LLM Still Worth It? - Answered By Someone Who Did It
In most countries, owning a foreign LLM degree is not required to practice law.
The natural question is, therefore, why spend a fortune to get one? An LLM degree is about $45,000, not including expenses like housing, food, travel, cultural activities, etc.
The legal landscape has changed drastically over time, especially in the US.
Almost everyday you see news about the rising unemployment rate of law graduates.
Therefore, the question of worthiness is worth asking.
In my opinion, there are a variety of reasons why lawyers should consider pursuing an LLM.
However, to be very frank, an LLM is neither a guarantee for success in general nor for finding a job.
In the past, an LLM degree might have contributed to getting a better entry job or higher salary but the economy has changed so drastically that this is not always true anymore.
Nevertheless, pursuing an LLM can do so much more for your career than getting a better entry job.
I truly believe that pursuing an LLM is something everyone should consider.
Just looking at employment rates doesn't do the whole LLM experience justice.
There is so much more to it than finding a job.
I can tell you from my own personal experience that my LLM year was one of the best years of my life.
The excitement of the first weeks is truly unique.
The challenge of solving legal issues in a language that is not your own gives you great self-confidence as a lawyer.
And graduating from a US law school is still something extremely amazing.
Furthermore, an LLM can give you the opportunity to take a US bar exam and become an admitted lawyer in the US.
This can give you an advantage in your home country when working with multinational organizations but it also adds another country in which you can practice law.
This opens doors to great professional opportunities.
Here are some reasons why doing an LLM is still a good idea.
1.
Spending one year abroad is a very exciting experience Spending one year in another country is something that I would recommend to everyone.
Of course there are a variety of ways to do so, but the LLM is a great way for lawyers to do so.
I remember my first day in New York, with two suitcases, sitting in an apartment with a roommate I had never met before.
The LLM hadn't started yet so I was running around a city I had visited a couple of times before, but this time being totally lost.
I just wanted to go home.
It sucked.
In retrospect, I am so grateful for having had the chance in my life to experience this.
A stranger in a foreign place, calling it your new home.
What I have learned in this year about myself, cultural differences and how much I can miss my family is truly amazing.
I even learned so much about my home country by being able to look at it from the outside.
I started to appreciate things about my home that I would have never noticed while living there.
I have never heard an LLM saying that he or she hated the time abroad.
2.
It broadens your horizons I don't want to get philosophical here but studying abroad opens your horizons, personally as well as professionally.
A lot of things are done differently and you will end up asking yourself, is this a better way to do it? You leave your comfort zone, you leave the place where most of your activity in your every day life was almost done subconsciously, you know how it worked.
Now it takes you twice as much time to go grocery shopping, to send a package, to get an ID, to get registered for classes and exams, to find information, to find the right person to talk to, and so on.
It is really hard to explain how the most trivial things take so much longer in a country that you haven't lived in before.
You have to break down walls every day.
And this truly broadens your horizons.
3.
Meeting people from all over the world This is something very special about the LLM program and is intertwined with the point above.
You will meet so many students/lawyers from all over the world.
You will maybe never ever get the opportunity to work so closely with people from different cultures.
Just yesterday I was at an LLM party.
In 2 hours I met students from: Ghana, France, Italy, Denmark, Russia, China, Taiwan, Albania, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, US and I am sure I forgot some.
That is truly truly amazing.
I can't think of another professional situation where you will sit in a room with so many people from so many countries.
4.
Creating a network of lawyers that is worth a fortune Everyone you study with will be a lawyer in his respective country.
Networking is something that becomes more and more important as the usual way of applying for jobs becomes harder and harder.
Having a network that is crossing boarders is worth a fortune.
I know of people who have and continue to cultivate tremendous networks across the world.
They get invited to the most beautiful places to attend conferences, participate in projects, give lectures, you name it.
These are career opportunities that are widely overlooked.
We tend to only look out for a "regular" job, but in this time and age the finding a "regular" job approach is not working very well.
We need to be much more creative.
And honestly it is much more fun.
I truly believe that if you only use your LLM year to create a worldwide network and cultivate it, if that is all you do this year (and you will do much more) it is worth investing even more than $45,000.
5.
Studying a different legal system to broaden your legal understanding It is not only interesting to learn how other legal systems approach legal problems but also very useful in the application of your home country's law.
You start thinking outside the box.
The legal industry needs people that think creatively.
Not every legal problem can be approached in the same way.
And just because you are used to your home system does not mean that it is the golden path.
The LLM gives you the opportunity to study outside your system, to reflect upon different approaches and to use some and reject others.
A truly great lawyer thinks outside the box and studying different concepts can help getting that process started.
6.
Being able to take the US bar and be admitted as a lawyer in another country Being admitted as a lawyer in another country can be useful at home if you are working with multinational organizations or clients.
It also adds another country where you are admitted to practice law and this adds another career path to your list.
If job prospects are bad where you live right now, adding another country to practice law can't make it worse, can't it? 7.
Solving and arguing legal issues in a foreign language improves self-confidence as lawyers Admittedly, there are LLM students coming from countries where English is the native language so this aspect does not apply to them.
But for all the others this is something to consider.
We lawyers argue all the time.
Words are our weapon.
Doing this in your own language is already challenging.
Doing this in a foreign language is where it gets really fun.
Getting up and arguing in another language and discussing a legal problem can make you feel like a school kid.
You stumble and fish for words and you use more ahs, and eahms, as ever before.
You will get better and better and this will really improve your confidence.
Writing exams and getting a great grade for it in a foreign law school is really awesome.
Receiving your degree and maybe also passing the bar exam will really add some self-confidence professionally.
8.
If you don't have a job after graduating, use the time to get an LLM If you are unemployed after law school you have two choices: You can sit and wait to get hired or you can do the LLM to use the time effectively.
I have heard from students that they are pursuing an LLM because the alternative would have been to be unemployed in your home country.
So when I think about what I just wrote I can honestly recommend pursuing an LLM degree.
Of course, as a lawyer I would like to add a disclaimer.
There may be very special personal circumstances that can lead to another conclusion and this cannot be answered in an article here.
Also, the LLM experience is very very expensive and the money issue lingers over everything I just said.
But there are options to deal with that issue.
If you are doing an LLM with the sole expectation of getting employed, you might very well be disappointed.
If you change your expectation and use this year as a life experience giving you all of the above opportunities, I can guarantee you you won't be disappointed.
It is a matter of setting expectations.
The natural question is, therefore, why spend a fortune to get one? An LLM degree is about $45,000, not including expenses like housing, food, travel, cultural activities, etc.
The legal landscape has changed drastically over time, especially in the US.
Almost everyday you see news about the rising unemployment rate of law graduates.
Therefore, the question of worthiness is worth asking.
In my opinion, there are a variety of reasons why lawyers should consider pursuing an LLM.
However, to be very frank, an LLM is neither a guarantee for success in general nor for finding a job.
In the past, an LLM degree might have contributed to getting a better entry job or higher salary but the economy has changed so drastically that this is not always true anymore.
Nevertheless, pursuing an LLM can do so much more for your career than getting a better entry job.
I truly believe that pursuing an LLM is something everyone should consider.
Just looking at employment rates doesn't do the whole LLM experience justice.
There is so much more to it than finding a job.
I can tell you from my own personal experience that my LLM year was one of the best years of my life.
The excitement of the first weeks is truly unique.
The challenge of solving legal issues in a language that is not your own gives you great self-confidence as a lawyer.
And graduating from a US law school is still something extremely amazing.
Furthermore, an LLM can give you the opportunity to take a US bar exam and become an admitted lawyer in the US.
This can give you an advantage in your home country when working with multinational organizations but it also adds another country in which you can practice law.
This opens doors to great professional opportunities.
Here are some reasons why doing an LLM is still a good idea.
1.
Spending one year abroad is a very exciting experience Spending one year in another country is something that I would recommend to everyone.
Of course there are a variety of ways to do so, but the LLM is a great way for lawyers to do so.
I remember my first day in New York, with two suitcases, sitting in an apartment with a roommate I had never met before.
The LLM hadn't started yet so I was running around a city I had visited a couple of times before, but this time being totally lost.
I just wanted to go home.
It sucked.
In retrospect, I am so grateful for having had the chance in my life to experience this.
A stranger in a foreign place, calling it your new home.
What I have learned in this year about myself, cultural differences and how much I can miss my family is truly amazing.
I even learned so much about my home country by being able to look at it from the outside.
I started to appreciate things about my home that I would have never noticed while living there.
I have never heard an LLM saying that he or she hated the time abroad.
2.
It broadens your horizons I don't want to get philosophical here but studying abroad opens your horizons, personally as well as professionally.
A lot of things are done differently and you will end up asking yourself, is this a better way to do it? You leave your comfort zone, you leave the place where most of your activity in your every day life was almost done subconsciously, you know how it worked.
Now it takes you twice as much time to go grocery shopping, to send a package, to get an ID, to get registered for classes and exams, to find information, to find the right person to talk to, and so on.
It is really hard to explain how the most trivial things take so much longer in a country that you haven't lived in before.
You have to break down walls every day.
And this truly broadens your horizons.
3.
Meeting people from all over the world This is something very special about the LLM program and is intertwined with the point above.
You will meet so many students/lawyers from all over the world.
You will maybe never ever get the opportunity to work so closely with people from different cultures.
Just yesterday I was at an LLM party.
In 2 hours I met students from: Ghana, France, Italy, Denmark, Russia, China, Taiwan, Albania, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, US and I am sure I forgot some.
That is truly truly amazing.
I can't think of another professional situation where you will sit in a room with so many people from so many countries.
4.
Creating a network of lawyers that is worth a fortune Everyone you study with will be a lawyer in his respective country.
Networking is something that becomes more and more important as the usual way of applying for jobs becomes harder and harder.
Having a network that is crossing boarders is worth a fortune.
I know of people who have and continue to cultivate tremendous networks across the world.
They get invited to the most beautiful places to attend conferences, participate in projects, give lectures, you name it.
These are career opportunities that are widely overlooked.
We tend to only look out for a "regular" job, but in this time and age the finding a "regular" job approach is not working very well.
We need to be much more creative.
And honestly it is much more fun.
I truly believe that if you only use your LLM year to create a worldwide network and cultivate it, if that is all you do this year (and you will do much more) it is worth investing even more than $45,000.
5.
Studying a different legal system to broaden your legal understanding It is not only interesting to learn how other legal systems approach legal problems but also very useful in the application of your home country's law.
You start thinking outside the box.
The legal industry needs people that think creatively.
Not every legal problem can be approached in the same way.
And just because you are used to your home system does not mean that it is the golden path.
The LLM gives you the opportunity to study outside your system, to reflect upon different approaches and to use some and reject others.
A truly great lawyer thinks outside the box and studying different concepts can help getting that process started.
6.
Being able to take the US bar and be admitted as a lawyer in another country Being admitted as a lawyer in another country can be useful at home if you are working with multinational organizations or clients.
It also adds another country where you are admitted to practice law and this adds another career path to your list.
If job prospects are bad where you live right now, adding another country to practice law can't make it worse, can't it? 7.
Solving and arguing legal issues in a foreign language improves self-confidence as lawyers Admittedly, there are LLM students coming from countries where English is the native language so this aspect does not apply to them.
But for all the others this is something to consider.
We lawyers argue all the time.
Words are our weapon.
Doing this in your own language is already challenging.
Doing this in a foreign language is where it gets really fun.
Getting up and arguing in another language and discussing a legal problem can make you feel like a school kid.
You stumble and fish for words and you use more ahs, and eahms, as ever before.
You will get better and better and this will really improve your confidence.
Writing exams and getting a great grade for it in a foreign law school is really awesome.
Receiving your degree and maybe also passing the bar exam will really add some self-confidence professionally.
8.
If you don't have a job after graduating, use the time to get an LLM If you are unemployed after law school you have two choices: You can sit and wait to get hired or you can do the LLM to use the time effectively.
I have heard from students that they are pursuing an LLM because the alternative would have been to be unemployed in your home country.
So when I think about what I just wrote I can honestly recommend pursuing an LLM degree.
Of course, as a lawyer I would like to add a disclaimer.
There may be very special personal circumstances that can lead to another conclusion and this cannot be answered in an article here.
Also, the LLM experience is very very expensive and the money issue lingers over everything I just said.
But there are options to deal with that issue.
If you are doing an LLM with the sole expectation of getting employed, you might very well be disappointed.
If you change your expectation and use this year as a life experience giving you all of the above opportunities, I can guarantee you you won't be disappointed.
It is a matter of setting expectations.
