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LL.M. Programs: The Frosting on the Cake of Legal Education?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Helmut Kohl

Extract

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It is the primary task of Law Schools around the world to educate young promising adults who choose the responsible profession of a lawyer, be it in the role of an attorney, a lawyer in administrative services, in industry, or a judge. Apparently, in almost all countries, admission to these important professional roles is highly regulated, be it by law, be it by professional tradition or be it by a mixture of both of these factors. It generally requires a university degree and/or the successful passing of an examination administered by the State or a professional organization. For a law school, which feels any responsibility towards its students, legal education must first of all aim to equip them with the methodological, theoretical and practical knowledge, insights and basic skills necessary to fulfill the requirements for these degrees and exams, hoping at the same time that these requirements are those that enable the former students to properly, conscientiously and ethically perform their important roles in their respective national societies. Accordingly, the law of my home state requires that “the aim of legal education is the enlightened lawyer who thinks critically and acts rationally and is aware of his or her responsibility as a guardian of a free, democratic, social state, governed by the rule of law, and is able to recognize his or her obligation to further develop the law.”

Type
Legal Culture
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 7 , 01 July 2003 , pp. 735 - 746
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 E.g. the “Staatsexamen” in Germany, a final law school exam administered by the state and the law school.Google Scholar

2 E.g. the bar exam in the USA.Google Scholar

3 Introduction to “Gesetz über die juristische Ausbildung des Landes Hessen”, (Law pertaining to the legal training of the Land Hessen), printed in: Gesetz- und Verordnungsblatt für das Land Hessen (Official Bulletin of Laws and Regulations for the Land Hessen), I 1994, p. 74.Google Scholar

4 The Doctor degree is not equivalent or comparable to the US-American JD degree which supplanted the traditional LL.B in the 2nd half of the 20th century and which now is the regular law school graduation degree; in the US the equivalent for the doctorates in most other countries would be the JSD or SJD.Google Scholar

5 And in countries which belong to supra-national unions like the European Union also: the supra-national rules.Google Scholar

6 http://www.law.Yale.edu/outside/html/Admissions/admis-llmindex.htm (this link and all following links were last visited on April 24, 2002).Google Scholar

7 http://www.studylaw.com/usllm.html.Google Scholar

8 http://jurist.pitt.edu/gradprogs.htm.Google Scholar

9 See, Letter from ABA Chair Person Shepard regarding post-J.D.-programs, http://www.abanet.org/legaled/postjdprograms/postjd_letter.html. The ABA does indeed take a look at LL.M. programs of law schools, but only to secure that they do not endanger the J.D programs the ABA accredited.Google Scholar

10 http://www.law.whittier.edu/academic_program/llm_degree.htm.Google Scholar

11 http://www.law.wisc.edu/grad/llm-sjd.htm.Google Scholar

12 http://www.law.harvard.edu/Admissions/Graduate-programs/index.Google Scholar

13 http://www.nationaljurist-com/lawschool_program.asp?id-l_l_m_programs.Google Scholar

14 http://www.law.upenn.edu/adms/REQUIRE.html.Google Scholar

15 http://www.law.harvard.edu/Admissions/Graduate_programs/programs.Google Scholar

16 See e.g. the Harvard, Wisconsin, and Yale links supra.Google Scholar

17 E.g. the University of Pennsylvania http://www.law.upenn.edu/adms/REQUIRE.html.Google Scholar

18 Eee e.g. for Yale http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/Admissions/admis-llmindex.htm.Google Scholar

19 See the rich and well done overview in: Karsten/Wirtz, Der LL.M. in der Europäischen Union (2nd Ed. Luchterhand) (http://www.luchterhand.de/as400co.nsf/artnr/05220000?opendocument) 2002, ISBN 3-472-05220-1); see the review by Reidenbach, 4 German Law Journal No. 4 (1 April 2003), available at: http://www.germanlawjournal.com (direct link: http://www.gljpdf.de/Vol04No04/PDF_vol_04_no_04_419-420_legal_culture_Reidenbach.pdf).Google Scholar

20 Karsten/Wirtz, Der LL.M. in der Europäischen Union (1st Ed. 1998), 11.Google Scholar

21 A notable exception seems to be famous Oxford University, see Jura in UK, in: AZUR Winter 2001/2002, 48.Google Scholar

22 See. e.g. for the University of East Anglia, Norwich http://www.uea.ac.uk/law/post_grade/postgrade2.htm which offers the general degree and specialties in Employment Law, International Trade Law, Familiy Law and Policy, Family Justice Studies or International and Commercial Business Law or the University of Exeter, http://www.ex.ac.uk/admin/exeter/tgp/law.htm which offers programs in European Law, International Business Law, and International and Comparative Public Law; the University of Glasgow http://www.law.gla.ac.uk/index.htm offers the General LL.M. plus specialised LL.M.s in Commercial Law, European Legal Studies, International Law, Legal History, Medical Law, Criminal Justice; the University of Nottingham even offers seven specialised LL.M.s from European Law to International Law and Armed Conflict (Karsten/Wirtz, supra note 19).Google Scholar

23 See e.g.: http://www.law.strath.ac.uk/cpls/Cumlaw.html.Google Scholar

24 http://www.laws.qmw.ac.uk/postgraduate.htm.Google Scholar

25 http://www.ukc.ac.uk/law/postgraduate/research.htm.Google Scholar

26 http://www.law.bris.ac.uk/courses/llmr.html.Google Scholar

27 http://www.law.bris.ac.uk/courses/llmr.html.Google Scholar

28 http://etlaw.law.strath.ac.uk/distlearn/.Google Scholar

29 E.g. at the Università degli studi di Milano and the Università degli studi di Roma “La Sapienza”; see Karsten/Wirtz, Der LL.M. in der Europäischen Union (1998), 64/65.Google Scholar

30 For details see http://www.unibas.ch/ius/studium.htm.Google Scholar

31 For details see http://www.rechtswissenschaft.unibe.ch/nachdiplom.html.Google Scholar

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33 Another detail might be worth mentioning in the Capital of China: the program includes excursions to universities in Shanghai and Hongkong.Google Scholar

34 See www.iue.it.Google Scholar

35 See www.emle-hamburg.de.Google Scholar

36 It is planned that Bologna is going to become a first trimester choice soon.Google Scholar

37 This fact and the following facts in this section are, unless otherwise stated, based on the unpublished “Fortführende Gesamtstatistik, June 2001” of the “Deutscher Juristen-Fakultätentag”, the German Law School Association (on file with the author); for a good, but not quite current survey see DAAD (ed.), Aufbaustudiengänge an Hochschulen in Deutschland (1999).Google Scholar

38 DAAD supra (note 36) at 28, 29.Google Scholar

39 For Frankfurt LL.M.s see below.Google Scholar

40 See http://www.ilf-frankfurt.de.Google Scholar

41 supra at c)Google Scholar

42 The same is true for some other international degree programs like the International Intellectual Property Law LL.M. of the University of Exeter (England), Robert Schumann University Strassbourgh (France), Charles University of Prague (Czech Republic),and the TU Dresden (Germany); see http://www.tu-dresden.de/erasjur/Welcome.htm Google Scholar

43 for a notable exception see below at bb.Google Scholar

44 15 000 € p.a.Google Scholar