Academic Program

Scheduling Options

New England School of Law has three divisions:

Full-time (day), with approximately 660 students who generally take three academic years to complete law school. Full-time students take required subjects throughout the first year and part of the second year.
Part-time (evening or day), with about 340 students who take four years to complete law school; these students are generally working while they attend law school. Part-time students take required subjects in the first and second years. First- and second-year evening division classes take place on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, beginning at 6 p.m.
Special Part-time Program, specifically for students with primary child-rearing responsibilities, who require a flexible schedule. Students must complete degree requirements within six academic years. A program with limited enrollment, it is one of very few in the country that provides this option. (See panel facing this page.)

All students begin the academic year in August and attend until late May. The school also offers a summer program for upperclass students that includes elective and clinical courses, as well as a summer abroad option.

Study Abroad Programs

New England School of Law and three other American law schools, all members of the Consortium for Innovative Legal Education, Inc., cosponsor summer abroad programs and semester abroad programs. The summer programs are located in Galway, Ireland; London/Edinburgh; Malta; and Prague. The semester programs are at the University of Paris X-Nanterre; the University of Aarhus, Denmark; and the University of Leiden in The Netherlands.

Galway
The summer program in Galway is run by New England School of Law and focuses on international and comparative human rights law. It is taught by Consortium schools' faculty and by the director of the host institution, the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland. Please visit www.nesl.edu/summer/ for more information.

London
The London program concentrates on English and European Union law and practice and compares those systems to American law and practice. Classes are
team-taught from a comparative approach by American and English law professors. Please see http://www.wmitchell.edu/london/ for details.

Malta
In Malta, students choose two of three courses on international and comparative law, which are taught by professors from Consortium schools.

Semester Abroad
The semester abroad programs provide an opportunity to take courses in various international law subjects. Students register for courses in advance, and their selections must be approved by the dean's office.

Students are eligible for these programs after their first year of law school. The other participating schools are William Mitchell College of Law, California Western School of Law, and South Texas College of Law.

Consortium Law Schools Visit-out Policy

A New England student may be a visiting student for a semester or a year at one of the other law schools in the Consortium for Innovative Legal Education, Inc., (which includes New England School of Law, California Western School of Law, South Texas College of Law, and William Mitchell College of Law), provided that the visit has been approved by the dean's office and that the student meets all other requirements for visiting. Limits on courses that may be taken and on the number of credits that will be transferred are determined by the dean's office. Complete details are available from the dean's office. Aside from this program, New England does not permit its students to visit at other law schools.

Academic Centers

New England School of Law is home to three academic centers, the New England Center for International Law and Policy and the New England School of Law Center for Law and Social Responsibility.

The New England Center for International Law and Policy

The Center hosts an international conference each year. Topics have included Chinese reunification and Taiwanese independence, global standards for competition laws, universal jurisdiction, responding to rogue regimes, and the first decade of the Yugoslavia and Rwanda war crimes tribunals. The Center also sponsors various projects, including the International War Crimes Prosecution Project, Inter-state Complicity Project/CIA Renditions in Europe, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia Project, Congo Project, and US Attitudes Toward International Criminal Court Project.

Students can participate in two overseas externships that provide exposure to international law issues and practice. The law school has an arrangement with the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugolsavia (ICTY) in The Hague that allows up to two students each semester to assist with the tribunal's war crimes prosecutions. New England is one of very few law schools to place students regularly with the ICTY. Students can also work in the Office of the Co-Prosecutors of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), located in Phnom Penh. The Center also supports the ECCC through two other projects, preparing legal reference materials and legal research memos.

The New England School of Law Center for Law and Social Responsibility (CLSR)

The CLSR supports faculty, students, and alumni in projects and other activities that focus on social problems that can be addressed through the law and those that are products of inequities in the legal system itself. Current projects include the Criminal Justice Project, Environmental Advocacy Project, and Women and Children's Advocacy Project. In each of these activities, faculty teaching related courses are actively involved in projects for which students in the class do legal research and writing for practicing lawyers in the Boston area. The CLSR also sponsors the Public Service Project, which identifies public service work undertaken by faculty, students, and alumni and assists in coordinating those efforts.

The Center for Business Law

The Center for Business Law draws together and builds on the law school's offerings in various areas of business law and provides opportunities for students to learn about the challenges and possibilities of business law practice. In addition to providing practical skills experiences for students, the Center serves as a forum for faculty and students to integrate course work with policy research in the areas of intellectual property law, tax law, and corporate governance and ethics.

Focusing your legal studies

Required Courses