Six-Semester JD/LLM in Banking & Financial Law

Program Overview

By taking qualifying courses during the second and third years of the JD program, a student can earn units toward both the JD degree and the LLM degree in Banking & Financial Law. Students obtain all necessary units for their JD and LLM degrees in six terms of study and are eligible to receive the JD degree and LLM degree at the end of three years. The six-term program is an accelerated variant of BU Law’s seven-term JD/LLM in Banking & Financial Law.

Prerequisites

To be accepted to the six-term program, a student completes, through the JD curriculum, three prerequisite courses comprising a total of eleven (11) unit hours. The prerequisite courses are Corporations (4 units), Financial Regulation (3 units), and Secured Transactions (4 units).

Unlike the seven-term program, in the six-term program units will be granted toward the LLM degree for these courses.

Ideally, Financial Regulation should be taken prior to admission to the six-term program, but if it is only offered in the fall term in a year, with permission of the director of the Banking & Financial Law LLM program, the course may be taken in fall of the student’s 3L year. The student will still need to complete seven additional LLM courses in their 3L year.

Required Unit Hours

The number of unit hours required for the LLM degree in the six-term program is 24, the same number as required for the full-year LLM degree. Since the student will be granted eleven (11) unit hours for the courses in Corporations, Secured Transactions, and Financial Regulation, the student will typically need to successfully complete seven 2-unit courses in the LLM program to be eligible for award of the degree. These LLM units will also count toward the JD degree.

Admission to the Program

JD students may apply for admission to the six-term JD/LLM in Banking & Financial Law at any time during their second year at BU Law. The application must be completed no later than July 31 in the summer prior to the student’s 3L year. Students applying for admission should speak to the director of the Graduate Program in Banking & Financial Law about choice of LLM courses.

To be admitted to the six-term program, the student must have earned a cumulative grade point average of 2.7 or higher in all prerequisite courses, including the Financial Regulation course.