Interesting discussion topic. I graduated this summer from Catolica's LLM programme in European law so I might be able to provide some first hand information.

The faculty is impressive (where else can you be taught by one Advocate General, one former Commissioner and one former president of the Court of First Instance in the same programme?) and the quality of teaching is, perhaps needless to say, first class. Add to this small class sizes of 20 students (less on the intensive seminars) and an administrative staff which will do everything they can to make you feel welcome. Someone commented on the low number of teaching hours per professor. Even on the larger universities it is very common that courses are co-teached by two or more professors and I doubt that each professor will spend many more hours than 12 per course (please correct me if I am wrong). Also, there is a concurring LLM on International Business Law and the Director is very flexible of letting students pick and choose courses from both programmes. Please especially not the courses on competition law on the Business LLM. Overall the structure of the LLM is very similair to College of Europe (not so surprising perhaps since both the programme directors have a long experience of teaching at the College).

Finally, don't forget that Lisbon is a lovely city to live in (the same applies to Portugal in general). More sun, cheaper and more charming than London. Don't forget that your LLM year might be the only possibility you ever get to live abroad!

Its worth looking for faculty who are qualified and/or have degrees from both the US and European Union - antitrust is a field in which it really pays off to have that comparative law approach. It may also help to have specializations such as antitrust and intellectual property (two sides of state-regulated monopoly), or utilities or telecoms/information technology (think Microsoft, Google, Intel, essential facilities, many other recent cases). A good example of a text taking this approach is Anderman, 'The Interface between Intellectual Property an Competition Policy', Cambridge University Press (2006), Anderman, EC Competition Law and Intellectual Property Rights: The Regulation of Innovation' (Oxford, O.U.P., 2000). Prof. Anderman's legacy continues at Essex, in both PALLAS, EU and Internet LLM degrees: http://www.essex.ac.uk/law/pgstudy/taughtdegrees/index.shtm

And minimum contact hours for a 15-credit course are 18 hours. I imagine reference to fewer hours are for part-semesters? I hope so - 12 hours isn't much.

yes,
an example: for a course in EU law, worth 10 credits there are 4 professors teaching (each with an incredible CV) a total of 44 hours. So each professor teaches an average of 11 hours, with a different perspectives on EU law. The course has the length of half a semester.