Research Institutes

The Law School's 10 research institutes and its program in Law and History provide important scholastic and community opportunities to explore legal application and responsibilities within a range of real-world issues and challenges.

Center for Business Law
Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences
Human Rights Center
Institute on Crime and Public Policy
Institute for Intellectual Property
Institute for Law and Economics
Institute for Law and Politics
Institute for Law and Rationality
Institute on Race and Poverty
Minnesota Center for Legal Studies
Program in Law and History

Center for Business Law:

The Kommerstad Center for Business Law has three elements in its core program:

Multi-Profession Business Law Clinic

This innovative clinic provides an opportunity for students to learn and practice transactional lawyering skills. Experienced business law attorneys from leading law firms and accounting firms provide supervisory expertise in the student representation of clients. Clients are startup and emerging businesses referred to the clinic by the Metropolitan Economic Development Association and business development programs at the University.

Corporate Externship

In this summer program, students work in local corporate legal departments to experience the transactional work and the environment of in-house counsel.

Speakers Forum

The forum encourages the exploration of the issues faced by business attorneys, business owners, and emerging businesses. As the speakers relate their views about business and business law, student audiences get a close look at their experiences, challenges and opportunities.

Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences:

The Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences was founded in 2000 to bring together 17 different centers and programs at the University of Minnesota to address the legal, ethical and policy implications of the life sciences. This University-wide effort crosses all colleges at the University.

While the University of Minnesota is a leading contributor to the advancement of genomics, ecosystem analysis and infectious disease policy, we believe the University also has a responsibility to lead on questions of law and values relating to the frontiers of science. The Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences tackles the difficult questions of how law, ethics and policy should analyze and govern these advances. The Consortium conducts original research funded by federal and private grants, offers conferences and lectures each year, awards intramural funds, and publishes the Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology (MJLST)

As a cross-disciplinary and cross-professional forum, the Consortium builds on the strengths of its member centers and programs, establishing the University of Minnesota as a leading institution working on law and values in health, the life sciences, and the environment.

Human Rights Center:

The University of Minnesota Human Rights Center assists the work of and trains human rights professionals and volunteers. Its primary offerings include an Applied Human Rights Research center, a Human Rights Library, human rights and law fellowship programs, field training and other opportunities.

Institute for Crime and Public Policy:

 
Please check back: Information on this new institute is coming soon.

Institute for Intellectual Property:

 
Please check back: Information on this new institute is coming soon.

Institute for Law and Economics:

The Institute for Law & Economics was established in 2006 as one of several centers specializing in interdisciplinary methods at the University of Minnesota. The Law & Economics Institute contributes to this mission of the University by promoting interdisciplinary research and cross-professional dialogue wherever the fields of economics and law intertwine.

Institute for Law and Politics:

The Institute for Law and Politics is designed to be a national research center for studying issues at the intersection of politics and the law. The Institute's goals of non-partisan civic engagement and sound public policy guide its work as a source of information and analysis for issues such as election law, voting rights, government relations and lobbying, judicial politics, separation of powers and executive privilege, and international elections and democratization. The Institute for Law and Politics focuses on these issues by conducting interdisciplinary research, hosting conferences and CLEs, hosting an online blog and serving as a national source for analysis and commentary.

Institute for Law and Rationality:

The Institute for Law and Rationality promotes interdisciplinary collaborations between law and other disciplines in the social sciences, such as psychology, political science, sociology, anthropology, economics and neuro-economics. Its aim is to work toward the development of a model of human behavior that lawmakers can use to ground public policy. The Institute holds seminars and conferences, and will host distinguished visitors.

Institute on Race and Poverty:

The Institute on Race & Poverty (IRP) is a strategic research, public education and advocacy institution of the University of Minnesota Law School. Since 1993, it has contributed greatly to national understanding of how racial and economic discrimination combine to create barriers to opportunity for low-income communities of color. The work of the IRP is driven by a core commitment to the ideals of a true democracy. Paramount among these ideals is the right of all individuals and groups to substantively participate in the institutions that shape and define our society through the assignment of value and the distribution of opportunities and resources.

Within this context, IRP pays particular attention to the social, fiscal and growth dynamics of regions, how these dynamics impact racialized poverty, and how they are affected by regional policy. This knowledge allows the IRP to develop strategies, policies and programs to ameliorate the problems. Its central goal is to create a better understanding of the structural and institutional dynamics of racialized poverty and to work with others to pursue remedies through research, the development of legal theory, public education and advocacy.

Minnesota Center for Legal Studies:

The breadth of legal scholarship has expanded greatly in the last several years, increasing the need for strong connections between far-flung legal and scholarly communities that are often unaware of what others are doing. The Minnesota Center for Legal Studies was founded in 1991 to enhance relationships between Law School faculty and legal scholars across the country through a combination of workshops, electronic resources, publications and lectures.

Program in Law and History:

The Program in Law and History was established in 2007. The Program's mission is to support the study of law in its historical context. The Program brings together scholars and students from the University of Minnesota and around the world to foster teaching and research in all areas and periods of legal history.