Center for Interdisciplinary Studies

Created in 1999 at the Washington University School of Law, the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies supports interdisciplinary legal research and scholarship. Rather than concentrating on the interaction between law and one other academic discipline, the Center sponsors annual programs and activities that focus on cutting-edge legal issues and that require expertise, exploration, and discussion from other disciplines. The University has long advocated interdisciplinary learning. Several of the law school's faculty members hold joint appointments. The Center builds upon this premise, offering more than eight different joint-degree programs and a number of courses taught, or co-taught, by faculty from other university departments.  

John N. Drobak, the George Alexander Madill Professor of Law and Professor of Economics, serves as the Director of the Center located in the law school's state-of-the-art building, Anheuser-Busch Hall.

All Conferences sponsored by the Center focus on interdisciplinary topics centered around the law. The goal is to vary conference topics and involve faculty members from as many disciplines and students from throughout the entire campus as is possible. Blackboard law has little relevance to the real world. What really matters is the law in the context of the political, economic, and social nature of society. Our understanding of the law and our understanding of the law's actual relevance will benefit tremendously from the perspective of other academic disciplines. See "Upcoming Events" for future programs sponsored by the Center.

For a Center brochure and for more information about future programs, contact Linda McClain, Assistant Director for the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, lmcclain@wulaw.wustl.edu or 314.935.7988.