Hi everybody - I was wondering if any of you had any advice for me as I consider whether or not to do an LLM program in Europe during the 2006-07 academic year. I am an American law student who will be graduating this May and am seriously considering doing an LLM in Europe, focusing on commercial law in an international and/or European context. My hope would be to find employment in Europe after finishing the LLM, but I really don't know how realistic that would be considering that I am not an EU citizen and will be primarily US educated. On the plus side, however, I have a strong academic background (I will be graduating from a top ten US law school with good grades) and I'm guessing that there is something of a market in Europe for US attorneys who know about both US and EU commercial law.

Any advice you all could give me about whether my plan is feasible would be appreciated. THANKS!

Scott

Scott,
To save you possible anguish, I offer this friendly and polite advice. First get some experience in the US and make your degree worth something. The study and the practice of law are much different, and at times mutually exclusive. It doesn't matter where you went to school. JDs or newly licensed attorneys with little experience usually have a rough go of it Europe, even with an LLM from a European institution. If a firm hires you in Europe, they'll hire you because of your American education AND training; there are more than enough EU attorneys to advise on EU commerical law.) I presently work with a European firm that has a JD professional support attorney (i.e., English language document translator), and he is miserable. He can't represent clients in Europe, and he can't really do the US work despite a New York bar and being a law review editor (i.e., that's why they hired my firm in the US). In short, he's stuck and looking to go into consulting by default.

Just my two cents. Good luck.