Picking a college
It was always my dream to study at Harvard Law School. Both my maternal grandfather, and father studied there, so I grew up hoping to be a Harvard student someday. I was admitted to the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) programme at Oxford University, on a full 'Commonwealth scholarship', but, I picked Harvard Law school. It has a great reputation and some brilliant faculty members like Lawrence Tribe, Marc Tushnet, and Noah Feldman under whom I wanted to study constitutional law.
Before you apply
The five years that I spent at law school in India, before leaving for Harvard, were in some manner spent in preparation for my Harvard application. This is not something one can decide to do at the last minute. I would say I had excellent grades, academic awards (especially in constitutional law, which was my area of expertise), published articles, and work experience, which reflected on my grade transcript and recommendation letters. Before applying to Harvard, I had also interned with the chief justice of the Supreme Court of India, and had worked at one of India's premier law firms, AZB & Partners.
Preparation Tips
Try and build an area of expertise in one particular subject that interests you. When you apply to a school, you must explain to them why it is that you want to study at that particular school. It may be that that school has a certain faculty member whom you wish to study under... Whatever it is, the school must feel that you have researched them and that you genuinely want to study there. The profile of your choice of school must somehow connect with what you have done in the past at your school in India.
Studying at Harvard
I pursued a nine-month Master of Law (LLM) programme, which offered some great courses. In the Fall semester, I took courses like Corporations, and Mergers and Acquisitions. The M&A course was taught by a former dean of Harvard Law School and a sitting judge of the Delaware chancery court, which is well-known in the world of corporate law.
In the course on trial advocacy, which I took in the Winter semester, we learned how to conduct a jury trial from some of the finest trial lawyers in the US, and on the final day of class, we had to conduct a trial at a courtroom in Boston. In Spring, I took a course on the First Amendment under Lawrence Tribe, and Comparative Constitutional Law under Mark Tushnet. A course I took on socio-economic Rights was taught by Sandile Ncobo, the then chief justice of the constitutional court of South Africa. During my time at Harvard, I also wrote a 'long paper' on the doctrine of substantive due process, under Professor Noah Feldman, which eventually went on to become my first published book called Due Process of Law.
Benefits of an Ivy League environment
While it's a great experience, I wouldn't say that you only have to study at an Ivy League school in order to get that kind of experience. There are plenty of schools in the US, which are not Ivy League schools, but you can still get a world-class education. At Harvard, I found that the level of education was far superior to that of my law school in India. The faculty were motivated and approachable, and the facilities, especially for research, were amazing. There was always something going on (lunch-time talks, dinner-time debates), and it was an absolutely exhilarating time.
Abhinav Chandrachud
Master of Law, Harvard Law School
