Program in Law and Normative Thinking

The Program in Law and Normative Thinking (PLANT) 

The Program in Law and Normative Thinking (PLANT) provides a home at Princeton for interdisciplinary research focused on law, with an emphasis on the normative implications of legal rules, the actions of legal institutions, and the development of constitutionalism and the rule of law in the US and around the world. The PLANT program extends UCHV’s engagement on campus to legal subjects in which normative inquiry is implicated in understanding both how law works and how law can do better. The PLANT program hosts visiting fellows and also organizes speakers, events, and workshops to promote discussion of and research about law at Princeton. 

PLANT’s centerpiece is the PLANT seminar (formerly known as the Law-Engaged Graduate Student [LEGS] seminar), which started nearly twenty years ago as part of the Program in Law and Public Affairs. The PLANT seminar brings together law-related faculty and graduate students from multiple disciplines, many with JDs or their international equivalents and all with a research interest in law. It provides a place for graduate students to get feedback on the legal side of their work and to make connections with other scholars across campus who share their interests in law. Over the last two-decades, the PLANT seminar has successfully launched many new Princeton PhDs onto the job markets not only in their respective disciplines but also crucially in the law school world. 

PLANT is directed by Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values. 

Applications for the Fellowship in Law and Normative Thinking for the 2025-26 academic year are now open.