American Law

Be prepared for global legal practice

The LLM in American Law Program prepares you to work in a global environment by introducing you to American law and the U.S. legal system through integration into the JD classroom. This one-year, full-time program is exclusively designed for foreign-educated law graduates seeking training in U.S. law and exposure to substantive topics that meet their professional needs. Ideal candidates are foreign-trained lawyers whose international work requires them to interact with common law and U.S.-trained lawyers or on projects that implicate U.S. law.

In the American Law Program, you will learn from America’s #1 ranked Teaching Faculty (Leiter Report and The Princeton Review). You will have access to the School’s acclaimed JD faculty, whose excellence in the classroom is second to none.

You will gain valuable perspective on how U.S. lawyers think and practice. With JD students as your classmates, you will learn about American law the same way they do. You’ll engage in lively Socratic dialogues, rigorous case analysis and animated discussions. You’ll be trained to analyze legal issues and advocate for clients’ interests the same way U.S. lawyers are trained.

You will design a personalized study plan that meets your professional and personal goals. The LLM in American Law Program is BU Law’s most flexible graduate program for foreign-trained lawyers. Through one-on-one consultation with the program director, you will receive individual guidance on crafting the plan that is best for you.

You may select topics from more than 150 courses offered in our JD curriculum. BU Law’s JD curriculum is one of America’s most expansive. You can pursue areas that interest you and support your career goals, no matter the field: Intellectual Property, Corporate Law, Tax, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Labor & Employment, and Health Law are just a few of the choices available to you. Courses that may qualify certain students to prepare for (and take) a U.S. state bar exam, such as New York’s, are also offered.

You will receive intensive training in legal research and writing. The program’s required Legal Research & Writing seminar will train you in legal English communication. You will learn how to research the law and write in the “American legal English” style so that you will be prepared to communicate effectively with U.S. lawyers—and others—in English. You will also have the option to take a special class, Transactional Contract Drafting, designed specifically for foreign lawyers.

Program Information

Degree Requirements

To earn the LLM in American Law degree, you must complete a minimum of 24 credit hours (at least 10 credits a semester) and obtain a final weighted average of at least 2.30 (C+) for all courses taken. All students must take Introduction to American Law and a Legal Research & Writing seminar in the fall semester (unless waived with the permission of the director) and participate in a graduate colloquium, “Topics in American Law.” The LLM in American Law Program is designed to be completed in one academic year of full-time study. The program follows the JD calendar, with classes beginning in late August and ending in May.

Concentrations

In the LLM in American Law degree program, you can choose to pursue optional specializations or concentrations in two of the most important fields of global legal work: Intellectual Property Law or International Business Practice. Students who satisfy a concentration’s course requirements receive a separate certificate of specialization.

Intellectual Property Concentration

According to U.S. News & World Report, BU Law is one of the top seven U.S. law schools in intellectual property studies. You will study the essentials of copyright, patents and trademark law, and also select cutting-edge topics such as e-commerce, legal issues in high-tech start-ups, technology licensing, and biotechnology and the law. The concentration requires a minimum of four classes.

International Business Practice Concentration

The BU Law faculty includes renowned authorities in all aspects of business law. Students who concentrate in International Business Practice immerse themselves in a range of business or commercial law courses. You may select from more than 50 courses, such as International Business Transactions, Securities Regulation, International Project Finance, Corporate Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Antitrust. The concentration requires a minimum of four classes, including a fall-semester Corporations class.

In addition to choosing any of the School’s first-year classes, LLM in American Law students have the benefit of selecting elective courses from the entire range of BU Law’s upper-class curriculum.

Cross-Registering in Other BU Graduate Programs

The American Law Program’s flexibility allows students who want exposure to specialized topics in banking, financial law, and taxation to cross-register in classes within the Graduate Program in Banking & Financial Law and the Graduate Tax Program. Classes in transnational lending, international securities transactions, international taxation and securitization are popular supplements for many students. Students may also cross-register for classes in other Boston University graduate schools—such as the School of Management and College of Communication—and, when appropriate, receive credit toward the LLM degree.

Spring Colloquium: Topics in American Law

In an informal setting, LLM students attend faculty presentations on American law topics with international implications. The colloquium is not for credit and requires no assignments. Past sessions have included “The Internet, Securities Regulation and the Restructuring of the Securities Markets,” “Law and Religion in America,” “The U.S. Health Care System,” and “Race, Nation, and the Development of Law in America.”

Students in the LLM in American Law Program often describe their year at BU Law as one of the best of their lives.

The most recent class rated the quality of their experience a near-perfect 9 out of 10.

From the beginning of the application process, we expect you’ll get a sense of BU Law’s distinctive culture—dynamic, supportive and focused on each individual student’s success. In the American Law Program, we interview all viable candidates by phone (or in person, if possible) to discuss academic and professional goals and to ensure that the fit is right. All promising candidates receive alumni contacts from their home countries; we strongly encourage you to contact former students to learn firsthand about their superior experiences and how the degree enhanced their professional standing.

The American Law Program is best suited for students who want an academic experience that allows them to learn U.S. law alongside U.S. JD students, thereby gaining a clear understanding of how U.S. lawyers are trained to think and analyze legal issues. Many students look upon their exposure to the JD classroom as the learning experience that best prepares them for global work.

Customized Curriculum

BU Law is a tight-knit community that seeks to meet the needs of its graduate students as individuals; you’ll see this in our devotion to highly personalized academic planning. Upon admission and confirmation of your commitment to attend BU Law, you will receive detailed registration materials, and you will indicate your preliminary course selections at this time. Your academic plans, however, are not completely settled until you arrive on campus and meet one-on-one with the director, who will tell you about our professors’ different teaching styles and approaches and guide you on how to construct the optimal study plan to achieve your goals.

Our personal approach matters because of the flexibility of the American Law Program; with more than 150 courses to choose from, you can select topics from virtually any area of law. Deciding what not to take is just as difficult as deciding what to take. You can specialize in a particular field—such as intellectual property, tax, alternative dispute resolution, commercial law, or labor and employment—by concentrating your classes in a certain area. You can combine fields such as corporate and financial law and intellectual property, a popular combination at BU Law. You can also choose to pursue a formal concentration in Intellectual Property or International Business Practice and receive a separate certificate of specialization. You may cross-register in courses offered in the School’s graduate programs in Banking & Financial Law and Taxation, as well as in Boston University’s other graduate schools such as the School of Management or College of Communication. Generally, students take between three and five classes each semester, including Introduction to American Law and the Legal Research and Writing Seminar, the two fall-semester required classes.

The American Law Program Experience

The JD classroom is dynamic and will likely bewilder you at first; this should be expected. Studying common law doctrine through the tradition of the case law method and participating in the Socratic dialogues that characterize classroom discussions is completely foreign to most civil law-trained students. For this reason, the majority of LLM students elect to gain advanced preparation by attending the six-week summer pre-LLM Legal English Program offered by BU’s Center for English Language & Orientation Programs (CELOP). Students who attend CELOP say their fall studies go more smoothly as a result. In the fall semester, we offer a series of academic support programs on case briefing, outlining, exam-taking and studying tips to help ease your adjustment. Each research and writing section also has a JD tutor to assist you with your writing assignments.

The LLM in American Law Program is classroom—not research—focused. As such, there is no thesis requirement, though you will likely write one or more lengthy research papers in the seminars you take. We make available writing coaches to help you organize and structure your academic writing projects—and improve your expressive skills.

We emphasize the classroom experience because that’s where BU Law excels. As an LLM in American Law student, you will learn from America’s #1-rated law faculty in Teaching Quality, according to the Leiter Law School Rankings and the Princeton Review. It is common to hear LLM students say that their BU professors are the best they have ever had, anywhere.

Special Programs further immerse you in U.S. legal practice and culture:

• Pro Bono Program
  You can dedicate your legal skills and expanding knowledge to address unmet legal needs in the Boston area, throughout the United States and around the world.
• LLM Discovery Series
  You will take part in visits to Boston-area law firms, corporations, government agencies and courthouses where alumni introduce you to the broad range of real-world practice settings in America.
• LLM Colloquium: Topics in American Law
  Over informal pizza lunches, you will interact with full-time faculty members as they share their scholarly and research interests in discrete areas of American law. Past sessions have featured Professor Eva Nilsen on the “U.S. War on Drugs,” Professor Jay Wexler on “Law and Religion in the U.S.,” and Professor David Walker on “A Primer on Law and Economic Theory.”
• Outside the Classroom A full menu of extracurricular activities connects you with your fellow LLM and JD classmates, the city of Boston, and the beauty of New England. You will have the opportunity to take part in:
  —A traditional New England clambake dinner and a series of international dinners—from Chinese to Brazilian to Russian—in Boston-area restaurants
  —JD “Buddy” pizza lunches and receptions, harbor cruises, Red Sox outings, ski trips and an annual formal dance with JD students
  —Regular brown bag lunches that feature prominent outside speakers and faculty presenters. Recent talks have included former Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank J. Williams (’70) on “Why the U.S. Constitution Is Still Relevant,” and Professor Tamar Frankel on “The Role of Security in the Financial Crisis.”
  —Any of 30+ student organizations such as the International Law Society or the Communication, Entertainment & Sports Law Association

Your American Law Classmates

The LLM in American Law Program attracts distinguished jurists from throughout the world. Their remarkably varied backgrounds—and their willingness to learn from each other—makes the cultural and academic experience all the more enriching. While there is no typical student, candidates have strong academic foundations and, generally, at least some legal experience in their home countries or abroad. They practice in private firms and corporations, teach at universities, and work in government ministries and international organizations; a few have just completed their law studies. As diverse as they are, they share a strong intellectual curiosity about the American legal system and a desire to learn from each other. Because the program is limited to roughly 75 students per year, you can expect to forge close ties with your classmates, who will come from 25–30 countries around the world. Recent students have included:

• A judge in the Administrative Court of Justice in Athens, Greece
• A junior partner in a Taiwanese law firm specializing in international project finance and trade matters
• A litigation associate from the Frankfurt office of Allen & Overy
• A partner at one of Brazil’s leading intellectual property law firms
• An in-house counsel at Mexico’s largest telecommunications company
• The founding partner at the largest full-service law firm in China
• A solicitor with seven years’ experience at the U.K.’s largest labor and employment firm
• A PhD candidate at the University of Bern studying trade and antitrust law at BU
• A judge in Bangkok’s Criminal Court
• A court attorney in the Supreme Court of the Philippines

You will be in touch with LLM students in the Banking & Financial Law and Graduate Tax Programs—and, of course, with the School’s JD population.

Your Global Platform at BU Law

From its inception more than 130 years ago, the School of Law has welcomed people of every race and ethnicity and has encouraged both the exchange of ideas and the formation of relations that transcend national boundaries. Boston University’s commitment to internationalism dates back to the last century. A stroll around campus will reveal an astoundingly diverse population; last year, the University welcomed more than 4,500 international students and scholars from no fewer than 135 countries.

Your New Global Network

Your professional network will expand dramatically when you are in Boston, and it will continue to grow when you leave; American Law Program alumni live and work in more than 74 countries around the world. As a graduate, you will be connected with them and become part of the School’s worldwide alumni network of more than 17,000 graduates who work all around the world. LLM regional reunions occur regularly, as do reunions in Boston.

The Global Reach of LLM in American Law Program Alumni

Over the past decade, LLM in American Law Program alumni have returned to the following countries to assume leadership positions in the public and private sectors:

• Afghanistan
• Albania
• Argentina
• Armenia
• Australia
• Austria
• Azerbaijan
• Belarus
• Belgium
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Bulgaria
• Cameroon
• Canada
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Ghana
• Greece
• Haiti
• Honduras
• Hungary
• India
• Indonesia
• Israel
• Italy
• Japan
• Kenya
• Korea
• Lebanon
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Mexico
• The Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Nigeria
• Norway
• P.R. China
• Pakistan
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Philippines
• Poland
• Portugal
• Puerto Rico
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• Serbia
• Slovakia
• South Africa
• Spain
• Sri Lanka
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Syria
• Taiwan R.O.C.
• Tajikistan
• Thailand
• Tunisia
• Turkey
• U.S.A.
• Uganda
• Ukraine
• United Kingdom
• Venezuela

After the Program—and Beyond

Career Paths

While many students know their future plans prior to completing the LLM program—some return to their former employers, others begin internships before joining their home country’s bar—many other graduates leverage their BU Law degrees to find new positions in their home countries, often by participating in the International Student Interview Program (ISIP) that takes place each January in New York; BU Law is one of the few schools invited to participate. A smaller number of students will find permanent work in the United States.

Internships in the U.S.

You may seek to stay in the United States for a period of time after graduation—as permitted under visa regulations—to obtain practical work experience in a firm, company or other organization. As a foreign-trained LLM graduate, finding short-term, post-graduation work in the United States can be challenging, but it is not impossible; each year some students secure positions in the United States for up to a year and beyond. You will be guided and supported by a full-time assistant director for professional development dedicated solely to LLM career issues who will assist in identifying opportunities, preparing you for interviews and presenting yourself to the U.S. legal market. Many LLM students find internships through connections from their home countries; you are encouraged to arrive in the United States with a list of connections if you want to pursue an internship after commencement.

Taking a U.S. Bar Exam

The LLM in American Law Program is not designed to prepare you to take a state bar exam in the United States or to equip you to practice law in America. If you are seeking long-term legal employment in the U.S., you should consider pursuing the JD degree, the qualifying degree for U.S. legal practice. LLM students are eligible to apply to the School’s JD program as transfer students and, if admitted, receive advanced standing in the JD program.

Each state has its own rules regarding the eligibility of foreign-trained lawyers to sit for the bar exam; you should visit the American Bar Association’s website at www.abanet.org to learn about the requirements. The current rules in New York, Massachusetts, and a handful of other states allow certain LLM students to sit for the exam under specified conditions. Each year a number of LLM students take (and pass) the New York bar exam after commencement.

We look forward to welcoming you to BU Law.