How marketable is an LLM, really?
November 1, 2011 3:28 AM Subscribe
How marketable is an LLM, really?
I'm a 3rd-year law student at a top 30 law school in the U.S. and, given the less-than-ideal job market/economy, have been considering pursuing an LLM (in energy/environmental law) after I graduate.
I know I would enjoy it, and I know it would provide me with valuable nuts-and-bolts skills in my chosen specialty, but I honestly don't know if it's worth the additional time (1 year) and money (another $40-60k of educational debt) required.
All things being equal (quality of program, location, etc) how marketable/educational are LLMs, really?
I'm a 3rd-year law student at a top 30 law school in the U.S. and, given the less-than-ideal job market/economy, have been considering pursuing an LLM (in energy/environmental law) after I graduate.
I know I would enjoy it, and I know it would provide me with valuable nuts-and-bolts skills in my chosen specialty, but I honestly don't know if it's worth the additional time (1 year) and money (another $40-60k of educational debt) required.
All things being equal (quality of program, location, etc) how marketable/educational are LLMs, really?
Tax is basically the only marketable one. Other than that, they're really not even understood outside the academy, and if you're looking to go that route, you should get a Ph.D., not an LL.M.
posted by valkyryn at 3:56 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by valkyryn at 3:56 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]
Sounds a little like throwing good money after bad ... if you are going to have issues getting work in this legal market, you should ask yourself if adding even more debt and becoming more specialised (without a "sure thing" at the end) is a fantastic idea.
posted by jannw at 4:35 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by jannw at 4:35 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]
Tax is the only one that's seen as worthwhile for practitioners. The only other time it's worthwhile is if you're at your topt 30 school, you want to be a law professor, and you can partially make up for attending a lower ranked school by getting your LLM at Yale or one of the other top five or six schools.
posted by J. Wilson at 4:56 AM on November 1, 2011
posted by J. Wilson at 4:56 AM on November 1, 2011
Post-JD legal education is essentially worthless in the US. Take a look around LL.M and SJD programs some time: the people in those programs are virtually all foreign students who will return to their home countries to practice. Advanced legal degrees are worth something in those markets, but they aren't in the US (with, as others have mentioned, the borderline case of tax).
A datapoint: another common specialty LL.M program is the IP LL.M. I have never seen an IP-related job posting even mention it, much less require it.
If you're having trouble finding a law-related job, repeating the same mistake (i.e. taking on debt to go to law school) is a bad idea. At some point you have to be willing to ignore sunk costs and find an alternative path. The brutal reality is that many (perhaps as much as half) of current and recent law graduates will never find permanent employment in the legal field. And if you don't have a job lined up already by your third year, the odds that you'll fall into that group increase dramatically.
Quite frankly, the rank of your school is essentially immaterial at this point because you don't have a job. Whatever the rank or reputation is, it didn't help you. It's possible that it might someday, but if it hasn't done so yet, then you have to seriously question whether it's likely that it will ever make the difference for you. What are your grades like? If you are outside the top third you should go ahead and take the bar but also start looking for non-legal employment. It is vanishingly unlikely that you will get a job you are happy with. This is reality.
I know it would provide me with valuable nuts-and-bolts skills in my chosen specialty
No it wouldn't. Some clinical programs provide something vaguely like "nuts-and-bolts" skills, but that's it. No amount of classroom education is a substitute for actually doing the work. If an LL.M taught nuts-and-bolts skills then law firms would require LL.Ms rather than spending a year or two training new attorneys while clients require the firm to write-off hours billed by those first and second year attorneys.
posted by jedicus at 6:38 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]
A datapoint: another common specialty LL.M program is the IP LL.M. I have never seen an IP-related job posting even mention it, much less require it.
If you're having trouble finding a law-related job, repeating the same mistake (i.e. taking on debt to go to law school) is a bad idea. At some point you have to be willing to ignore sunk costs and find an alternative path. The brutal reality is that many (perhaps as much as half) of current and recent law graduates will never find permanent employment in the legal field. And if you don't have a job lined up already by your third year, the odds that you'll fall into that group increase dramatically.
Quite frankly, the rank of your school is essentially immaterial at this point because you don't have a job. Whatever the rank or reputation is, it didn't help you. It's possible that it might someday, but if it hasn't done so yet, then you have to seriously question whether it's likely that it will ever make the difference for you. What are your grades like? If you are outside the top third you should go ahead and take the bar but also start looking for non-legal employment. It is vanishingly unlikely that you will get a job you are happy with. This is reality.
I know it would provide me with valuable nuts-and-bolts skills in my chosen specialty
No it wouldn't. Some clinical programs provide something vaguely like "nuts-and-bolts" skills, but that's it. No amount of classroom education is a substitute for actually doing the work. If an LL.M taught nuts-and-bolts skills then law firms would require LL.Ms rather than spending a year or two training new attorneys while clients require the firm to write-off hours billed by those first and second year attorneys.
posted by jedicus at 6:38 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]
Frankly, I'm not sure how marketable it really is. I think that its worth may be in allowing you to hit the snooze button on a shitty job market, hoping that the market will be better next year for your with your slightly better resume.
If you really want to hit the snooze button with another year in school, you might want to look into the possibility of a civil law degree add-on to your common law degree. Some A.B.A. schools have partnerships with civil law schools, where for an extra year of study, you can come out with a degree which totally changes your marketability, rather than 'just' the add-on of an LL.M. I suspect it'd be cheaper, too.
Of course, the value of a civil law add-on depends on your ultimate career goals.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:06 AM on November 1, 2011
If you really want to hit the snooze button with another year in school, you might want to look into the possibility of a civil law degree add-on to your common law degree. Some A.B.A. schools have partnerships with civil law schools, where for an extra year of study, you can come out with a degree which totally changes your marketability, rather than 'just' the add-on of an LL.M. I suspect it'd be cheaper, too.
Of course, the value of a civil law add-on depends on your ultimate career goals.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:06 AM on November 1, 2011
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posted by Admiral Haddock at 3:54 AM on November 1, 2011