Hello everybody in this forum, Guten Tag!

As a lawyer practicing in Warsaw who wants to focus on German-Polish business I would like to know which Magister Legum program in Berlin you would recommend? Would you prefer Free University Berlin over Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin? Which university has generally a better reputation?

Danke!

H.

Hello Huasr,

In my view both, Freie Universität and Humboldt Universität have a very good reputation in general and for their law programs in particular. There are well-known professors at both faculties, e.g. Professor Kunig and Professor Pestalozza at the Freie University (which is strong in Public Law), and Professor Schlink at Humboldt University. If you want to do Tax Law you should go to the Freie Universität where Professor Heintzen is teaching Finance Law and Tax.

As far as I know, both universities like most German universities do not offer special classes for the LL.M. program. The undergraduate curriculum is generally on a high level, but you should know that many German Professors have no idea of how to present a subject in an interesting way. Especially the big lectures in the basic law subjects Private Law, Public Law, and Criminal Law can be very anonymous and boring. This is why I would try to get as much information as you can about the different courses offered in the LL.M. year, especially the size of the classes and the Professors who teach it. You can ask the Fachschaft, the Studienberatung or fellow students about this. I would try to specialize and take small classes.

Viel Erfolg!

Erkan

By the way, there is a very useful website published by law students which has descriptions and comments about all law lectures and seminars offered at the Free University:

http://www.fu-berlin.de/defo/fb/kommentar.html (in German)