Legal Priorities Project

About Us

The Legal Priorities Project is an independent, global research project founded by researchers from Harvard University. We conduct and support legal research that tackles the world’s most pressing problems – we call this “legal priorities research.”

Our mission is to conduct and support legal research that tackles the world's most pressing problems. This currently leads us to focus on the protection of future generations.

Our primary goal is to conduct foundational research. By doing so, we aim to determine which problems legal researchers should work on in order to tackle the world’s most pressing problems. Our approach focuses on the protection of future generations.

We aim to raise awareness about our concern for the long-term future and build a global community that shares this concern. Establishing longtermism in law will be a key part of this process. We want to bring together researchers and policy-makers at every level of seniority and support the most effective ways to use the law to protect future generations.

We aim to identify and support impactful litigation efforts that have the potential to mitigate existential risk and protect future generations.

In order to inform policy decisions, we are committed to engaging in non-research activities and to conducting research that could positively shape the long-term future while also having near-term policy implications. We also encourage top legal talent to work in policy and bring a longtermist perspective to policy-making.