What Areas of Study and Research Centers Does UC Berkeley Law Have?
UC Berkeley Law organizes its academic offerings around named areas of study and "Impact & Innovation Hubs," and it hosts 30 research institutes and centers alongside 15 clinics and 41 student-initiated legal services projects. If you are comparing law schools by whether their faculty and programming match a specific interest — criminal justice, technology regulation, environmental law, racial justice, or AI — the site's Areas of Study and hub pages are the fastest way to check fit. The listing below reflects what the school's own site currently surfaces; it is not necessarily exhaustive.
Areas of Study
The site highlights these fields, with a "See all Areas of Study" entry point for the full list:
- Criminal Justice
- Law and Technology
- Environment and Energy
These are presented as the featured areas rather than the complete catalog, so treat them as a starting point.
Impact & Innovation Hubs
Two hubs are named on the site:
- Racial Justice
- AI Law and Regulation
Hubs differ from areas of study in emphasis: they signal where the school concentrates cross-cutting programming, events, and affiliated faculty rather than a single doctrinal track.
Research Centers and Experiential Scale
The school's own "By the Numbers" summary reports:
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Research institutes and centers | 30 |
| Clinics offering hands-on learning | 15 |
| Student-initiated legal services projects | 41 |
| Students engaged in pro bono work | 90% |
| Pro bono hours logged by the Class of 2025 | 26,600 |
The pro bono figures connect to a structured program with its own pages: the Pro Bono Pledge, a definition of pro bono, a hours-logging page, and Student-Initiated Legal Services Projects (SLPS) with an application process and a current project list. Named SLPS examples include Animal Law and Advocacy and Arts and Innovation Representation.
Degree Programs Alongside the Areas
The areas and centers sit within a degree portfolio that the school describes as JD, LLM, JSD, and joint degrees, plus individual courses. If your interest is a research career, the JSD and the 30 institutes and centers are the relevant pairing; if it is practice-oriented training, the 15 clinics and 41 SLPS projects are the more direct route.
How to Check Whether a Field Is Actually Covered
- Open the Areas of Study section and use "See all Areas of Study" to see the full list rather than the three featured fields.
- Open the Impact & Innovation Hubs section for Racial Justice and AI Law and Regulation to see current programming.
- For hands-on work, go to the Pro Bono Program pages and the current SLPS project list to see which subject areas have active student projects.
- Cross-check faculty and events: the site's news and events listings (for example, items on work law, human rights and large language models, and academic freedom in law school clinics) show where current activity is concentrated.
A practical caveat: featured areas and hubs change as faculty and funding shift, and the site presents only a subset on the landing page. Before treating any field as a strength, confirm it against the full Areas of Study list and the current clinic and SLPS rosters rather than the homepage highlights alone.