Harvard Law School (also known as
Harvard Law or
HLS) is one of the professional
graduate schools of
Harvard University, located in
Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continually-operating
law school in the
United States and is home to the largest academic law
library in the world. The law school is generally considered one of the most prestigious in the world.
HLS has a considerably bigger class size than most law schools – each class in the three-year
J.D. program has approximately 560 students, the largest of the top 150 ranked law schools in the United States. With a current enrollment of 1,990, HLS has about as many students as its three closest-ranked peer institutions (first-ranked
Yale, second-ranked
Stanford, and fourth-ranked
Chicago) combined. The first-year (1L) class is broken into seven sections of approximately 80 students, who take most first-year classes together. Harvard's uniquely large class size and its prestige have led the law school to graduate a great many distinguished alumni in the judiciary, government, and the business world.