About Legal Studies:
The Legal Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst provides an interdisciplinary approach to the study of law and society. As a department within the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Legal Studies offers its courses to the entire University and maintains a major for approximately four hundred students. One can say that Legal Studies is education about law, whereas law school is education in law. In fact, as a discipline, Legal Studies is based on the assumption that “law is too important to be left to lawyers.” The critical, humanistic approach of the program encourages students to investigate and develop their attitudes toward law and justice within the context of a growing literature of Legal Studies and related disciplines.
New Students:
Students may enroll at any point during their undergraduate career. Though you may not take any Legal Studies courses as a freshman, if you have any interest in the major you may find it useful to enroll as Legal Studies majors in order to take advantage of the New England Regional Student Program as we are the only Legal Studies program in New England. While we do often recommend enrollment in Legal Studies 250 prior to admission so that you will have a good sense of what the major is like it is by no means mandatory. Be advised that many of our upper level courses are open to non-majors only as space permits and that Legal Studies 250 is a prerequisite for many of them.
There is no minor in Legal Studies.
For quick reference, here are pdf versions of the Major Requirements and the List of Outside Requirements.
Transfer Students:
Contact Tami Paluca at 413.545.9698 or tlpaluca [at] legal dot umass dot edu.
