Hi everyone
I'm from eUROPE
just wonder about llm in brazil. what opportuniyies does it offer and what about prospectiveness
thnx in advance

I suggest that you confirm if your law school has ever entered into an exchange agreement with a brazilian law school. I have heard that Ibmec had an agreement with Paris II... SOme german law schools have also connection with brazilian universities.

That would be the best way, as the culture of receiving international students in Brazil is not popular...

Tnank very much. yeah now it's clear to me. But the fact is that i'm from Eastern Europe, I'm searcnig for a apportunity for a grant, so from now on i will know that

NPA, Fundação Getulio Vargas (also known as FGV) and Fundação Dom Cabral (FDC) are surely great options too. Are you a portuguese speaker? I don't know if those institutions offer graduate programs in languages other than Portuguese, but as a Brazilian I would say it is unlikely... Usually our students pursue graduate studies abroad.

For the brazilians who answered to the topic:
Are you already llm students or still prospective?
How do you guys plan to finance your studies? Are there any scholarships available for us brazilians?
Which university are you guys from?
Kind regards!

Grugani, cool, really appreciate your help.
In fact I speak spanish, I learned it. So I see I'd better go and spend some holidays some day in BRAZIL rather than trying to get a LLM:)
Guys, yeah it's really interesting to know about the education in BRAZIL.
do your educational establishments offer a good quaility of education? What points r u satisfied in and what you dislike?

Npa,
In Brasil you enter law school right after high school.
We are living a so-called educational boom in Brasil. Lots of universities are opening. Overrall quality of undergraduate schools is okay, but public universities (mostly of which are Federal and completely free of costs) are generally better than the private ones - though some exceptions apply -. This might be changing in a few years, as it did for elementary and high schools, when riches moved from public to private, and increased the quality of these, leaving those to mediocrity in their majority.
As for LLMs, I only know of two schools offering it in Brazil, IBMEC and FGV, both private schools that are excpetions by being of extraordinary quality. It's a shame though that they are awfully expensive and only a few can afford them.
What I like the most about law schools in general here is the fact that it's free if you can pass the exam to enter a Public one.
Something I'm not satisfied with is that we have way too many law schools and the market for lawyers gets more crowded every semester. I live in a town with 70.000 habitants and aproximately 150 law students graduate every year.

I would strongly advise to take Portuguese classes before going to an LL.M. in Brazil.

In Brazil, we make a difference between the Master Degree in Law (Mestrado em Direito) and the LL.M. (also found as "Pós-graduação" or "Especialização" with other approaches). The first is more theoretical and requires deep analysis and study of Law in a certain concentration area. The LL.M. has a practical approach and is designed for law practitioneers.

For sure, currently the two most prestigious graduate (LL.M., but for some reason FGV also calls it MBA) programmes for commercial lawyers in Brazil are those offered by FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas) and IBMEC, now called "Insper" in São Paulo, but as far as I know, they are taught in Portuguese. I also have some tips on how to study in Brazil in my blog: http://vivendolonge.blogspot.com/2009/03/tips-on-how-to-live-study-and-work-in.html

Hope it helps you. Cheers!

The top 20 Brazilian Law Schools have good quality of teaching and some good research opportunities, but if you compare to US and European top Universities they generally have simpler infrastructures and less sources of study. I believe it happens probably in all Latin America, which does not mean they do not offer good studies. I would say that almost all Federal (public-funded) and Catholic (private-funded) universities in Brazil have a good reputation within their regions (please consider that Brazil is almost half South America and larger than the US without Alaska).

In the last 10 years, many new law schools were created and also the quality of study and mainly of students has severely decreased, as almost anyone who can afford paying might get into a law degree.

If we go to executive legal education, there are two main top institutions (as I and other people said in my previous posts): FGV and IBMEC (or "Insper" in São Paulo). They offer LLM and MBA degrees in Corporate Law, Business Law and Capital Markets Law with distinct (and distinctive) approaches.

A Master Degree in Commercial Law (Mestrado em Direito Comercial) from the University of São Paulo is probably the most-wanted graduate degree for commercial law in Brazil, but it also goes too further in theoretical research that is not really necessary for lawyers, besides taking 2 full-time years. There are few places offered per year and it is really hard to have a place granted in there.

The "official" Brazilian Master Degree in Law (Mestrado em Direito) goes much deeper than what is normally required by other universities abroad (final dissertations normally reach between 150 and 250 pages, in comparison my LLM dissertation in a prestigious UK University had 60 pages) and takes at least 2 years. It is almost (and in many cases equal) to a PhD in Law outside Brazil. This does not mean it is better or worse, just the approaches are different (althought in my personal opinion a degree in commercial law, for example, should not be theoretical, but rather extremly pragmatic - if you like discussing theory of law, go to philosofy of law, but I recognise it is my very personal opinion).