JD/MA
Lawyers have historically played a vital role in policymaking — either as legislators, regulators, or government officials charged with developing and administering the law; as legal experts in public interest nongovernmental organizations; or as practitioners responsible for advising private actors about the law's application to their conduct. As a result of globalization and ever-expanding international interdependence, lawyers increasingly and inevitably will be expected to assume such policymaking functions in an international environment.
Supplementing the strengths of Stanford Law with preparation through Stanford's Ford Dorsey International Policy Studies (IPS) program, this joint degree provides students with the training and perspective to work across geographic boundaries and break down disciplinary barriers. Graduates gain the tools and dexterity to function as lawyers, advocates, and policymakers across international issue areas and in diverse policy arenas, to see connections that others miss, and to describe and explain those connections so that others will then see them, too. IPS students choose an area of concentration among the following options:
Recipients of Stanford's joint JD and IPS degrees are prepared to practice law in the public sector as government officials, as lawyers working for nongovernmental organizations in such fields as international human rights and international environmental law, or in the private sector representing clients in transnational domains particularly sensitive to matters of public policy. Graduates may also go on to legal or policy positions in federal executive branch agencies with international responsibilities, in Congress, with international organizations, with nongovernmental organizations active on international issues, with law firms with a substantial transnational practice, or with multinational corporations in policy-sensitive sectors.
Students in the joint JD/MA Law and International Policy Studies degree program also have the opportunity to participate in the work of rich array of other interdisciplinary Stanford centers, programs, and activities focused on today's pressing international issues. Opportunities include:
Many of these centers and programs conduct regular workshop series, at which students are most welcome.
At the core of the joint JD/IPS program is Stanford's exceptional faculty and an interdisciplinary approach that provides students with a broad range and depth of knowledge. Students have the opportunity to work very closely with faculty on the most cutting edge research on policy issues through relationships with the law school and Stanford's international research centers.
JD/IPS students ordinarily commence their study in the law school, and must be enrolled full time in the law school for their first year. They spend their second year taking core IPS courses. During their third and fourth years students take a mix of JD and IPS courses, including courses in their selected area of policy concentration. Students must satisfy the requirements for both the JD and the MA degrees as specified in the Stanford Bulletin or elsewhere.
The law school shall approve courses from the IPS program that may count toward the JD degree, and the IPS program shall approve courses from the law school that may count toward the MA degree. As many as 36 semester (54 quarter) hours of approved courses may be counted toward both degrees. No more than 24 semester (36 quarter) hours of courses that originate outside the law school may count toward the law degree.
The maximum number of law school credits that may be counted toward the MA in the IPS program is 22.5 quarter hours. The program plan for each joint JD/IPS degree student must be approved by his or her law school and IPS advisors.