Law@Princeton explores the role of law in constituting politics, society, the economy and culture. Each year, Princeton welcomes a select group of residential fellows and occasional visitors drawn from the academy, legal practice, government and policymaking institutions. They join a collection of professors on Princeton's permanent faculty who draw upon diverse methodologies to investigate legal phenomena. By combining the multidisciplinary expertise of Princeton's faculty with knowledge and perspectives provided by leading academic and practical experts on the law, Law@Princeton has created an exciting new forum for teaching and research about the legal technologies and institutions needed to address the complex problems of the 21st century.
Law@Princeton Programs
The Program in Law & Public Policy (P*LAW) serves as a hub for law and policy studies at Princeton, supporting world-class interdisciplinary research, educating Princeton students and the broader public about how law shapes public decision-making and debate, and leveraging the tools of legal reasoning and advocacy to help develop solutions to some of the most complex policy challenges we face. Each year, P*LAW hosts visiting law faculty fellows; brings leading legal scholars, practitioners, and jurists into public conversation on campus; and engages students in legal research, classroom instruction, and clinical education – preparing the next generation to hit the ground running as they tackle policy problems in the United States and around the world.
Part of the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, P*LAW’s affiliated faculty and researchers have expertise in a wide range of fields, from the law of constitutional democracy and individual rights, to regulations of technology and public health, to the comparative and international law surrounding human rights, national security, and foreign affairs. With the support of SPIA’s offices in Washington, D.C., we help connect policymakers to the research they need, and host Chatham House-style workshops for academics, practitioners, and current decisionmakers on contemporary questions of policy debate – informing policy discussions and advancing understanding across disciplinary divides.
The Program in Law and Normative Thinking (PLANT) provides a home at Princeton for interdisciplinary research focused on law, with an emphasis on the normative implications of legal rules, the actions of legal institutions and the development of constitutionalism and the rule of law in the US and around the world. The PLANT program extends UCHV’s engagement on campus to legal subjects in which normative inquiry is implicated in understanding both how law works and how law can do better. The PLANT program hosts visiting fellows and also organizes speakers, events and workshops to promote discussion of and research about law at Princeton.
PLANT’s centerpiece is the PLANT Seminar (formerly known as the Law-Engaged Graduate Student [LEGS] seminar), which started nearly 20 years ago as part of the former Program in Law and Public Affairs. The PLANT seminar brings together law-related faculty across campus with PhD students from multiple disciplines, many with JDs or their international equivalents and all with a research interest in law. It provides a place for graduate students to get feedback on the legal side of their work and to make connections with other scholars across campus who share their interests in law. Over the last 20 years, the PLANT seminar has successfully launched many new Princeton PhDs onto the job markets not only in their respective disciplines but also crucially in the law school world. PLANT is directed by Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values.
Founded in 2023, Criminal Justice @ SPIA is a new initiative bringing together faculty members studying criminal justice from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives. The initiative aims to support ongoing faculty research and projects, as well as incubate new activities and collaborations.
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Visiting Fellows Program in Law
We invite highly promising scholars trained in the legal analysis of ethical and policy issues to spend a nine-month or four-and-a-half-month fellowship in residence at Princeton, engaged in research, discussion, teaching and scholarly collaboration.
The website Law@Princeton is the successor website to the archived website for the Program in Law and Public Affairs (LAPA).