Harvard Law School (also known as Harvard Law or HLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the United States' oldest law school in continuous operation. It is home to the largest academic law library in the world. HLS is typically ranked in the top three law schools in the nation, and is currently listed as the second best law school in the United States by U.S. News and World Report, behind only Yale Law School.

Harvard Law introduced what became the standard first-year curriculum for American law schools—including classes in contracts, property, torts, criminal law, and civil procedure—in the 1870s, under Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell. At Harvard, Langdell also developed the case method of teaching law, which became the dominant model for U.S. law schools.

The school is currently led by interim dean Howell Jackson, who took over from Elena Kagan upon her confirmation as Solicitor General of the United States on March 19, 2009. A search for a new permanent dean is currently underway.

Each cohort in the three-year J.D. program numbers approximately 550 students, giving the school the largest enrollment of any accredited law school in the United States. The first-year (1L) class is broken into seven sections of approximately 80 students who take most first-year classes together. Harvard Law has 246 faculty members.

Admission to Harvard Law is highly selective: For the class entering in 2008, there were approximately 7200 applicants, of which approximately 11.4% were admitted; 67.9% of those admitted enrolled. For that class, the median GPA for the middle 50% of the students was between 3.74 and 3.95 (out of 4.00) and an LSAT score between 170 and 176 (out of 180). Harvard Law's admissions process includes the unusual feature of telephone interviews conducted amongst students likely to be accepted.Fact: date=February 2009

Harvard Law School has produced numerous leaders in law and politics, including the current U.S. President, Barack Obama, former president Rutherford B. Hayes, five sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justices, including the Chief Justice, John G. Roberts, 149 sitting federal judges, and the current President of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou. It is consistently the best represented law school among the faculty at the U.S. law schools and among the attorneys at the top law firms in the U.S.Fact: date=March 2008 Harvard Law School graduates have accounted for 568 judicial clerkships in the past three years, including 25% of all Supreme Court clerkships. More than 120 from the last five graduating classes have obtained tenure-track law teaching positions.

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