<p>Hey Everyone,</p>
<p>I was wondering what the best law schools for international law were, and what programs or resources they offer that make them so. </p>
<p>I have a rough idea of the good ones</p>
<p>NYU
Columbia
Harvard</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>“International Law” is a vague term that engenders a lot of misunderstandings.</p>
<p>Some people restrict the term to the legal relationships between nations, as governed by treaty, largely. There are relatively few people working in this area; they may have formally studied law. Some of them have degrees from the Fletcher School at Tufts, or the JFK School of Government at Harvard, or the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, if they’re Americans. </p>
<p>Others use the term “internal law” more generally to apply to commercial transactions between companies headquartered in different countries. The number of lawyers working on these transactions is relatively large. Such transactions require knowledge of the substantive law of contracts, and other areas of the law, depending on what the transaction relates to. I work in-house on these deals for a large software company, which requires a good working knowlege of intellectual property law. As these transactions often subject the parties to them to the laws of more than one jurisdiction. </p>
<p>The best law schools for people who want to work on international commercial transactions are, frankly, the best law schools. But I have known people who graduated from a long list of schools who have had success in doing that sort of work.</p>
<p>Noted.</p>
<p>I meant in terms of resources external to the law school, which schools are the best. Admittedly, the large part of an international lawyer’s training will be in international relations or the relevant subfield. As such, I was wondering which law schools offer the best institutes and other such resources for people aspiring to work for an institution like the WTO.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I was also curious about this question. I was told that most of the international business attorneys practice in D.C. and that law schools based in D.C. such as Gtown or GW would give you the best prospects in that area. Also, I was under an impression that some int’l attorneys tend to have an advanced degrees in international relations and/or int’l business/finance. </p>
<p>That said, I was wondering how valuable these master’s degrees can be in terms of employment especially if you want to work specifically as an international business attorney doing transactional work for law firms or corporations. </p>
<p>Would M.A.degree from Johns Hopkins (SAIS), Georgetown (SFS), or GWU (Elliot) give you an edge over a person who just had J.D.? (It seems that many of these law schools have a joint degree program which lets you finish both degrees in 4 years) </p>
<p>Finally, how would you compare M.A. over LLM in international law. It seems M.A. can be specialized specifically in international business/finance/econ. whereas LLM is more of an generalized international law including human rights. As an int’l business lawyer, which one of the two would make you more marketable or preferable to your employer? </p>
<p>I would greatly appreciate your insights on any of these questions.</p>
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<p>Assuming you’re using the definition greybeard mentioned, this is not true. There are far more in NYC.</p>
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<p>Also not the case. Again, the best schools for “international law”, however defined, are the best schools overall. If you want to work at a biglaw firm that does a lot of cross-border transactional work, your chances will be much better coming out of Harvard than GTown or GW. Even if you want to work in DC.</p>
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<p>Frankly, they’re virtually worthless. Most M&A partners don’t have them. You don’t need them to get a job, and they wouldn’t give you an edge over someone with better grades from a better school. They’re not going to hurt, but they wouldn’t give you anywhere near enough of a boost to be worth the time and cost.</p>
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<p>Neither of them is going to help much.</p>
<p>OK. Thanks zaprowsdower. That is pretty much what I thought before I did some research by looking at the large and mid-sized international law firms’ attorney bios. </p>
<p>I understand how you mean by “most M&A partners don’t have them.” I assume you made your point based on the idea that all the international business work is done by the corporate lawyers, thus extra masters degree or DC location is pretty much meaningless.</p>
<p>But I was thinking more about a specific field of law where you deal with international trade including antidumping litigation, trade agreement negotiations and such. This is where I meant “all the int’l business attorneys are in D.C.” I heard that these regulatory practices are very much going on around the D.C. area, so I thought that D.C. location was supposed to be THE place to be if you wanted to get into this field. You can take some of the largest firms such as skadden,white&case,holland&knight,and Shearman & Sterling for instance and search their attorneys under “international trade” practice. You will find that most of those attorneys are located in D.C. Also, like I said, many of the attorneys hold M.A. degrees from schools like princeton (woodrow wilson), Gtown, GW and etc. That is why I asked about the importance of an additional degree. </p>
<p>But since I have just started to look into this area, my knowledge is very limited. So please correct me if I am wrong. </p>
<p>Would you still say that the type of practice I mentioned above is pretty much done by the corporate attorneys, therefore you just need the best law degree that you can get? Obviously, you would be better off having Harvard degree over GW degree. But wouldn’t GW degree be better suited over, say, UCLA or vanderbilt? Likewise, wouldn’t Gtown degree better than Cornell or even Northwestern degree IF you wanted to get into “International Trade” in D.C.? </p>
<p>After reviewing some of the firms sites, I was under an impression that they tend to separate their “international trade” departments from their “corporate” departments. Or is this just special case which has to do with character or culture of that particular firm and generally “international trade” IS under the corporate department? </p>
<p>I know I am asking a lot of questions, but I am very much interested in this area and would greatly appreciate if you could clarify some of the confusions I might have. </p>
<p>thanks.</p>