Graduate Program

A Note from Associate Dean Sarah Song:

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting our website. The Jurisprudence and Social Policy (JSP) Program is a unique PhD program at UC Berkeley focused on the interdisciplinary study of law. It is housed within Berkeley Law School but organized under the Graduate Division, which oversees all graduate programs at UC Berkeley. Established in 1978, JSP was the first law-focused PhD program in the United States and continues to be the leading program of its kind anywhere.

By integrating the study of law with the humanities and social sciences, JSP seeks a broad context for understanding and developing legal policy. While there are many productive ways to link law to the research tools of the disciplines, we are committed to pursuing plural, interdisciplinary scholarship that includes humanistic and social scientific approaches to the study of law. Our students generally specialize in some portion of this spectrum while learning from teachers and peers with diverse research interests. Students take a mix of interdisciplinary courses offered within JSP as well as classes in the Law School’s JD curriculum. These and other features of our program have become a model for other doctoral programs in interdisciplinary legal studies, many of which have recruited our alumni for their faculties. 

JSP faculty are leading scholars in their field who hail from a variety of disciplines, including economics, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology. Beginning with the first-year JSP Orientation Seminar and through a range of course offerings in the humanities and social sciences, we offer students training in both empirical and normative analysis of law. Over the past decade, JSP has grown, adding faculty who offer a range of cutting-edge courses in quantitative and qualitative research methods and research design that are specially oriented to the study of law. Our substantive course offerings have also increased in scope, pushing the boundaries of knowledge across multiple fields.

JSP is closely integrated with the Center for the Study of Law and Society (CSLS), which attracts visiting scholars from all over the world, hosts one of the most dynamic speaker series on campus, and provides an intellectual hub for top-notch research on law and legal institutions. CSLS also offers the Berkeley Empirical Legal Studies (BELS) Graduate Fellowship, which brings together doctoral students studying law and social science from JSP and other programs and departments on the Berkeley campus in a year-long research workshop. Berkeley Law is also home to a vibrant array of other research centers dedicated to issues ranging from law, energy, and the environment to reproductive justice; from law and business to law and social justice; from law, morality, and public affairs to law and technology. 

This is an extraordinary time for scholars and students who have interdisciplinary training in law. The collective challenges confronting us span diverse legal systems, fields of expertise, cultures, and regions of the world. In this context, the training we provide is not only an advantage for a professional career in academia, public service, or policy advocacy, but also urgently needed kindling for innovative theorizing, creative problem-solving, and breakthrough empirical research.

On this website you can get to know our students and our faculty and learn more about the JSP Program by viewing recent course offerings and upcoming conferences. I especially urge you to learn more about our advanced graduate students currently on the academic job market as well as our alumni. Nothing reflects so well on our program as our graduates, and what they are accomplishing with their training here at Berkeley continues to inspire us. 

If you have any questions about the JSP Program, please feel welcome to contact me, our Graduate Advisor Chris Tomlins, or our Graduate Student Affairs Officer Polly (Lei) Pan.

Sincerely,

Sarah Song, Associate Dean
Jurisprudence and Social Policy