Columbia Law School - Law Centers and Programs

Law Centers and Programs

Columbia was among the first schools to establish both comparative and international law centers. The Law School also has major centers for the study of international law, including the Center for Chinese Legal Studies, the Center for Korean Legal Studies, the Center for Japanese Legal Studies (the first and only center of its kind in the United States), the Center for European Legal Studies, as well as centers for Corporate Governance, Climate Change Law, Law and Economics, Law and Politics, fourteen other law centers, and numerous law programs. In July 2012, the Law School launched three new centers: i) the Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership to "study global financial markets and their diverse, interdependent actors"; ii) the Center for Constitutional Governance to "bring together a dynamic roster of constitutional scholars who are deeply engaged in the study of governmental structure and relationships, including experts on separation of powers and issues of federalism"; and iii) the Center for International Commercial and Investment Arbitration Law to "further the teaching and study of international arbitration, building on the Law School’s considerable expertise in this rapidly growing area of legal practice."

In 2006, the Law School embarked on an ambitious campaign to increase the number of faculty by fifty percent without increasing the number of students.

On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia since 1999, to be a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Sotomayor created and co-taught a course entitled "The Federal Appellate Externship" every semester at the Law School since the fall 2000. Federal Appellate Externships and many other externships, including Federal District Externships, are offered each year at Columbia.

Among other externships, the Law School offeres a full-semester externship on the federal government in Washington, D.C. that provides students hands-on experience in government law offices. In addition to their placements at federal agencies, students in the program also are required to attend a weekly seminar and write a substantive research paper. The Federal Government Externship has the following three specific components:

1) Field Placements: Students are required to work a minimum of 30 hours a week doing substantive legal work at a federal agency. Options include, amongst others, several sections of the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security,

2) Seminar: Students conduct an in-depth analysis of the roles lawyers play in federal offices. Each seminar is taught by Columbia Law faculty and a Washington-based adjunct professor. Each seminar also features guest speakers and has a substantive writing component.

3) Supervised Research: Students are required to produce an 8,000–10,000-word research paper on a topic closely connected to their externship and field placement. Externs are encouraged to consult with the agency in which they work to develop their topic.