Stanford Law School announced Monday that U.S. State Department has awarded a grant of $7.2 million to its Afghanistan Legal Education Project which aims to provide legal education to students in Afghanistan.

The multimillion dollar grant has been received through the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, to support Stanford and the American University of Afghanistan to develop a law program.

Stanford's ALEP will build on its existing partnership with AUAF to develop a fulltime five-year integrated Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws degree program at university's campus in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The objective of this double-bachelors law degree, according to SLS, is to train Afghan students to become professional lawyers who can provide much-needed legal representation services, help enforce the nation's new constitution, help stabilize the rule of law, and become legal educators who will go on to train the next generation of Afghanistan's professional lawyers and its leaders.

American University of Afghanistan was chartered in 2004 and began in 2006 with just 53 students. It is conflict-ridden country's only private non-profit university. Now, it has 1,700 full and part-time students studying across four degree programs.

The Afghanistan Legal Education Project emerged in 2007 at Stanford Law School as a student-led initiative to produce legal textbooks and legal curriculum focused on Afghanistan's current laws, with the aim of contributing to the effort to rebuild the country's institutions.

Soon, the initiative led to the creation of a certificate program.

The new law degree program will build on this existing certificate program and use textbooks written by Stanford Law students which are thoroughly examined by Stanford legal professors and experts. The curriculum will emphasize practical skills, professional responsibility, and substantive instruction in criminal, commercial, comparative, Islamic and international law.

AUAF President, C. Michael Smith said he was 'tremendously excited' to hear about the grant. He said the university already has a strong relationship with SLS, now with a full degree program it is only going to get better.

He also added that the Afghan students 'will now be able to earn a law degree here in Afghanistan that, with Stanford's involvement, will meet international standards for excellence.'

The grant is the largest federal grant Stanford Law School has ever received. The new law degree-granting program will graduate its first class in 2015.