i'm just wondering if any americans who attended LSE, UCL or KCL for their LLM might be willing to share what their experienc was like. was it fun or stressful? was it academically rigorous, a glorified study abroad, or something in between?

really, i'm just trying to get a feel for what the year is like in one of these programs. i'm doing one either way (i would really like the credential), but would ike to know what to expect from the programs. thanks!

In order to give a good comparative answer Nate, we would need to know to which law school you went in the United States. Was it a pressure cooker like Chicago or Columbia? A little more unstructured like Yale or Georgetown? If you compare LSE or KCL to say, Chicago, clearly it is less academically rigorous.

To answer your questions:

1. Fun or stressful? - mainly fun, but there is a lot more reading to do here since classes only meet once per week. So if you let it pile up towards the end, it becomes very stressful very quickly - that is what many of my classmates are experiencing right now.

2. Academically rigorous, glorified study abroad, or something in between? It is not anywhere near a glorified study abroad. Beyond that, whether it is academically rigorous or something in between really depends on the classes you take. For example, an LLM selection heavy in banking and finance is academically rigorous.

good info, dl, thanks for your response. it's good to know what i'm getting myself in to.

for what it's worth, my school is probably most comparable to georgetown.

Hi Nate:

From what I know of American and British law schools, I would make the following comparisons:

Oxford is like Yale
Cambridge is like Harvard
King's is like Georgetown

Oxbridge is clearly in a league of their own. In terms of legal education, Oxbridge has the best worldwide reputation and if you get into either of these programs, I would highly recommend you go. However, King's, UCL, & LSE have something that Oxbridge does not - easy access to the London legal community. Unlike the United States, where major legal activity is centered in New York, DC, Chicago, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles, the vast majority of legal activity in the United Kingdom occurs in London. This is why I state that King's is a lot like Georgetown. Just like Georgetown has great access to the Supreme Court and Congress, King's has easy access to both the Courts (just down the road) and Parliament (just down the river). I got to sit in on a House of Commons Committee hearing for one of my LLM classes.

What to expect: You select four classes; or three classes and a dissertation. I recommend taking four classes, as many of my classmates tell me they regret doing a dissertation. Each class meets once per week, and some have an extra tutorial. Professors give reading lists. You select the items to read, there is no expectation that you read everything. There is no Socratic method; the Professors mainly lecture. After about a month or so, students get a "feel" for what items on the reading list are important to read and what items are just "nice to know". Some classes have a 5000 word essay, worth 25% of the grade, while some classes have a 100% final exam. The exams are handwritten (i.e. as of now, no soft-test, no laptops). The major difference here is that it is much easier to get away from law school once in a while. In the US, they open a firehouse and start spraying from the 1L year and don't turn it off until the day after 3L (only to then have to turn around and cram for Bar-bri), whereas here, the amount of "law school in your blood" really depends on you. I have taken some weekends to check out other cities in Europe and have not fallen behind at all in my studies.

thanks, dl. this is very helpful information.

just to clarify one of your points, why is it that your friends regret doing a dissertation? i'm very interested in the academic side of law, so i figured that a dissertation would be helpful.