Graduate Program

Catherine Peshkin, assistant dean for Harvard Law School’s Graduate Program and International Legal Studies, looks back on her career and life-changing travels — and forward to a fun and productive year ahead.

As Orientation begins, Harvard Law School welcomes the LL.M. Class of 2023, along with new cohorts of S.J.D. and international exchange students.

Ayesha Malik LL.M. ’99 has used her position, inside and outside the courtroom, to advocate for women in the legal system. “This is not a burden,” she says. “This is my calling.”

During 'an exciting and gratifying year,' Dionne Koller Fine, a tenured professor and sports law expert, became a student again

A social entrepreneur from Nepal, Jesselina Rana LL.M. ’22 focuses on human rights and women’s health.

The LL.M. Class of 2022 gathered in April for a fun-filled International Night in the WCC which featured dancing, singing, and spoken word talents — not to mention their team rowing skills.

As an LL.M. student at Harvard Law School who is about to launch both a solo show and a collective exhibition with other Black artists across Harvard, Suleyman Wellings-Longmore LL.M. ’22 says he can finally see how his legal and artistic passions inspire and fuel one another.

Eric Tong-Sheng Wu LL.M. ’77 S.J.D. ’91, a Taiwanese business executive, legislator, and philanthropist, has received the inaugural Taiwanese Cultural Collaboration Medal from the Republic of China’s Ministry of Culture.

Harvard Law School’s team has won the national round of the 2021-2022 Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court Competition and will advance to the international round, to be held from March 24 through April 10.

Ayesha Malik LL.M. ’99 has become the first woman to serve as a Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court in the country’s 75-year history.

For international law expert Svitlana Starosvit LL.M. ’13 S.J.D. ’22, Russia's military assault on Ukraine is horrifying yet unsurprising because, she says, “We Ukrainians know Putin all too well."

Hilary Charlesworth S.J.D. ’86, an Australian barrister and solicitor, law professor, and renowned scholar of international law, has been elected to serve as a judge on the International Court of Justice.

Three Harvard Law alumni collaborate on a major research study on opportunities for social enterprises in Ibero-America.

Catherine Peshkin has been appointed assistant dean for the Harvard Law School Graduate Program and International Legal Studies.

On Wednesday, Harvard Law School officially welcomed the LL.M. Class of 2022. Representing 64 countries and jurisdictions, from Argentina to the U.S.A., the class includes 184 new students and 33 LL.M. candidates returning from the LL.M. class of 2020–2021 to complete their studies in person on Harvard’s reopening campus.

Jeanne Tai, who as a senior administrator at the HLS Graduate Program and International Legal Studies has deeply influenced the careers of thousands of lawyers and legal academics around the world, will retire on June 15 after 24 years at Harvard Law School.

For five years, Rayhan Asat LL.M. ’16 has been fighting to free her brother, a Uighur businessman who was detained by the Chinese government and placed in a Xinjiang internment camp.

Alumni of the Harvard Law School Graduate Program are well known for traveling around the world to meet up with their fellow graduates. But all these four need to do is walk down the hall.

Scholars, alumni, and friends from around the world commemorate Alford’s legacy and impact.

Harvard Law School's most liked images of the year.

On Nov. 12, Japan’s Yuji Iwasawa LL.M. ’78  was re-elected to the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s principal judicial body, with overwhelming support from the U.N. member states. He will serve a 9-year term.

When she was pursuing her J.D., Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth Hutton LL.M. ’21 knew that she wanted to enter public service, but wasn’t sure exactly how she would do so.

The LL.M. class of 2021 continues to find creative ways to come together to create a strong community despite the pandemic.

After COVID-19 erupted earlier this year, Sidharth Chauhan LL.M.’21, who grew up in the foothills of the Himalayas, helped lead a multi-layered effort to address the pandemic in rural India.

When the coronavirus pandemic handed him lemons, Stefan Martinić LL.M. ’21 made lemonade—literally—and invited his Harvard Law School LL.M. classmates around the globe to join him for an online lemonade party, sparking the class to create a variety of virtual social events that have already bonded them closely.

Talia Gillis’ work cuts a wide swath, one focus being the intersection of artificial intelligence and consumer loan discrimination. It’s driven by a question: “What does it mean for a credit pricing algorithm to discriminate?”

Talia Gillis’ work cuts a wide swath, one focus being the intersection of artificial intelligence and consumer loan discrimination. It’s driven by a question: “What does it mean for a credit pricing algorithm to discriminate?”

Classmates seek to bring peace and progress to a war-torn country

On August 19, Harvard Law School’s Graduate Program officially welcomed the LL.M. Class of 2020 to campus, along with eight new S.J.D. candidates and 10 international students from six of the law school’s exchange partner schools.

As Anna Alriksson LL.M. ’14 and Kristian Persson walked down the front steps of Langdell library during Spring Reunions weekend, passersby couldn’t help but notice the couple showing off an engagement ring.

Six members of the Class of 2019 share their unique perspectives, varied experiences, and the lessons they will take with them from their time at Harvard Law School.

In her year at HLS, Chikondi Mandala LL.M. ’19 learned "to think critically about the law itself, why it exists, and how we can make it better.”

The Harvard Law School LL.M. Class of 2019 welcomed faculty, students and staff to the annual International Party to share food, music and dance performances from around the world.

Professor William Alford ’77 delivered a chair lecture on the occasion of his appointment as the inaugural Jerome A. and Joan L. Cohen Professor of East Asian Legal Studies at Harvard Law School.

With no other members of the military in the extended family, the parents of U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Sara Plesser Neugroschel LL.M. ’19 were “very, very surprised” when she decided to commission in the Navy after her 2L year at the University of Miami Law School, from which she graduated in 2009.

Dieter Grimm LL.M. ’65, a noted scholar, academic and public intellectual, and former justice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, returned to Harvard Law School on September 18 to speak on “Courts under Political Pressure.”

On March 3,  the Harvard Law School LL.M. Class of 2018 welcomed faculty, students and staff to the annual International Party in Wasserstein Hall to share international food and drink, cultural displays, and music and dance performances from around the world.

Gloria Scott LL.M. ’17, who is from Liberia, served as chief justice of her country’s Supreme Court from 1997 to 2003. She has also been a practicing lawyer, a senator, and most recently, the chair of Liberia’s Constitutional Review Committee. But for the past year she has been eager to be a student again.

On Feb. 11., the Harvard Law School (HLS) LL.M. class of 2017 welcomed faculty, students and staff to the annual International Party in Wasserstein Hall.

In this collection of photos selected from the Harvard Law School’s Historical & Special Collections, the Harvard University Archives and the Harvard Law Bulletin, threads of continuity are woven throughout the Law School experience, no matter which decade—or even which century—you arrived.

Professor Jau-Yuan Hwang LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95 was named to the Constitutional Court of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and Professor Gonçalo de Almeida Ribeiro LL.M. ’07 S.J.D. ’12 was appointed to the Constitutional Court of Portugal.

On Feb. 13., while offering up their native foods and dressed in traditional garb (or as rabid fútbol fans), the Harvard Law School (HLS) LL.M. class of 2016 welcomed faculty, students and staff to the annual International Party in Wasserstein Hall.

Inspired by the interdisciplinary approach so many at Harvard Law School brought to studying law, Jorge Gonzalez S.J.D '13 is deploying that same approach in his own teaching and curricular development, translation work, and research.

The Harvard Law School LL.M. Class of 2014 hosted the International Party on Feb. 15. An annual event at the law school for more than a decade, the international party is an opportunity for graduate students to share their culture with the entire HLS community. This year's event featured music from around the world, an array of traditional garb, from kimonos to sombreros, and a variety of international food, from Icelandic 'volcano cake' to Chinese spring rolls.

At the annual international party hosted by the Harvard Law School LL.M class of 2013, students, faculty, staff and family members filled the Harkness Commons in the Caspersen Student Center for a chance to immerse themselves in the cultures of their graduate student classmates, who hail from more than 70 countries.