LLM Office, 885 Centre Street, Newton, MA 02459, USA
Phone: 617.552.1002
E-mail: bcllm@bc.edu
| Website: www.bc.edu/llm
Introduction
Since our founding in 1929, Boston College Law School has earned an international reputation for educational excellence and the highest standards of professionalism. The school is among the top few law schools in the US in the number of applications it receives, and has an overall applicant-to-acceptance ratio that is among the most selective in the nation.
Our faculty includes authors of casebooks—in tax, environmental law, and civil procedure, to name a few—and other major academic books; authors of articles too numerous to count, published in the country's leading law reviews; a former president of the International Society of Family Law; a special advisor to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; 12 members of the American Law Institute, the US's premier law reform organization; and advisors to governments and NGOs around the world. As importantly, though, our faculty are extraordinary teachers as well as scholars. Indeed, their primary mission is to mentor and teach our students, and they do it well.
Is BC Law the right school for you? Only you can answer that question, but here's what we think is special about our school. It is not simply our faculty, as wonderful as they are. Nor is it simply our students, who are among the most talented in the world. Nor is it the great Jesuit University of which we are a part. Nor is it our beautiful campus, or our close proximity to Boston—one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the US.
Rather, it is our ethos. While we offer a world-class legal education, we put special emphasis on the ideals of social justice and public service. This approach makes for students who are at once highly credentialed and highly collegial in their relationships with each other and with the faculty. It also makes for a strong sense of community—a sense that springs from a shared respect for law as the cornerstone of a democratic society, and a shared respect for one another as students, scholars, and practitioners of the law.
The LLM Program: Law in a Global Context
The BC Law LLM is designed to immerse participants in the intricacies and flavor of the United States legal system, and help prepare them for the challenges of work in an increasingly global legal community. We are most interested in applicants who have completed their prior legal studies with high rank and who intend to return to their home countries to contribute to the legal profession. Otherwise, we are ecumenical: we are equally interested in applicants pursuing careers in private practice, government service, the judiciary, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and legal scholarship.
LLM students choose from among most of the courses in the Law School's extensive curriculum, including both introductory and advanced courses. The range of options is enormous—from business law to constitutional law to international law and beyond. We do not channel students into particular subject area tracks, so students can sample a range of different fields if they wish. However, the curriculum affords students ample opportunity to specialize in their fields of interest. In addition, beginning in 2012–2013, students may pursue an optional concentration in one of five areas: business and commercial law, environmental law, human rights, intellectual property, and taxation..
To earn the LLM degree, students must complete at least 24 credits of work in residence during a single academic year. This includes a core course, the United States Legal System, which is required of all foreign-trained candidates. Students also must satisfy a written work requirement, whether through producing an extended piece of writing or taking a Legal Research and Writing course designed specifically for them. Otherwise, students study alongside their JD classmates—a true immersion experience in American legal education.
For further information about admission and degree requirements, see the Master of Laws Program website.
Student Life
LLM student life starts with the LLM student community. That community is small, but vibrant. In 2012–2013, for example, we enrolled 19 students from 16 countries: business lawyers from Argentina, Colombia, France, Ghana, India, Japan, and Korea; an environmental lawyer from Puerto Rico; human rights lawyers from Mexico and Nigeria; and recent law school graduates from Belgium, Brazil, China, Germany, Spain, and Taiwan. We work hard to help our LLM students engage each other, organizing social events, symposia, court visits, and so on.
LLMs' lives are not limited to each other, though. Indeed, we put a premium on integrating LLMs into the Law School community in general, including our 800 JD students. From the outset, each LLM student is paired with one or two JD student "buddies" who can introduce the LLM student to new friends, show him or her around, and provide informal advice on things like housing, restaurants, movie theaters, and the Boston area in general. In addition, we introduce each LLM student to faculty working in the student's areas of interest early during their time here, in order to promote informal mentoring relationships.
There is also a vibrant community of students, faculty, and visitors interested in international matters in particular. This includes several internationally oriented student organizations within the Law School, and the Graduate International Student Association affiliated with the University's Office of International Students and Scholars. To enhance the experience, we offer an International Legal Studies Colloquium—a periodic gathering of students, faculty, and others for the discussion of ongoing work in the field.
Finally, LLM students' lives are enriched by the life of the University as a whole. Opportunities include the plays and concerts performed in the Robsham Theatre on the main campus; Saturday afternoon football games before a roaring home crowd in Alumni Stadium; exhibitions of world-renowned paintings and sculptures in the McMullen Museum of Art; and the dozens of other cultural, educational, and sporting events that take place in every part of the campus each week. A variety of the University's clubs and groups welcome graduate students, and the RecPlex has facilities for indoor tennis, squash, racquetball, volleyball, basketball, swimming, indoor track, weight training, and aerobics.
Career Services
Our LLM students receive extensive support in their pursuit of employment or further study after graduation. This is handled through the joint efforts of our Career Services Office, the LLM program administration, and individual faculty members. For example, we advise each student on job search strategies, help that student prepare a résumé and cover letters, alert him or her to specific job openings and networking opportunities, and offer other advice as needed. Our Career Services Resources Library is open to all of our students. Finally, students can participate in a variety of career-related events—some organized specifically for LLM students, others for the student body as a whole.
Recent graduates have landed internships or paid employment, of varying duration, in the chambers of a United States District Court judge, the Massachusetts state government, international nongovernmental organizations, and both large and small law firms. And those are just the people who have found work in the United States. Others have returned to their home countries, landing in law firms, a General Counsel position, academics, the judiciary, government service, and other work.
Physical Facilities
The BC Law campus is an oasis in the midst of a bustling suburban and city landscape, a place where gentle stretches of green lawn and manicured gardens complement some of the most technologically advanced facilities available to law school students.
Our Law Library and East Wing building are testaments to the power of technology and feats of engineering and design. Data ports are available from every library carrel and study table and from every classroom seat in the East Wing. Wireless technology is also available from anywhere in the library and in every classroom, just in case you feel like spreading your wings. Every inch of the library was carefully crafted for individual and group study, with desk and lounge areas, computer centers, an audiovisual resource room, and private study rooms. The East Wing includes six classrooms, 25 faculty offices, administrative offices for the Career Services Center, two conference rooms, and the John J. and Mary Daly Curtin Public Interest Center—a suite of offices for student groups working on public service projects.
The East Wing complements the Stuart House administration building, to which it connects, as well as Barat House. Stuart House contains academic, administrative, and service facilities, including the LLM Office, the Dean's Suite, the JD Admissions
Office, Academic Services, the offices of the five major law school student publications, the bookstore, the dining hall, and a student lounge. Barat House, home to our Alumni and Development Office, including BC Law Magazine, is the site of many Law School receptions. One of the most visually stunning buildings on campus, it was originally built as a private home.
Housing
Non-University rental housing is plentiful in Boston, Newton, and the surrounding towns. There are many different types of housing available, ranging from one-room rentals in large Victorian homes, to triple-decker brownstones and apartment high-rises. Allston-Brighton and Jamaica Plain are among the nearby Boston neighborhoods that attract students from many colleges and universities because of their diverse communities and relative affordability. BC Law students also have found Newton, Brookline, Waltham, Watertown, and Boston's West Roxbury neighborhood attractive places to live.
Once a student is admitted to the LLM program, the University's Off-Campus Housing Office is available to assist in the housing search. This office provides rental listings and roommate pairings and sponsors an off-campus housing fair each June.
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