Master of Laws (LL.M.) Program
Overview
The LL.M. (Master of Laws) program is a one-year degree program that typically includes 150 students from more than 60 countries. The Graduate Program is interested in attracting intellectually curious and thoughtful candidates from a variety of legal systems and backgrounds and with various career plans. Harvard's LL.M. students include lawyers working in firms, government officials, law professors, judges, diplomats, human rights activists, doctoral students, business men and women, and others. The diversity of the participants in the LL.M. program contributes significantly to the educational experience of all students at the School.
The philosophy of the LL.M. program is to offer our students a broad platform to design their own course of study within parameters set by the Harvard Law School faculty. Those parameters include some exposure to U.S. law, some writing experience, and, in the case of students who hold a J.D. degree from a school in the U.S. or Puerto Rico, some exposure to legal theory. See Degree Requirements. Within this framework, LL.M. students have enormous latitude in planning their year. Interested faculty, the Graduate Program staff, and special student advisors work hard throughout the year to help students identify and refine their study objectives, then develop an appropriate sequence of courses and other work.
Most of a student's program will be drawn from the regular Harvard Law School curriculum - some 250 courses and seminars each year, offered to J.D. and graduate students alike. Students also have the opportunity to pursue a limited number of credits at other faculties within Harvard and other area schools and a variety of writing projects. About half of the LL.M. class each year write a 75- to 100-page paper (called the "LL.M. paper") on a topic the student develops in consultation with his or her faculty supervisor. We also offer the more extensive LL.M. thesis, an option designed for students who already have significant research and writing experience and plan careers in law teaching. Other students write shorter papers, whether independently or in conjunction with a course or seminar.
Given the flexibility of the program, the range of curricula students design is enormous. Some students take a varied curriculum, with courses ranging from environmental law to corporations to public international law. Others select courses primarily in a single area, such as constitutional law, business organization and finance, legal theory, or human rights. In addition, we are developing concentrations in particular areas of study - effectively "majors" within a single LL.M. degree program. For example, the Committee on Graduate Studies has approved concentrations in human rights, taxation, Corporate Law and Governance and international finance - the first of its kind in the U.S. - now in its sixth year. The faculty is considering developing concentrations in other areas, including possibly law teaching.
Finally, our students have the opportunity to participate in a variety of extracurricular and co-curricular offerings on a not-for-credit basis. Graduate students participate in the full range of student organizations at the Law School. Other opportunities are designed specifically for graduate students. For example, in a typical year we offer between six and eight Byse workshops, taught by specially selected S.J.D. students and treating such disparate subjects as game theory and the law, police misconduct, feminist approaches to law and development, and the history of private international law. Other offerings include the Law Teaching Colloquium, a full-year offering that explores different approaches to the teaching of law, and the Legal Practice Workshop, designed to acquaint students with modes of legal analysis and writing used in the American law firm environment.
Degree Requirements
As indicated above, the philosophy of the LL.M. program is to offer our students a broad platform on which to design their own course of study within parameters set by the Harvard Law School faculty. All students must satisfactorily complete a minimum of 22 credit hours and a maximum of 26 credit hours in one academic year; most students complete between 22 and 24 credits. Students also must satisfy some specific course and written work requirements. More specific requirements applicable to international students and U.S. students follow.
International LL.M. students are required to take at least one of the following courses in American Law: Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Corporations, Criminal Law, Property, Taxation, and Torts. International students also must write either the 75- to 100-page LL.M. paper, the more extensive LL.M. thesis, or a paper of 25 or more pages that involves independent reflection, formulation of a sustained argument and, in many cases, outside research. Both types of papers may be written either independently or in conjunction with a seminar. Finally, we urge students to take at least one course focusing on legal history, legal theory, policy analysis or legal process.
For students who hold a J.D. from a law school in the United States or Puerto Rico, the emphasis is slightly different. For these students, the LL.M. degree is designed as preparation for a career in law teaching. These students are provided the opportunity to take a step back and relate the doctrinal areas in which they previously concentrated to broader intellectual, social and cultural traditions; and pursue an extended writing project. Thus students from the United States and Puerto Rico must take at least one course in legal theory or jurisprudence and write either the LL.M. paper or the LL.M. thesis.