About the Faculty of Law
The Faculty of Law conducts legal research of the highest quality that promotes the rule of law, a knowledge-based and sustainable society, and a just and rule-based social order at the national, European, and global levels.
The faculty excels in a broad range of research, from legal dogmatic research to interdisciplinary research, from national to international research, and from basic (or frontier) research to applied research. The faculty is home to two centres of excellence, and its research environments are successful in attracting external funding for legal research.
The Faculty of Law ranks among the best and most attractive legal research environments in Europe. We aim to set the agenda and contribute to societal solutions within the field of legal science not only in Denmark, but also in the Nordic region, Europe, and internationally.
This ambition requires that we continuously develop and improve our core activities - research, teaching, and outreach - and it is a crucial prerequisite that we can attract and retain the best legal scholars.
Research-based degree programmes
The faculty’s academic departments offer research-based degree programmes at the highest national and international levels. In doing so, we ensure that our graduates have strong professional profiles that match the competencies demanded by the job market. The faculty has a strategic focus on developing academic content, pedagogy, and didactics, as well as progression at both the bachelor’s and master’s levels, to ensure attractive and relevant competencies for future lawyers in close collaboration with our employer panel.
Sociatal engagement and collaboration
The faculty creates impact and contributes to society through well-established professional relationships with all sectors of the legal profession in Denmark, Europe, and internationally. Our researchers engage in various types of partnerships and practice-oriented collaborations with both public and private stakeholders. In doing so, the researchers make significant contributions to solutions for important societal challenges, for example through research-based public policy analysis. At the same time, our close relationships with the legal profession and with both public and private companies in Denmark and abroad provide fertile ground for the development of new research ideas and new solutions.
The Faculty of Law is home to the country’s largest study programme, with a total of 4,300 enrolled students. The faculty has approximately 160 academic staff members, 45 PhD fellows, and 20 administrative staff members. In addition, there are over 400 part-time instructors.
The faculty is located on the South Campus, right next to the Islands Brygge Metro Station. The faculty shares the campus with the Faculty of Humanities, the Faculty of Theology, and, in the near future, the Faculty of Social Sciences.
History
The Faculty of Law is one of the four original faculties established when the University of Copenhagen was founded in 1479.
From 1479 and for approximately 250 years thereafter, the faculty exclusively conducted research and taught international law, specifically Catholic canon law and Roman law. National law did not emerge until around 1700 – when it played a decisive role in the introduction, by royal decree, of a legal professional examination in 1736. This transformed law into a so-called professional education. One now had to pass a law exam to be eligible for certain types of positions within the legal profession, such as judge or attorney. This marked the beginning of the close collaboration between the university and the legal sector - a collaboration that continues to this day.