Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow welcomed this year’s class of incoming law students at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre on Aug. 30.

In her first address of the academic year, Minow welcomed the more than 700 students who make up this year’s group of LL.M., J.D. and transfer students.

Highlighting the depth of the incoming class’ backgrounds, she noted that 70 percent of the incoming class took time off after college, with more than half having more than two years of post-college experience.

Minow told students that they should expect to work hard while at Harvard—they would be earning their degrees, not just getting them—but they would discover why Harvard has the reputation for caring so much about teaching.

“My advice: dive into the experience. Find at least one professor this year to get to know and who will get to know you. Learn from and with each other. Don’t stop taking notes in class when the professor stops talking. Make great friends—they can last your entire lifetime,” she said.

Watch Dean Minow’s address to the incoming HLS class:
Quick Facts on the incoming classes:

HLS Class of 2013

  • Members of the Class of 2013 hail from 42 States and the District of Columbia, and from more than 20 countries.
  • Ten Fulbright scholars, three Truman scholars, and one Rhodes scholar are starting their 1L year at HLS.
  • The group includes a NASA consultant, a New York City police officer, a semi-professional hockey player, and a casting assistant to Broadway productions. It also includes former interns for a variety of organizations, including the FBI, CIA, World Bank, MTV, Sotheby’s, and the Red Sox.
  • The entering class boasts more than 20 Teach for America alums, three Peace Corps volunteers, and five students with military experience.
  • In the group are a world champion baton twirler, a taekwondo black belt, and a winner of an Air Force competition for satellite design.

HLS LL.M. Class of 2011

  • There are 190 members of the LL.M. 2011 Class, hailing from 62 countries.
  • Some have served as judges, law professors, prosecutors; clerks to Constitutional Courts in South Africa, Singapore, India, Israel, New Zealand, Canada; and in military judge advocate corps. They’ve worked at national central banks; national and regional parliaments; ministries of justice, finance, economic development, environmental protection;
  • 71 LL.M.s already have or are about to receive advanced degrees beyond their first law degrees.