Law School
Dr. Edo Eshet
Dean, Law School
Email: eshet_e@mail.sapir.ac.il
Sapir's Law School, established in 2010 is the newest law faculty in Israel and the only Law School in the south of Israel. It has an outstanding reputation in the legal and academic community in Israel. Our exceptional faculty is comprised of top legal scholars who publish in international journals, along with leading judges, policymakers, and practitioners. For the past five years, Sapir Law School’s alumni have ranked among the highest achievers in the Bar Exam. Graduates work in leading law firms and top government agencies.
Our LLB degree offers academic excellence, in a student-centered environment, with an emphasis on practical legal training. Students gain extensive legal knowledge and experience that empowers them to contribute and develop jurisprudence based on the principals of justice and ethics.
We offer exemplary training for future lawyers. They require a broad skillset to deliver high-value legal services for rapidly evolving technologies and changing markets. Our expert faculty provide courses with a focus on technology, intellectual property and patents, legal-tech skills, legislative design in the digital age and quantitative methodology (big data). Students participate in online law courses offered by leading overseas universities, tackling international issues. Cyber Law courses examine the legal implications of innovation and entrepreneurship, cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism, military law and civil rights. Practical training includes transferrable skills and commercial tools such as negotiation, arbitration and mediation.
The School's diversity and inclusion policies prioritize underprivileged and minority students, as well as students with disabilities. Many are the first in their families to attend college. Sapir's Gateway to Higher Education's Law Track is the only program in Israel that actively recruits Arab Bedouin students to study law. Expanding access to legal education, we launched our Night School for mature students in 2014.
Sapir Law School Legal Clinics
Sapir Law School, offers students the opportunity to participate in supervised clinical practice
Legal Aid Clinics
Second-year students can choose to volunteer in one of two Legal Aid Social Rights Clinics. These Clinics offer accessible law services to marginalized Negev residents who do not know about and or exercise their rights in public housing, Israel National Insurance Institute (social security), bankruptcy, local government, etc. They assist hundreds of impoverished Jewish and Arab Bedouin residents annually.
Established in 2012, it promotes and protects social rights, focusing on housing for disadvantaged populations. The Clinic works in collaboration with the welfare departments of Be'er Sheva, Ofakim and Netivot, assisting about one hundred and fifty clients annually. Second-year law students offer legal aid in the area of public housing; as well as rent and rent assistance for underserved populations including homeless people, battered women, and released prisoners.
This Legal Aid Clinic is a unique platform that combines legal studies and practice along with a deep understanding of the ways the law operates and impacts clients' daily lives, influences Israeli society and in particular life in the periphery.
Students gain skills in providing legal assistance in a supportive and educational work environment. They experience a direct encounter with clients and learn to translate their distress and very human stories into legal language and legal action. The Clinic provides an enriching legal experience that develops participating students' judgment and social sensitivity that will accompany them throughput their professional careers.
Social Rights Legal Aid Clinic facilitators: Attorney Gali Tal-Volozhny and Dr. Orit Gan
Established in 2015, is the only one in Israel that offers the Arab Bedouin community access to their rights, assisting about 150 clients annually. Operating in Kseifa, Hura, Segev Shalom and the Neve Midbar Regional Council, Be'er Sheva and Abu-Krinat, the Clinic has grown from a small pilot program to eight teams.
Second-year Jewish and Arab Bedouin law students work in together, helping applicants to exercise their rights, focusing on Israel National Insurance (social security) rights, personal status, debt collection, rent assistance, etc. Students gain a supportive educational platform to acquire skills in teamwork and legal practice, together with first hand encounters with the daily hardships faced by the Arab Bedouin population
For the first time, a woman in Hura, an Arab Bedouin town, received public rent assistance, which allowed her and her children to move from dangerous shanty to proper housing.
The Arab Bedouin Accessible Rights Legal Aid, was established thanks to the commitment and guidance of Dr. Muhammad Anabari, Itzik Zivan, Professor Nir Kedar and Dr. Yofi Tirosh.
The Arab Bedouin Accessible Rights Legal Aid Clinic facilitators: Attorney Iris Beyer and Dr. Orit Gan
Students interested in exploring technology, innovation and the law can participate in the Law School's Legal Clinic for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Established in 2019, it provides legal services to first-stage student and local resident entrepreneurs at the College's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Clinic's goals are to encourage and accelerate entrepreneurship and innovation at Sapir College and the Negev region, with a focus on communities in the Gaza Envelope. In parallel, to promote the legal education and practical experience of law students in this important field. The Legal Clinic for Innovation and Entrepreneurship offers the following services:
- Legal Strategy Design: Legal strategy is critical to the innovation process and its success. This Clinic helps entrepreneurs formulate their legal strategy, emphasizing issues such as intellectual property, regulation and licensing. It offers knowledge of the potential legal issues that could influence the development of participating initiatives.
- Ongoing Support: The Clinic's team provides accessible legal advice relating to establishing the venture, founding agreement, creating terms of use or privacy policy, service agreements, confidentiality agreements, license agreements, intellectual property (copyright, patent, trademark and design) consulting and more.
- Providing Information to the General Public: The clinic conducts a variety of activities, such as college conferences and online general counseling, aimed at conveying user friendly legal information for both the students' and local residents' entrepreneurial ventures.
The Legal Clinic for Innovation and Entrepreneurship facilitator: Dr. Sharon Bar-Ziv
The Law School is cultivating the next generation of leading lawyers, judges and academics who will impact policies locally in the Negev and nationally.
Career Development starts in the first year of studies. It includes, site visits with the Southern District Courts; encounters with judges, court clerks and public defense attorneys; and meetings with public and private sector lawyers. We offer workshops focusing on interview skills, resume’ writing and networking. Our annual job fair draws top law firms and civil service legal departments to recruit our students. Graduates join Israel’s Bar, after a mandatory 18-month internship and demanding exams. In addition, our faculty actively assist graduates to obtain job interviews at leading law firms.