What the title says, really. Do you want to continue your academic studies with a PhD or use the LLM to make your CV more attractive to employers and go into the workplace?

I just thought I'd ask this question as most posts on this board seem to be about procedural matters like applications - there doesn't seem to be much discussion of WHY we are doing the LLM.

At the moment, I'm quite taken by the idea of staying in academia forever, becoming a professor and so on, but I'm sure it's not as easy as it sounds!

there are lots of reasons to do one. For some people with outstanding credentials, the LLM is a great chance to start working on papers for publication and further demonstrate commitment to one area.

Personally, I have the statistics to get the job I want, but I haven't demonstrated an interest in the subject beyond taking a few law school classes (tax). I also want to show that although I didn't go to a top school, I can get great grades even against stiffer competition. So it's a self-marketing thing.

Tons of foreign lawyers get LLMs to either qualify themselves to sit for the bar in the United States or to become acquainted with US laws so they can be better international practitioners in their home countries.

I don't think anyone continues on to get a PhD, unless they plan on being in school forever.

While this probably deserves its own board, I would say in response to the previous post that (outside the U.S.) a PhD is becoming an increasingly common pre-requisite to entering legal academia. That said, I do get the sense that very few people choose this route. Out of my LLM class of approximately 60 students at a top 25 school (globally), I'm the only one who elected to go on to a PhD.