above aren't quite that bad, but absent a clear pipeline to the sort of places you want to work, you should go to the best school you get into that makes financial sense.

One more point about backwards planning. I applaud your commitment to human rights, civil rights, and public interest writ large (seriously, not being sarcastic), but everyone I know who successfully landed gigs with impact organizations or high-profile non-profits shortly after law school was focused on a particular field from 1L. It's not enough to know that you want to do *something* good for the world; this is a professional school, and you need to approach the education with specifics in mind.

[cavalier1138]

Notre Dame, Northwestern, UConn, Columbia, UCLA, American probably have the most recognized programs.

In what universe?

I suggest that you do some research before criticizing these recommendations.

Yeah, I've actually had some exposure to this field, and nixy's analysis is spot-on. Whatever research you've done appears to not have been focused on paths to practice so much as where academic scholarship is being generated, which is irrelevant to the OP.

[CanadianWolf]

OP: A leader in Human Rights legal education & internships appears to be Northwestern University. NU may also have a law journal in this area.

Northwestern offers a joint JD/LLM in Human Rights law

UConn also offers an LLM in this area.

Notre Dame & American University law schools have extensive programs.

Columbia & Yale have law journals related to human rights.

UCLA offers a summer program.

Rather than debating with other posters, it is best to just research these schools on your own & make your own decision as to which law school best meets your needs.

Recommending Yale is a bit unrealistic as odds of admission are extremely low.

[cavalier1138]

OP: A leader in Human Rights legal education & internships appears to be Northwestern University. NU may also have a law journal in this area.

Northwestern offers a joint JD/LLM in Human Rights law

UConn also offers an LLM in this area.

Notre Dame & American University law schools have extensive programs.

Columbia & Yale have law journals related to human rights.

UCLA offers a summer program.

Rather than debating with other posters, it is best to just research these schools on your own & make your own decision as to which law school best meets your needs.

Recommending Yale is a bit unrealistic as odds of admission are extremely low.

Case Western has an International Law Center with a "War Crimes Research Lab." Cooley has an "International Law" concentration that includes human rights studies. You are absolutely delusional if you think either of those schools offers their graduates a serious opportunity to practice international human rights law with any major NGO/IGO. See why listing schools with specialized programs related to human rights might not actually be a good idea?

The OP should absolutely do their own legwork on researching schools, but they should be focusing on things that actually matter, like fellowships and other post-graduation job placement information.

(Also, not sure where you got the idea that any non-tax LLM is worthwhile for American students, but that's not remotely true.)

[crazywafflez]

I'd really urge others to not go to schools like American looking to practice civil rights type work.
Here's a group I do work with (I don't work for them though):
https://protectdemocracy.org/meet-the-team/

Almost everyone has a degree from a top 6 school, 90% are from T14s. There are a few outliers (always will be), but I would not hang my hat on that. And other places like ACLU will have top rung folks as well.

Vandy has a social justice clinic and program (I'm a huge vandy fan, so no knock on the school at all), but I'd still recommend someone go to Duke or UVA over Vandy, even if they wanted to work in social justice or civil rights type work.

Places teach stuff- St. Andrews has a great IR program up in Scotland; I'd still tell someone to go to Oxford though if they wanted to do work with NATO or the UN. I'm not saying it is impossible from St. Andrews (it is still a good school), but you'd be silly to make that choice.

It isn't as if the law changes drastically from school to school when you're learning/teaching it. It does help to have those resources, but the folks who overwhelmingly get jobs in high rung prestige stuff are often from the top 6 schools, followed by the T14 and so on.

That doesn't mean you can't do great work with a degree from Ole Miss, you absolutely can- it'll just be much harder to reach, and you should realistically have other goals (like being a PD or an ADA or local state work etc).

While my Yale suggestion may have perhaps been a bit overboard, it is the best school for it. Followed by HS, CCN and so on.

[nixy]

Recommending Yale is a bit unrealistic as odds of admission are extremely low.

Saying that Yale is the best school for human/civil rights is not the same thing as saying that the OP will be able to go to Yale - it's simply answering the question asked. The recommendation is to go to the school with the best overall employment options at a price that the OP can afford based on anticipated employment after graduation/LRAP options.

[CanadianWolf]

I think that the OP has gotten his money's worth in this thread.

[CanadianWolf]

It seems like Columbia and NYU get a lot of hype, but what other schools have strong programs for human rights? I am looking for schools with strong faculty, clinical, and/or law reviews in the area of human rights, civil rights, or public sector law. Its a bonus if they have strong international law programs as well.

I think that some are reading too much into the original post which started this thread.

We do not know OP's goals & motivations.

With respect to OP's question, it is better to get too much information, than too little.

[nixy]

Sure. Which is why a bunch of us responded to your suggestions with more information.

[polareagle]

I'd really urge others to not go to schools like American looking to practice civil rights type work.
Here's a group I do work with (I don't work for them though):
https://protectdemocracy.org/meet-the-team/

Almost everyone has a degree from a top 6 school, 90% are from T14s. There are a few outliers (always will be), but I would not hang my hat on that. And other places like ACLU will have top rung folks as well.

OP, this is exactly the sort of analysis I suggested above. Do this for where you want to work. By definition, you are very unlikely to be an outlier.

[nealric]

Recommending Yale is a bit unrealistic as odds of admission are extremely low.

The odds of full time paid employment in this field coming from most schools are extremely low.