This summer, I found myself at a big law firm with one of the top real estate practices in the country. During the summer program, I honed my legal skills while receiving mentorship from a very kind, talented group of real estate attorneys.
Excited to learn more, I came back to campus and eagerly searched on Helios, our course registration platform, for classes on real estate law. I was surprised to find no options. Looking through former course catalogs, I discovered that one real estate law course that has been offered at HLS was taught by a visiting professor who is the chairman of Real Estate at Fried Frank: Jonathan Mechanic. However, he is teaching Commercial Real Estate Transactions at Columbia Law as of Spring 2025. Moreover, the one real estate law course being offered at Harvard during spring 2025 is under the purview of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and requires students to apply to cross register. The course is taught by a real estate attorney in Boston, but prioritizes students at the Graduate School of Design, making it more difficult for HLS students to enroll. Beyond this, HLS students often receive far less credits than students at other graduate schools for cross registering and completing the same course. While individuals at the Graduate School of Design receive four credits for taking the Real Estate Law course, Harvard Law students only receive two.
Beyond this, HLS has a requirement that students must be enrolled in at least 8 credits at the law school per semester. Students are also not allowed to take more than 12 cross-registration credits across their 2L and 3L years. As a result, this can make it more difficult for students to enroll in real estate law courses at other Harvard graduate schools.
Real estate is an area of law that touches an industry that is projected to reach $5.85 trillion in value by 2030. Yet, Harvard’s Real Estate Law Club has historically not been very active. HLS lacks a real estate center and its one real estate law course was taught by a visiting professor who no longer appears to teach the course. (as of February 2025)
Looking at other schools paints an intriguing picture regarding HLS not having many real estate law offerings. Comparatively, UCLA Law has both real estate law courses as well as the Ziman Center for Real Estate. Columbia Law offers classes such as Real Estate Transactions and Real Estate Finance. NYU Law offers similar courses as well. While this may result from the ease of having practicing New York real estate attorneys teach classes at these schools, this is preventing Harvard Law students from receiving exposure to an area of law with practice groups at many major law firms.
While it is impossible to know how much a school’s general offerings influence the eventual career paths of students, I am confident that not receiving exposure to certain fields of law affects their decision making.
Personally, I found myself trying to be creative with my schedule, taking advantage of Harvard’s experiential learning opportunities to gain further exposure to property law. During my 3L year, I have been privileged to work with the Federal Reserve of Boston’s Office of Community Development on property law issues in Massachusetts through HLS’ Independent Clinical Program. Working with the Federal Reserve has been a privilege, and I’m grateful to be conducting this work under the supervision of Federal Reserve employees and my Property professor, Molly Brady. However, such opportunities are inconsistent and not available to all students.
I remain incredibly grateful for the privilege to attend HLS and recognize the incredible range of opportunities here. However, I continue to hope that real estate receives more attention in our course catalogs, providing future Harvard Law students the opportunity to be exposed to a crucial and growing area of law.
Danielle Mikaelian is a 3L at Harvard Law School, where she serves as the Chief of Staff for the Harvard Association for Law and Business. Danielle Mikaelian has been recognized as Columbia’s 2021 Student of the Year, a Ms. JD Limitless Leadership recipient, and a 2024 Akerman Scholar.