At a special meeting yesterday, the Law School Faculty voted to allow second-year students to take one or two non-law University courses for degree credit.

The Faculty also granted new and longer reading periods to students in all three years. Classes will begin one week earlier next September to make up for the lost class time.

Third-year students are presently allowed to substitute courses listed in the regular Harvard catalogue for six class hours of their program--but only with the dean's authorization that the courses are relevant.

The Faculty decided yesterday to remove that restriction. Third-year students can now--entirely on their own--enroll in any course offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences that does not repeat their previous undergraduate work.

Second-year students were granted four hours of substitution, but their class "chairman" (advisor) must agree that the courses will "further some special objective in their legal education." Acting Dean A. James Casner said yesterday that a second-year student concentrating in anti-trust law, for example, would be allowed to take courses in economics.

Reading Periods

Starting next year, all law students will have a reading period immediately following Christmas vacation--one week for first-year students and three days for second and third-year students. Upperclassmen will also have a week-long reading period before Spring finals, as first-year students already have.

Casner said yesterday that the course substitution changes will give students "a broader base for fulfilling their responsibility as lawyers." Jerome A. Cohen, professor of Law and chairman of the committee that recommended the changes, said that they are another indication that "lawyers have to take account of the world."