Koç Üniversitesi is a private, non-profit research-intensive and comprehensive institution, founded in 1993 and located in Istanbul, Türkiye. As a “Center of Excellence”, Koç Üniversitesi facilitates the coming together of students who possess superior skills with esteemed faculty members who possess superior knowledge and experience.
Its beautiful campus sprawls over a sixty-two acre estate that succeeds in balancing accessibility to all of Istanbul with retreat from the distractions of city life. The product of a meticulous, integrated design, Koç University’s sixty buildings -academic and administrative- include laboratories, library, dormitories, faculty residences, social venues, health center and sports facilities.
Koç University Law School was inaugurated in 2003. It aims to nurture creative and talented lawyers with its content-rich courses in public law, private law, and its core program, which enables students to excel in a variety of disciplines. The law school program responds adeptly to meet Türkiye’s need for lawyers who possess both professional competency and an international perspective. Through the Koç University’s liberal-arts-inspired pedagogy and plethora of extra-curricular enrichment opportunities, students acquire the intellectual courage to inquire and question while developing the character necessary to serve as custodians of democratic values and freedom. Guided by the highest standards of academic and interpersonal development, the institution collectively imparts the critical thinking necessary to analyze knowledge, the creativity to nurture and surpass this knowledge and the curiosity for lifelong learning.
The highly esteemed scholarly and professional team is the main source of cutting-edge legal education and research at the Koç University Law School. Since the opportunity to gain fundamental and new knowledge from a body of competent research scholars and practitioners meets the students’ high potential, classes transform into a rich learning experience. This experience is consolidated by “innovative legal teaching” and “peer support” initiatives run in cooperation with the Learning and Teaching Center. Evocable and interrelated learning is priority in teaching. As an indispensable part of the Koç University Law School’s institutional culture, regular academic discussions and administrative surveys aim at raising the quality of legal education and complying with high standards at national and international scale.
The curriculum incorporates both established areas of legal education and liberal arts. In the legal domain, it offers foundation courses of public law and private law as to include some of the compulsory subjects in English with international and comparative content. Furthermore, free electives cover an extensive variety of niche and emerging areas of legal profession that the students can focus on. In relation to core program, students can choose among seven foundational areas of their preferences. The core program establishes a comprehensive foundation from humanities to science courses. Accordingly, the students develop analytical and critical thinking skills grounded on ethical values that form the backbone of high quality legal education.
Koç University Law School offers also LLM and PhD programs in Public Law and Private Law with a wide range of curriculum including most demanding and less-discussed comparative and international topics of different legal disciplines. They attract global students across the world. The graduate programs aim to contribute to the molding of a new lawyer profile, with an understanding based on reliable academic research, as well as practicing experience.
The co-curricular activities are deemed essential for legal education of the Koç Law programs. Under co-curricular activities, the students can take part in national and international research and capacity building projects led by the scholars. The students participate also in programs based on innovative learning awards, case-law groups, introductory seminars on the university life and the legal profession, certificate programs, and summer schools based on international cooperation agreements. The Koç Law Club as the main organization of law students publishes the law journal JUSTITIA at FIDES. The Club organizes an international student symposium each year. The Koç Law Moot Court Teams are known with their achievements in national and international rounds of reputable competitions such as Jessup, Nuremberg, Nelson Mandela, and IMLAM.
Koç University Law School maintains its institutional value through numerous leading publications, awards, honorific elections, and projects supported by national and international research funds including HORIZON EUROPE, NEWTON, TUBITAK and BAGEP. The research centers, Dr. Nüsret-Semahat Arsel International Business Law Implementation and Research Center (NASAMER) and the Center for Global Public Law (KÜREMER), work effectively with contributions of research groups and clusters established by the scholars, post-docs, and graduate students.
The Law School and the centers organize global research events each year. These events transform into qualified national and international publications. The research collaborations with globally acclaimed research institutions and associations verify the commitment of the Koç Law School to advanced studies in comparative and international law.
Koç University Law School is a proud member of the Law Schools Global League (LSGL) and Dean of Law School, Prof. Bertil Emrah Oder , served as co-president of the LSGL between 2015-2018. Professors and administrators also represent the Law School in different LSGL projects.
