Welcome to the University of Nebraska Law-Psychology Program

The Law-Psychology Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is one of the leading centers for education and research in the interdisciplinary study of law and psychology. In existence since 1974, our program trains scholars who are engaged in basic and applied research and writing on psychosocial issues and problems related to the law. The Department of Psychology and the College of Law jointly sponsor the program, which is the world's oldest ongoing integrated program in psycholegal studies. It remains unusual in the breadth of training with students specializing in virtually any area of psycholegal studies. Law-psychology faculty and students focus their studies in traditionally important psycholegal areas such as jury decision-making, eyewitness memory, children's decision-making, distributive and procedural justice, domestic violence, criminal responsibility, juvenile justice, the admissibility of scientific evidence in litigation, and so on. They also work on less-studied topics, such as tax compliance, altruistic behavior, child support, death penalty issues, sexual harassment, workplace discrimination, mental health, financial literacy, bankruptcy, alternative dispute resolution, health care policy issues, and elder law.

The Law-Psychology Program offers interdisciplinary training in psychology and law. The Program specializes in training scholars who will be able to apply psychology and other social and behavioral sciences to analyses of empirical questions in law and policy. Students in the program study and apply theory and research from social, cognitive, clinical, and developmental psychology to problems of law and policy. The Law-Psychology program trains researchers and professionals to identify and evaluate the psychological assumptions underlying laws and court decisions and to apply their psycholegal expertise to improve understanding of the operation of law in our society.

Graduates of the program work in universities, research or public interest organizations, or in local, state or federal government. Graduates go on to take positions in a variety of settings specializing in diverse tasks and problems. For example, recent graduates work in universities (i.e. John Jay College, Florida International University, University of Nevada, and Carelton University), research or public interest organizations, law firms, jury consulting organizations, and the courts. Faculty and graduate students regularly consult with government and private agencies applying psyholegal scholarship to problems of law in everyday life.