Hi all. I know most of us are worrying about(and planning for)LLMs this year. If I may just veer off a little. I am interested in doing an SJD or a PhD in any of the above schools, in the area of international law. I would also be interested in a reputable school that offered a 2 year option! Time is a factor, as is cost.

I slotted in Cambridge since it has a fine tradition in the area, and also my partner under UK law would be able to work while i study (every little helps) and we would be able to access (almost)free healthcare under the NHS. The downside is the rather dogmatic (I find) English approach to law study, and the fact (I imagine) that there would be no means of doing it in less than 3 years.

Any thoughts?

thanks in advance!

What an enviable choice! I guess you know already but to do a SJD at Harvard or Yale you must do their LLM first. Harvard will let people in from other institutions but you have to be exceptional. NYU is great because they fund their SJD candidates apparently but I am not sure how good the supervision is there. It is hit or miss. Benedict Kingsbury is meant to be fantastic but some of the others not so much.
I did my LLM in the US and decided to transfer to the UK for my doctorate because I don't think the US doctorates in law are as well respected as the UK ones. There is very little supervision as you will be lower down the pecking order than a JD (in fact, my friend at NYU encounter a professor there who corrected her when she said she was a JSD student. He said "You mean JD." He hadn't even heard of the degree offered by his own institution).
I agree that the UK schools can be dogmatic in their approach to law but my understanding is that Cambridge is very open-minded (at least compared to Oxford where I am going - hah hah) and embraces Continental Legal Theory and so on. In any event, you will be largely researching on your own so you don't have to be dogmatic if you don't want to be. One thing I know for sure - the UK academics take supervision of the law doctoral students MUCH more seriously than the US professors who, in my experience, are much more interested in their own careers and get away with it because supervision of doctorate students is not engrained in the US law faculties. I base this opinion of the comparative email contact (or lack of in the case of the US) with professors on both sides of the Atlantic, and comparing the experiences of my friends at Harvard, NYU, CLS v Cambridge and Oxford.
Sorry for the rambling reply. I hope that helps!

As for the two year option, I think it largely depends on how fast you write your thesis. Some schools have residency requirements but I don't know of anywhere that is longer than two years.

Thanks alot FG. And good luck at Ox!