Law Profs Overhaul 1st Year Courses

The Harvard Law faculty unanimously approved sweeping revisions to the school’s first-year curriculum in a closed-door meeting yesterday afternoon, professors confirmed last night. The vote marked the culmination of two years of work by Dean Elena Kagan and the review’s chief architect, Smith Professor of Law Martha L. Minow, as well as several other professors and administrators.

Law School officials—including Kagan and Minow—did not respond to requests for comment last evening. But Petrie Professor of Law Einer R. Elhauge ’82 said the century-old first-year curriculum covering traditional common law topics—contracts, torts, property, civil procedure, and criminal law—will be constricted, and courses on policy (“Legislation and Regulation”) and international law (“International Law and Problems and Theories”) will be added.

The review marks one of the most dramatic changes in the first-year subjects since the standard first-year offerings which are now used across the country were pioneered at the Law School over 100 years ago by onetime Dean Christopher C. Langdell, Harvard College Class of 1850.

The swift approval of the review—conducted mostly out of sight and with no public dissent among faculty members—also bodes well for Kagan, who is considered a leading candidate for Harvard’s presidency. By comparison, the undergraduate curricular review at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has dragged on for four years—with no clear end in sight.

In an e-mail, Elhauge called the revisions made by the Law School curricular review “bold” and “innovative,” adding that the changes passing unanimously “is like hell freezing over.”

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Javier C. Hernandez can be reached at jhernand@fas.harvard.edu.