Hi all

Its quite puzzling how contradictory opinions on the credibility of a law school could be.At one end the fact that Sing law firms r awesome pay masters and on the other that Sing Law school has a brand presence only in Asia and that its tough to get thru.

Clarifications on this would be really helpful.

I agree. Talking to other students (with no professional legal experience) about programs they haven't yet attended is really rediculous. Especially when students seem to be obsessed with "rankings."

I highly recommend contacting actual lawyers and scholars and asking their opinions. I have received many responses from my attempts. With most big law firms and law schools having detailed websites, it's easier to contact those experts than it is to dig through endless (and worthless) blogs such as this.

Just curious why you were encouraged to withdraw from the LLM program at NUS. Have you since taken up another program that is better? If so, where? I'm a US attorney moving to SIngapore and interested in the LLM chinese law program.

Nomad,

You can see a better explanation at http://www.llm-guide.com/board/229/2 . I didn't mean to imply that I attended the program--I "got in," but didn't "go." Also, my feedback is limited to the Chinese Law LLM. I was encouraged to withdraw my application to that program by Don Clarke, Dowdle, some other scholars, and many practitioners. They told me that it would not give me skills relevant to my goals. But your goals may be different, given that you are already going to Singapore.

I'm still a 2L. I was considering taking a year off to do a concurrent LLM (some programs allow this), but decided instead (based on advice) that taking a language program would be more useful. I'm studying Chinese at IUP (Tsinghua) next year.

I'm afraid I have no expertise to say more than what I've already said, but please feel free to email me at spetrini@u.washington.edu if I wasn't clear.

to all:
It is a kind of funny phenomena that we chinese law students are eager for going abroad and study while you law students overseas come into China without much hesitation. While we chinese law students has a lot of options to be the international lawyers(eg. CPE+PCL+Training in England, HK or LLM/JD +Bar in the states) , you law students have nothing but LLM provided by a few law schools in Asia.

My suggesttion is that u may choose LLM in Chinese law program from NUS or somewhere else if u already have both W/E(lawyer license) and interest. Coz u can exactly know what you really want to learn in these limited courses.
If not, earn some and get into it later.

What zoticogrillo mentioned is right. If you want to practise law in China, you should not only be familiar with the Chinese law, but also the good command of chinese. For we Chinese law students who want to be international lawyers, english or some other languages is not a problem, coz we have been learning foreign languages for more than 10 years since elementary school. The things barring us are the international experience and the foreign lawyer license. That is why some of us want to go outside. Later on, they may come back and practise law in their homeland.

I do not mean that the LLM in Chinese law is useless, I just want to tell you that it would not give all that you need, which you can learn from the work related to the Chinese cases. These programs can only give you some picture or main idear about the Chinses law. Trust me, I have studied the Chinese law for almost 4 years, and already have 4 articles published, still, I could not handle the real cases from the real life at leisure. I would have landed a job at some law firm if it does not prefer the one who has the so called international experience. (I still regret not performing more maturely and seriously at one international leading law firm's final interview.)

Anyway, if you r some one who already has the lawyer license and some related W/E, as well as the good command of chinese, or you have extra money and time, it is appropriate for you to "get into it"

Just some cents in my mind, pls remember u have the final say, just make your decision on your own. Mine is a refernce.

Interesting, Dexter. I have practiced internationally as well as domestically in US. My interest in the LLM program in Chinese law at NUS would be more from a western business prospective rather than a bridge to practicing in China. You are right about the language part...that would be a significant barrier for me. I would love to learn Chinese, but doubt that I will have the time to become fluent enough to practice in China. Thanks for your input.

To everyone who is keen on the Chinese Law LLM, here is my opinion, from someone who is a LLB student who has taken a significant number of courses that make up the Chinese Law LLM. These comments are given earnestly and do not aim in any way to defame anyone nor the university.

I have only had experience with 2 resident professors and 2 visiting professors. A huge number of the courses in the programme are taught by visiting profs from China so the quality of instruction may vary from year to year.

First up, with respect to the resident profs, I would say the quality of instruction can vary enormously, by which I really mean that there are is one really terrible teacher in the programme and one really good one, sorta like a good cop bad cop thing. By terrible I honestly mean worst ever quality of teaching ever, be it kindergarten, junior high, high school, whatever. Beyond belief even. Having said that, the other prof is awesome. There cannot be a bigger contrast.

Let me clarify what I mean by terrible. Terrible as in materials that are not up to date with developments in China. Also, the prof tends to not take a stand and while I respect that some profs like to stimulate independent thought, trust me, this is not this prof's motivation. We (the whole class of 40 thereabouts) suspect it is due to information deficiency. We suspect that said prof has been retained by the university due to said prof's links and networks with Chinese officials and legal whos who. I can say that said prof teaches a significant number of the courses in the programme.

Also, one problem with studying in NUS is that your opportunities to improve your mandarin are limited, as compared to studying in HKU or the other LLM offering Uni. Reason? Singaporeans speak lousy mandarin, myself included I'm ashamed to say.

One more thing against the LLM programme here is that grade review is non existent. What I mean is that suppose you really think you ought to have been given a higher grade and you wish to see the prof to review your grade and explain it, tough luck buddy. Won't happen.

I may sound disgruntled and perhaps I am a little but I am genuinely disappointed that a university like NUS can rank so highly on some ranking guides and yet have a product that leaves so much to be desired. I have tried to be fair in believing that the university is still finding its feet and establishing itself but perhaps its better to apply elsewhere. The inside scoop is that the university is busy whoring itself to secure contacts and links with overseas unis to enhance its image. The problem? It tries to take in loads of overseas students without considering its space constraints as well as the interests of local students like myself. So the sick thing is you may not even get the programme you want even if you intend to major in it. I'm not sure about whether masters students get priority in bidding for courses (we have a bidding system here) and I suspect they do. Therefore, I am warning you all to take my comments with a pinch of salt and contact those who have done the LLM already because I am a disgruntled local student, like all local nus law fac students. Here's a clue, I know of students from McGill, Duke and Columbia who were here in the LLM programme. Hope this helps.

Jazzmatazzie, since you are currently a student at NUS, maybe you can answer these questions: Once you are accepted into a particular LLM program, like Chinese Law, is it possible to switch to another LLM program, like International Law, at a later time? Do you know if/when acceptance letters have gone out for the upcoming year? Thanks for your help.

Hi Jazz...

What do you think abt LLM in non-chinese law programs at NUS? Is that equally bad or is it worth it?

Well its thanksfull to you all,
since i am searching LLM program on NUS as well and its just out of my mind to investigate up to that non tecnically matters.
However, not only search for the academic information provided by the univs but the commentary (especially from those who had studied there) shall become considerations before choosing uni. At least we can get the equal info from the seller (the Uni) and the buyer (student) side.

Fajar, Jakarta, Indonesia.

Hey all, I would advise you to direct questions such as "can i switch to another LLM later" and other such technical ones to the NUS law fac admin instead since these are beyond my knowledge and questions which the admin can better handle.

I can say that there are many LLM students from all over the world, France, Germany, Philippines, M'sia, PRC, Indonesia, M'sia, US, Peru, Chile, etc etc and I suppose the reason why they choose to do the LLM here at NUS is firstly the cost savings compared to US/UK unis and secondly the fact that S'pore is sort of the financial centre of South East Asia.

As for the quality of the non-Chinese Law LLM I cannot safely say because I am only a LLB student. However, having taken some of the corporate law modules, I can tell you in a nutshell what to expect. Firstly, if you like a teaching environment where students take part in discussions actively, you won't find it here. Singaporean students, myself included tend to clamp up in class, even if we know the answers. I suspect this is due to our cultural habit of not wanting to "lose face" or "show off". So, some of the lessons tend to be about the professor simply talking the whole time and ppl simply copying down notes.

Secondly, I have the impression that the university is in a major state of flux as we have taken in foreign students on such a large scale only in the past 2 years or so. There isn't very much interaction between the local students and the foreign ones. That being said, foreign students tend to have a lot of fun here among themselves and go clubbing pretty often.

I apologise if what I have painted of NUS so far is pretty negative but hey, at least its from someone on the inside, however biased I am. Having said all these, the plus side is we now have many rather celebrated visiting professors from overseas unis, such as Dworkin, Adrian Briggs and Rob Merkin etc. Also, most of the Chinese LLM courses are taught by visiting Chinese Profs but like i said before, nobody knows how good they are.

As for living in singapore itself, its safe and clean like everyone knows. There's lotsa nightspots and late night supper joints too. However, in terms of aesthetics its not the prettiest cities around and theres very little flora and fauna to be enjoyed, save for some parks here and there. And the people are as you would find in most big cities, generally unfriendly but fine if you actually go approach them yourself.
There are tons of Indian and Chinese students so those who are from these countries should not find it hard to locate those who are studying here or are have studied here.

I don't quite know what more there is to share with you people. Ok, as for how much law firms here pay, we LLBs get between 3 - 4.5K/mth starting pay but for foreign students who aren't qualified to practise here, I have no idea. Honestly, I still don't really understand why anybody would want to come and practise law here, instead of say HK, US, UK. Local students like me can't wait to get out due to the lousy pay, terrible working hours and little opportunity to do international work. Again, I have to state that I am a disgruntled local student so take my opinions with a huge dollop of salt please.

One more thing. As for it being rather hard to get accepted by NUS, I'm honestly not sure why this is so. For us local LLBs, it might be due to the space constraints as the faculty can at most accept 250 local students and already, there is a crisis on their hands in that many of us cannot get the modules we want to study for due to the massive influx of foreign students. I hav said this many times, the school just isn't expanding as fast as demand is growing and we local students are curious as to why. It might be due to the The Times Rankings which put NUS at 18th in the world or due to more and more unis having tie ups with NUS.

Still, it really isn't all that hard to get into this school for LLMs. I think you would need at least a 2nd upper for your basic deg or at least some working experience if you only have a 2nd lower. I do not mean to disparage anyone but if you come here, you don't get the sense that you are studying with some of the most brilliant minds around, compared to if you studied in say, Harvard, Oxford, Columbia etc. I think this has to do with demographics in that our population is only 4.2 million and most of the students are local, as compared to truly int'l ones like those in the US,UK etc. Also, our education system is one which emphasises rote learning and even if we are told that this does not apply to university life, my own experience has showed me that rote learning applies at NUS law fac as well.

It is unfortunate that there is this information asymmetry in that you guys can't get more info from other nus law students but i urge you to contact your university alumni to consult them. They should have be able to give you more info than I can. As for Sing law firms being awesome pay masters, I'm not quite sure why this view was shared. I will just say that the law industry here is not unlike those overseas in that its very much a business today, less so a profession. Firms squeeze their lawyers dry to cover overheads and fatten the partners. On paper, the salaries you find here may sound appealing to you but if you were to find out how many hours you have to work or how many billable hours you need to hit, think again.

Hi jazzie,

You have put it all in 2 posts. I tend to agree with you actually. It is not easy to practice law in Singapore.... not that it is easy elsewhere... but it is the system we have. I don't know what is wrong, maybe it's a case of squeezing too many people in one island huh? :)
Well, many lawyers end up joing HR firms, having their own botiques... some even end up being stage performers... Oh yes, NUS law fac had a beauty queen if I do remember...

Well, that said, the bottom line in any industry is "what do you want to do with your life?" An LLM is just a degree afterall. I have just completed my Masters in Finance, and ended up not practicing it.... sigh....