Beginning in the 2025-2026 academic year, the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School will offer a new Certificate of Study in History and Historical Research Methods, granted by the History Department in the School of Arts and Sciences at Penn.
The Certificate, one of more than a dozen certificates of study offered at the Law School, is open to all Penn Carey Law students. Certificates of study provide opportunities for credentials in additional areas, allowing for more concentrated coursework en route to specialized or focused career paths.
“I was immediately excited by Professors Karen Tani and Serena Mayeri’s proposal to create this new Certificate, because the topics are increasingly important to the practice of law,” said Amanda Aronoff, Managing Director, Cross-Disciplinary Programs at the Law School and Director of Student Engagement for the Francis J. & William Polk Carey JD/MBA Program at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and the Wharton School. “In addition, even though Penn Carey Law offers numerous and diverse cross-disciplinary offerings, there isn’t anything else like this Certificate.”
The Certificate arrives at a time of exciting growth for legal history at the Law School, which has seen the national recognition of multiple Penn legal historians in recent years as well as the continued expansion of the Legal History Consortium, uniting the Law School and Penn’s History Department to foster innovative research, scholarship, and education in law and history.
“Despite the strength of legal history at Penn, we didn’t previously offer students structured opportunities that join law and history, aside from our JD/PhD program,” said Seaman Family University Professor Karen Tani L’07, PhD’11. “That struck me as a big gap.”
Additionally, Tani believes that offering law students more opportunities to engage with history as part of their education and careers will better equip them for today’s legal landscapes.
“It’s clear that history has become increasingly important to Supreme Court rulings,” she said. “We see this in the Court’s deepening commitment to originalism to decide constitutional questions, as well as in its turn to ‘history and tradition’ to determine whether the Constitution protects various ‘unenumerated’ rights.”
Tani points to some of the most important decisions of the past five years as examples – regarding abortion, affirmative action, firearms regulation, nationwide injunctions, and more.
“We wanted to create a certificate that allows law students to be educated consumers of legal opinions that rely on history and to meaningfully engage with the methods and commitments of the discipline,” she said.
Students pursuing the Certificate must complete four courses in the general area of History and Historical Research Methods – one at the Law School and three in History – as well as attend four History-sponsored events, such as workshops, lectures, or pedagogy seminars.
“Penn has long been a leader in legal history, and our JD-PhD joint program in American legal history has been a proud success,” said Jared Farmer, Chair of the Department of History at Penn. “We are excited to deepen the relationship between the School of Arts and Sciences and Penn Carey Law with this certificate program.”
