The Graduate School of Law—nurturing creative individuals with definitive law knowledge
The Graduate School of Law upholds the advancement of legal research at Meiji University as its organizational philosophy, and its principle educational aim is to nurture law researchers. This educational aim differs from that of Law School, which specializes in nurturing practicing legal professionals. Since its establishment as Meiji Law School in 1881 to uphold “freedom and human rights,” Meiji University has produced excellent legal researchers with “a perspective of the populace”. Today, under the new graduate school system, Meiji University still boasts one of the largest shares in the market for full-time university law lecturers among universities in Japan, and it has produced innumerable legal researchers. The Graduate School of Law’s secondary aim is to cultivate professionals with a high level of specialized skills, and to date, many of its master’s program graduates have found employment as civil servants at government agencies or legal positions at blue chip companies.
In legal research, the theory of interpretation on the application of positive law, theory of legislation to conceptualize ideal laws and aim to realize them, and comparative law, which provides objective material for legislative considerations and offers suggestions for the formulation of interpretations, are central. However, knowledge of basic law studies and studies in related fields of study are essential to the awareness of the phenomenon of law, the premise of these theories. Therefore, in order to acquire a specialized and systematic study of law, it is necessary to not only acquire legal skills using linguistic abilities, but also to learn second and third foreign languages for comparative law studies, and to aggressively pursue knowledge in basic legal studies and related fields of study. Moreover, because the study of law is one field within the study of social sciences, each researcher must continue to have his own sense of awareness on social issues.
The mission of the Graduate School of Law is to offer a space for you to engage in research activities along with faculty members. We hope that you will acquire the necessary drive and skills for research in this provided space and evolve into autonomous researchers and highly specialized professionals.
The curriculum at the Graduate School of Law includes not only subjects in the field of basic positive laws, but also a wide range of subjects in basic legal fields such as legal philosophy, legal history, and comparative law, which form the basis of research of positive law. It also includes cutting-edge subjects such as information law, environmental law, and international law, giving our school unparalleled uniqueness among universities. These subjects are covered by a diverse range of faculty members who are at the forefront of their respective fields. We provide a structure in which you can freely choose subjects according to your individual awareness of issues, which allows you to engage in fulfilling research activities.
Furthermore, the Graduate School of Law offers its own economic assistance systems for students who hope to become researchers, such as various course fee exemption systems, scholarship grants and loans, paid teaching and research assistant programs, and assistant programs for researcher development. We also have excellent overseas study programs. Based on these support structures, we have recently been aggressively promoting the acquisition of a degree necessary to become professional university faculty members.
We look forward to seeing highly-motivated students who will pursue legal research join us.
Dean, Graduate School of Law
AONO, Satoru
