The Department of City & Regional Planning (DCRP) has developed concurrent degree programs with Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley and Hastings College of the Law (in San Francisco), which permit qualified students to obtain both an MCP degree and a JD degree in four years (rather that the five years which would be necessary if the programs were taken in sequence).

The purpose of this program is to provide an integrated professional curriculum of greater breadth than would otherwise be available for students interested in urban, land use, housing, or social policy problems. The planning curriculum offers students training in policy analysis and exposure to theories and programs that address urban development problems. Legal training provides additional analytic skills and substantive knowledge necessary for successful plan and program implementation.

Graduates of the concurrent degree program are qualified for a number of professional roles at the intersection of law and planning. These include municipal attorneys, community development administration or counsels, staff personnel on legislative committees, development administrators, planning directors, consultant planners, advisors to private clients on land use matters, staff members of governmental agencies, public interest advocates, and executive assistants to mayors, governors, and department heads. Past graduates of the program have found an impressive variety of professional opportunities available to them.

Because this is a concurrent degree program, students do have the option to apply to both DCRP and to the law schools simultaneously. If admitted to both programs, the student must choose which program to start first (most often the law school); admission to DCRP is then deferred to the next year. The student may also apply to DCRP for the first time from Law School, or, he/she may, in some instances, apply to law school from DCRP. NOTE: students applying to this program may be required to take both the LSAT and GRE. For additional details on this and other requirements of the concurrent MCP/JD program, please contact Malla Hadley, DCRP's Management Services Officer ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ), or Professor Elizabeth Deakin ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).