OUR GOAL: To grow programs and centers that expand Duke Law’s research and learning opportunities and effectively harness knowledge in the service of society.

Duke Law’s faculty-run research centers serve as incubators for ideas that advance legal scholarship and improve the law. By bringing scholars and practitioners together to study issues of broad legal and societal importance, these centers and programs help illuminate problems and study potential remedies. Our research centers both spring from and advance the scholarly work of our faculty, who are engaged in research that has the potential to change the legal landscape and the way we think about different areas of law.

With access to some of the world’s most creative minds across Duke’s 10 schools, Duke Law is well-positioned to develop scholarship and teaching in areas of societal importance, such as law and entrepreneurship, public law, Asian legal studies, international and comparative law, and environmental law.

Read more about how Duke Law research centers make a difference:

• Center for Judicial Studies receives rave reviews from inaugural class
• Program in Public Law announces full slate of events for 2012
• Center for International and Comparative Law supports student work in Haiti, Ghana

“We designate our gifts mainly around the Program in Public Law and a professorship in the area because we believe that public law, most importantly constitutional law, is critical to our nation because it forms the basis for the legitimacy of our government and the activities it undertakes. To me, an understanding and discussion of constitutional law both in the academy as well as the general public is critical because it is one of the major forces which distinguish the values of our nation from the other countries of the world.”

– Richard Horvitz ’78 and his wife, Erica Hartman-Horvitz, are steadfast supporters of Duke Law

Where scholarship meets practice

Supporting the bench

Guided by the vision of Dean David F. Levi, a former federal judge, Duke Law’s new Center for Judicial Studies is filling a need in the academy and the judiciary for innovative scholarship and research on judicial institutions and decision-making, and for advanced educational opportunities for judges. Eighteen sitting judges – including several state Supreme Court justices, federal judges, and two international judges – made up the inaugural class of the center’s new Master’s in Judicial Studies program, the only program of its kind in the country. “I wanted to enhance my skill set, to be a good judge, the best judge I can be,” said George Hanks, Jr., a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Texas. “To do your job better, you have to understand how you do your job. And that’s what I’ve gotten here.” Learn more about the Center for Judicial Studies