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Leiden Law School

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Leiden Law School

Leiden, Netherlands

Leiden Law School is the law school, and one of the seven faculties, of Leiden University. Teaching and research in the school take place across campuses in Leiden and The Hague in the Netherlands.

Instruction in law began with the university's founding in 1575. Alongside the disciplines of theology and medicine, it was considered a 'higher' faculty of great importance. It also established itself as the most international faculty due, originally, to the proportion of academics arriving from Germany in the mid-17th century. The law school has played a substantial role in wider Dutch society from its earliest years, being consulted in an official capacity on all manner of subjects from wills to piracy and privateering.

The school's present form has its roots in the 1980s when a reformation of the division of legal disciplines took place. Sacrifices were made in the 'meta-legal' disciplines, e.g. jurisprudence and sociology of law, to focus on 'positive law', particularly civil and international law which are considered traditional fields of strength of the law school. The faculty completed its move into the refurbished Kamerlingh Onnes Building [nl] in Leiden in 2004 where it is housed to this day.

Annually, the school has an intake of approximately 900 Bachelor's degree students and 1000 Master's and Advanced Master's degree students. Around 425 staff are employed in academic and administrative roles with approximately 325 in a teaching role. Approximately 18% of the academic staff are from outwith the Netherlands. The majority of school activity takes place in Leiden, the minority based in The Hague is chiefly within the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies on the Campus The Hague.

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