Hey all,

I hold offers from Edinburgh for General LLM (focused on commercial and investment law) and Queen Mary (Arbitration). I'm torn between choosing which one (university/program) is best and provide more career prospects in Law firms in Europe and worlwide. Does anyone have a useful insight in this regard?

Thanks.

Congratulations on your offers! I think you might have a difficult time choosing between them, but it's great to have such a luxury.

Queen Mary has some specialized areas in which it is a leader in the U.K, and you might try to browse some of the posts about their program in the discussion forum to get a sense of which areas those are. Of course, Edinburgh is a prestigious university in a great city. Obviously, the programs are also different, and what you really want to focus on may make a difference. (Although, can you not study whatever you like, regardless of the concentration stated in your offer letter?) My assumption is that Edinburgh is considered more prestigious than Queen Mary, but that's a general statement, and with all the factors that go into getting a job, I think the choice between these two has to be well down the list in terms of its importance. Surely, it's less important than your final result on the LL.M.

Thanks a lot P Martini.

From the dicussions going on on this Board, it appears that arbitration is the strong point of Queen Mary. I agree with you about the final grades, however is arbitration becoming a trend in Europe that students holding such an LLM have greater chances of being recruited, or the classical courses in corporate and commercial law provide more safety in ensuring a job in the market?

Perhaps previous LLM students can provide insights thereon.
Thanks

My guess would be that dispute resolution courses, including arbitration, would make you more marketable than courses in more transactional practice areas. That's not to say that commercial law courses are not valuable. There is, obviously, such a thing as commercial litigation. In general, however, transactional has been dead (at least on this side of the Atlantic) for a couple of years.

Hi. Congratulations, indeed, on your two potential places. Arbitration is becoming increasingly important globally but please note, it is not a career you can usually immediately walk into without having practical experience in a field of law. Most arbitrators have lots of previous experience in a particular field before they are hired as an arbitrator. When I took Int'l Commercial Arbitration at Edinburgh many years ago the professor had practiced as an advocate for many, many years and was a former judge on the high court which he deemed the reasons he was hired in most cases as an arbitrator. The current arbitration lecturer at Edi for the LLM is also a commercial law expert and spent many years practicing in the field. She has close ties to the practicing community so it might be to your benefit to contact her and ask her about the job prospects immediately following...here is her profile. http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/staff/lauramacgregor_52.aspx
good luck.