Programs, Concentrations & Centers

For students who want to delve more deeply into a specific area of law or prepare for the practice of law in specialized settings, Miami Law enables students to focus their studies via an array of concentrations, academic programs, conferences and centers.

Degree Concentrations & Areas of Study

Students who meet all requirements receive a notation on their official transcript.

Business Compliance & Sustainability (Concentration & Area of Focus)

Businesses of all types and sizes face an increasingly complex regulatory framework while also navigating consumer demands and legislation related to sustainability. What is the role of the corporation in society? How can lawyers help companies that want to focus on stakeholder capitalism and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors rather than shareholder maximization?

Business of Innovation, Law, Technology: BILT (Concentration)

Lawyers must increasingly deal with significant changes to business models and technological possibilities. For example:

How can law firms ensure that their billing practices align with clients’ interests?
What policies should cash-constrained startups adopt to safeguard customer data?
How can a company make sure that it benefits from its employees’ creations?

The concentration in the Business of Innovation, Law, and Technology (BILT) is designed to prepare students to answer these kinds of questions.

Environmental Law (Concentration & Area of Focus)

As part of our Environmental Law Program, our environmental law Concentration and Area of Focus helps prepare students for careers in environmental. Businesses, activists, and governments must be well-versed in environmental law as they seek to comply with environmental regulations and push for changes. As environmental concerns accelerate, lawyers in all fields will need to grapple with implications of climate change and related issues.

Health Law (Area of Focus)

Health law is a fast-growing field, and South Florida is a major center for health care. Students interested in specializing in this area, can take advantage of a number of exciting classes and experiential opportunities related to health law.

Immigration, Asylum, Citizenship (Area of Focus)

Miami is a major immigration gateway to the United States and home to a sizable immigrant and naturalized citizen population. With a large and growing number of students at Miami Law interested in immigration law as a career or area of study, coupled with the Career Development Office identifiying immigration law as one of the top fields pursued by our graduates, we now offer an area focus in this field.

Litigation & Dispute Resolution (Concentration)

The Litigation and Dispute Resolution Concentration provides participating Miami Law students the opportunity to become the best practice-ready litigator/trial lawyer that any law school education can produce.

Social Justice & Public Interest (Concentration & Area of Focus)

The Social Justice & Public Interest (SJPI) Concentration and Area of Focus are ideal for students interested in societal inequality and power differentials, particularly as these relate to class and economics, identity and civil rights, and the political process.

Transactional Law (Concentration & Area of Focus)

The Transactional Law Concentration and Area of Focus equip students with the background and a portfolio of work that will qualify them for entry-level positions with law firms of all sizes, corporate in-house law departments, startups, nonprofits, regulators, and governmental agencies.

Academic Programs

Environmental Law Program

Miami Law’s Environmental Law Program is unique due to its South Florida location, enabling the focus on the prism of issues affecting the environment — from maritime to real estate to land use to the cruise industry to environmental law to law of the sea. The Program also offers a unique intersectionality with other University of Miami graduate programs in marine affairs, land use, architecture, and business.

Global and International Law Program

The University of Miami School of Law’s unique program offers expertise far beyond traditional international and comparative law programs. It provides an intersectionality of today’s diverse areas of international law, enabling students to address significant issues of international law and practice and engage with global policy issues relating to human rights, climate change, migration, trade and finance, law of the sea, health, and education.

Human Rights Program

The Human Rights Program (HRP) provides a preeminent training ground for the study and practice of human rights law. HRP serves as the hub for a vibrant human rights community across the university, connecting faculty, students, alumni, advocates, and community members, and facilitating multidisciplinary collaboration.

Litigation Skills Program

The Litigation Skills program invites students to engage in rigorous, hands-on training providing them with the practical skills necessary for competent professional legal service.

Transactional Skills Program

Outside the courtroom, lawyers deal with all kinds of documents from confidentiality agreements to due diligence memoranda to contracts to closing documents and more. Dealing with these types of documents is called “transactional lawyering.” Transactional lawyers work to protect the interests of an individual, business, or organization in a commercial, non-profit, or financial setting.

Centers

Center for Ethics and Public Service

Founded in 1996, the Center for Ethics and Public Service is a law school- housed ethics education, experiential skills training, and community engagement program devoted to the values of ethical judgment, professional responsibility, and public service inlaw and society. The Center’s mission is to educate law students to serve their communities as citizen lawyers.

HOPE Public Interest Resource Center

The starting point for law students committed to advocacy and service is the HOPE Public Interest Resource Center. HOPE (Helping Others Through Pro Bono Efforts), founded in 1998, provides individualized guidance to help students identify programs, clinics, projects, courses, and opportunities at the law school and beyond. HOPE is a dynamic center, building on topical and timely issues to create opportunities for law students to provide legal services and support those most in need.

International Arbitration Institute

The IA Institute strives to support support the International Arbitration LL.M. and to enhance the depth and breadth of course offerings in the field of international arbitration and also for progress through educational lectures and trainings, scholarship and data-gathering in international arbitration.

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