Waseda Law School admits 300 students a year. Admission decisions are made on the basis of scores on the LSAT (administered by the National Center for University Entrance Examinations), undergraduate GPA, and work experience (if any). Those who wish to reduce their period of study to two years are allowed to take a qualifying examination only after initial admission.

Waseda Law School has approximately 70 full-time faculty members, and nearly 20 of them are well-known practitioners who have a strong interest in teaching and research. These faculty members offer a wide range of courses, including everything from basic substantive and procedural law to cutting-edge fields such as intellectual property, international business transactions, and public interest lawyering. We see Waseda Law School as a one-stop shop for everyone seeking a top-quality education in all the diverse specialties of contemporary law.

WLS has tied up with law schools in foreign countries to provide our students with opportunities to study abroad and prepare for the globalization of legal services. At this point, our partner law schools include Columbia University, Cornell University, Duke University, University of Illinois, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, University of Washington in the U.S., York University in Canada, National Taiwan University, the Judges and Prosecutors Training Institute in Taiwan, Bucerius University in Germany. We are aiming to grow partnerships with other comparable law schools, legal training and research institutes around the world. Students at WLS are fortunate to have the opportunity to broaden their perspectives by interacting with exchange students from foreign institutions.
WLS courses are mainly designed for Japanese students who will pursue a professional career as a practicing lawyer. Exchange students from our partner schools abroad may find the content of these courses too specialized for their purposes of legal study. Almost all WLS courses are taught in Japanese. Given the fact that some exchange students wish to take a few courses conducted in English, WLS offers four courses in English during the fall semester. These coursed currently include Modern Japanese Law, Japanese Legal Culture, International Trade Law and Comparative Finance Law.
The instructor of each of these courses accommodates the needs of exchange students using methods such as including special written examinations, oral examinations, or a research paper of approximately 20 double-spaced pages for two credits. Either Japanese or English may be used. If an exchange student wishes o write a substantial research paper of more than 40 double-spaced pages for an additional two credits, they may take the "Special Study on Japanese Law: Supervised Research Paper". This arrangement may be made through his or her faculty adviser with the consent of a supervising faculty member.
WLS will send official transcripts to the home institution for fall semester courses by the end of February, and for spring semester courses by the end of August.

 

We ally not only with foreign institutions but also with other law schools in Japan. For example, there are cross-listed classes between WLS, Keio Law School and Sophia University law school, enabling students from both law schools to study in the specialist areas that each school is renowned for. We aim to raise increase students' motivation by making the best classes in the country available to them.

For more information on the student exchange program at Waseda Law School, please click here.

Waseda Law School is home to the largest clinical law program in Japan. In 2002, we established the Institute of Clinical Legal Education with a special grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology – creating a clinical program even before the new law school opened. We are fortunate to have several distinguished practitioners to serve as clinical law professors, and they are leading the development of clinical legal education in Japan.

Waseda University has had a faculty of law since its inception in 1882. In fact, the faculty at that time employed the case method that had been introduced just a few years earlier by Dean Langdell of Harvard Law School. Unfortunately, that professional character was lost as legal education in Japan changed over time. The recent judicial reform movement has given us an opportunity to reestablish our original mission, and we are determined to excel in this pursuit.