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Research Centers and Programs

  1. Faculty and Scholarship
  2. Research Centers and Programs

Columbia Law School’s research centers and programs reflect the breadth of our faculty’s expertise and the exceptional quality of their scholarship. Through their rigorous research, faculty experts explore foundational, emerging, and interdisciplinary areas of the law. In addition to convening academics, policymakers, judges, and business leaders from around the globe, centers and programs offer students valuable opportunities to collaborate with experienced scholars and researchers.

Find a Center or Program

Center on Corporate Governance

The Center on Corporate Governance brings together judges, academics, regulators, and institutional investors to discuss cutting-edge issues related to securities law and corporate governance. The center also sponsors the CLS Blue Sky Blog, which covers corporate governance, financial regulation, restructuring, antitrust, and related topics. 

 

Areas of Study

Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought

The Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought (CCCCT), a joint project of the Columbia Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Columbia Law School, encourages a critical re-examination of the present and envisions a new critical praxis for the future. CCCCT’s activities include a digital initiative, numerous practical engagements, and a yearly seminar series that challenges the authority of established truths and falsehoods.

 

Areas of Study

Columbia Law School Mindfulness Program

Founded in 2017, the Columbia Law School Mindfulness Program is a community of faculty, staff, and students committed to the practice of mindful awareness and the examination of how it informs our understanding of law and lawyering.

Areas of Study

Constitutional Democracy Initiative

From research to teaching, institutional design to public conversations across political and other boundaries, the Constitutional Democracy Initiative investigates democracy’s crises and what democracy demands of us.

Areas of Study

Davis Polk Leadership Initiative

Through the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative, Columbia Law offers courses, workshops, and research and professional development opportunities to teach students to be leaders in both the private and public sectors worldwide. Students learn not only to manage the everyday practice they will pursue, but also to rise to complex challenges throughout their careers.

Areas of Study

European Legal Studies Center

The European Legal Studies Center trains students to assume leadership roles in international and European law, public affairs, and the global economy. The center’s New York home provides students with rich research and professional opportunities, including externships at the U.N. or U.N. missions, clinical opportunities in human rights, prestigious international internships and clerkships, and international dual degree and study abroad programs. Students can also take advantage of Columbia Law School’s curriculum, which offers one of the broadest arrays of international, comparative, and foreign law courses of any law school in the United States.

 

Areas of Study

Galileo Center

The Galileo Center studies freedom, threats to its existence, and legal protections designed to ensure its survival.

Areas of Study

Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies

The Center for Chinese Legal Studies was the first organization of its kind at an American law school and has cultivated a tradition of rich scholarly exchange with the Chinese legal community for decades. It provides students with a wide range of curricular and extracurricular activities and guest speakers and equips them with the knowledge they will need to succeed in practicing within China’s rapidly changing legal environment. 

 

Areas of Study

Human Rights Institute

The Human Rights Institute draws on the Law School’s deep human rights tradition to support and influence human rights practice in the United States and around the world. The institute builds bridges between scholarship and practice in four key areas—counterterrorism and armed conflict, human rights in the U.S., the Inter-American Human Rights System, and the global economy—employing tools such as field work, advocacy, fact-finding reports, and symposia.

Areas of Study