The Law, Societies, and Justice Department offers undergraduate students a dynamic and engaged interdisciplinary liberal arts education focused on law, rights, and justice. LSJ faculty are trained in diverse social science fields, including anthropology, geography, political science, and sociology. This interdisciplinarity enables students to explore topics from a variety of perspectives.
LSJ courses analyze the meaning of justice, the methods used in efforts to realize it, the politics of rights, and the complex roles that law and legal institutions play in structuring social life. Many courses analyze these issues in comparative perspective. Coursework emphasizes close reading of key texts, active classroom engagement with complex ideas, and the development of the capacity to develop and support arguments in oral and written communication. In this way, undergraduate LSJ courses enable students to develop the core skills of a liberal arts education rather than to prepare for a particular professional path.
The faculty is comprised of internationally renowned scholars who conduct influential research on important questions pertaining to law, rights and justice.
LSJ faculty integrate research, teaching, and service in innovative and impactful ways, and, in so doing, create unique experiential learning opportunities for students. Our prison-based education program, for example, enables LSJ majors to learn alongside prisoners and volunteer in prison under the supervision of faculty who have conducted extensive research in and on prisons. Our numerous Study Abroad courses provide students with opportunities to engage in experiential learning in settings ranging from South Africa and Amsterdam to Rome and Jamaica. In our Philanthropy Lab, students are invited to think deeply about how meaningful, justice-enhancing change occurs – and to donate over $100,000 to groups who are engaging in such work. And through our required internship course, LSJ majors have the opportunity to connect the issues discussed in their courses to the real-world, justice-related challenges faced by non-profits, government agencies and advocacy organizations throughout King County.
LSJ undergraduate alumni pursue a wide array of careers. Many work in various capacities in the legal field; others work in business, human rights, public policy, civil rights, education, and the non-profit sector, amongst others.
LSJ Career Panels
LSJ Career Panels invite LSJ Alumni to share best practices for professional and career development.