Program Description
The Law & Society minor provides an opportunity for focused study of the interaction between law and society from an interdisciplinary perspective predominantly rooted in the social sciences and humanities: anthropology, comparative literature, economics, government, history, philosophy, psychology, science and technology studies, and sociology.
The Law & Society minor is open to all undergraduates. Though many of those who register for the minor have intentions of going on to law school or a law-related profession, Law & Society is not designed as a minor only for students interested in entering law school. The best candidates for the Law & Society minor are students interested in broader relations between legal institutions and historical and contemporary societies. This broader topic is, and should be, of interest to many students, regardless of whether they intend to enter the legal profession. A large selection of courses and on-campus events is available for completing the minor. The benefits of a student's participation depend on the particular courses and events selected, and the effort and interest invested.
Declaring a Minor
Register using the online Law and Society Minor Application.
To allow sufficient time for a coherent program of study to be developed and completed, students who have an interest in the Law & Society minor should register using the online Law and Society Minor Application before the start of the second semester of their junior year. Under extenuating circumstances, late registrations may be accepted at the discretion of the directors, but only if the registrant has a plan already formulated for completing the minor's requirements. Late registrants can use the standard online registration form, which will also serve as their completion plan.
Minor Requirements
- Successfully complete 5 courses from the Approved Course List which groups courses from a wide variety of disciplines across the social sciences and the humanities into five categories.
Below is an outline of the 5 categories that courses approved for the minor are divided into.
- Category 1: Legal Institutions
- Category 2: Law and Policy
- Category 3: Law and Social Structure
- Category 4: Law and Culture
- Category 5: Law and Ethics
Courses should be 3 or 4 credits, taken for a letter grade (B- or better to count), and cover at least 3 (of 5) categories, with no more than 2 courses in any one category or department. (Note: All ILR courses are considered as one department.) Crosslisted courses can be counted as any of the departments in which they are crosslisted.
At the discretion of the Law & Society directors, permission may be granted to substitute an appropriate course that has been:
- accepted from another educational institution toward the student's degree program (1 course maximum)
- taken as part of a semester abroad program
- recently added to the Cornell curriculum
Petitions for course substitutions must be submitted prior to the student's final semester using the online Course Petition Form.
At registration, students are included in a listserve to receive information about events approved for credit. After each of the two events attended (by the end of the semester in which the event occurred), an event report form must be submitted to receive credit.
Students are expected to keep track of their courses taken/events attended. When all five courses have been completed or begun, the Certification for Graduation Form needs to be submitted so that the student's official record can be updated to show the 5 courses to be counted. (Note: If the two events have not yet been attended, "TBD" can be entered on the form.) This form is required for you to complete the minor and have the minor designation added to your transcript.
More information and required forms can be found on the Law & Society minor web page.
The Law & Society minor is administered by Ethics and Public Life (EPL), a program of the Sage School of Philosophy. For more information, consult the web site or contact the EPL Program Assistant at 218 Goldwin Smith Hall, epl@cornell.edu, (607) 284-2558.
