International Law at W&L

With the recent addition of Transnational Law to our first-year curriculum, students traveling to Cambodia, Liberia, Tanzania and Serbia for "on-the-ground" components of third-year practicum courses, not to mention the many elective offerings in legal topics ranging from human rights and international trade, to arbitration and cross-border acquisitions (just to name a few), W&L Law is increasingly a great place for students interested in studying the many disparate areas beneath the international law umbrella.

Transnational Law Institute

One of the principal reasons for the multitude of international law opportunities at W&L Law is our Transnational Law Institute. As its mission, the Transnational Law Institute supports and coordinates teaching innovations, externships, internships, a speaker series and visiting faculty to help prepare students for the increasing globalization of legal practice.

What does this mean for your time at W&L Law? In short, you will be able to pursue your interest in international law through a dynamic and exciting host of curricular and extracurricular opportunities, including third-year practicum courses, internships, and a regular speaker series that brings a number of captivating and consequential figures working at the forefront of international legal issues to campus.

International Law Practicum Courses

During your third year, through our international law practicum courses, you will have the opportunity to experience and encounter, first-hand, the very sorts of issues with which lawyers practicing in the area of international human rights regularly grapple. Touching upon issues ranging from access to justice and rule of law to gender equity and war crimes, these courses afford students the unique opportunity to move beyond simply reading about topics of international consequence to engaging these subjects directly, as lawyers do, cultivating a realistic understanding of the realities and sophisticated nuances of true international legal practice.

For more about these courses, as well as additional international law elective offerings, please feel free to consult our comprehensive listing of second- and third-year courses.

Beyond the Classroom

At W&L Law, international law learning opportunities are not confined to the classroom. Our calendar is filled with regular lectures, speakers and multimedia presentations addressing many current topics in this truly fluid and emergent area of the legal profession. In short, you will have the opportunity to not only learn about these issues from a faculty working at the cutting edge of international legal scholarship and research, but to also engage such topics in a variety of extracurricular contexts, thus broadening and enriching your understanding of these areas as well as recent trends in the international law landscape.

For more about these opportunities, consider the following blog posts detailing the many exciting international law offerings and developments at W&L Law in the past year:

Lexington, Virginia is For International Law Lovers

Lexington, Virginia is Still For International Law Lovers

Study Abroad

W&L Law currently conducts four exchange programs with foreign law schools. Through these programs, you will have the opportunity to complement your studies in Lexington with a rigorous educational experience at a highly-regarded overseas University.

And at W&L Law, you do not need to speak a foreign language to study abroad: there are no foreign language requirements for participation in any of these programs; all courses are taught in English. Furthermore, all programs lead to credits you will be able to transfer back to Washington and Lee. And how will you pay for this experience? You will simply pay your regular law school tuition during you stay overseas; you will pay no tuition to your host school.

The four programs offer W&L Law students the opportunity to study in Germany, Denmark, Canada or Ireland. Click here to learn more about the specific exchange programs.

As a result of our third year curricular reform, if you are interested in studying abroad through one of our semester-long exchanges, you will need to do so during the second semester of your 2L year. However, it should be noted, the most common (and often easiest) time for our students to study abroad is during the summer after their 1L year. While we do not sponsor a summer study abroad program, if you can find an ABA-approved program offered by another law school and get prior permission from our Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, you can earn academic credit for the coursework you complete as part of the program.