Hi,
I'm a French law school graduate with a postgraduate degree in Banking and Finance Law at Paris 1 - Pantheon-Sorbonne.

After graduating, I then moved to London and worked as a paralegal in the dispute resolution department of a magic circle firm in London for three years and a half.

I'm now looking to qualify as a lawyer and I'm considering doing an LLM in the USA and pass the NY Bar.

I would be grateful for any thoughts about the LLM Program I could/ should target in light of my background and any feedback from people with similar experience.

Many thanks in advance,

Benoit

Hi Benoit!
Chicago, Berkeley, NYU should be pretty adapted to Finance and Banking... Depending on your credentials it seems to me that those schools would be willing to admit you! Theyre top law schools and very competitive but coming from Sorbonne is already a big advantage as well as having professional experience. However, the deadlines are over for next years enrollment.

Many thanks for responding to my post. Noted re the universities. Do you know how the universities would value the professional experience? Is it something they are really looking into or are they mainly looking into credentials? Also, by any chance, do you know whether I would have to do the TOEFL in light of my almost 4 years working in the UK?

In term of deadlines, I understand that the next enrollment will be in or around November/December - is it to start in 2015 or 2016?

Many thanks again for your help.

Benoit

Hi Benoit.
Im far from bring an expert but I assume that:
- They highly value professional experience. Most of LLM students are already qualified lawyers, bankers, whatever...
- Credentials are important but it really depends on your overall personality and experience. They tend to put less weight on grades if they do know that you work alongside your studies, you practice top level competitions, volunteering work... I personally believe that UK universities (Oxford and Cambridge) are more into having real nerdish people... This is the case for Harvard and Yale but here again, I dont know exactly... Majority of previous students from those universities is like that but this is only objective and personal assessment. I believe it would be much more worthwhile for universities to have open minded, confident and outgoing personalities inside a classroom but anyway...
- Concerning the TOEFL its a heavy burden I know... They generally grant waivers for people who have studied in English speaking countries for at least one year. If you havent, Im afraid they wont let you waive the TOEFL requirement. But you should send email to Us so that they can tell you more about that.
- Enrollment is actually mid August - mid September in general. some Us have two starting semesters one in September and one in January. Deadlines are in general mid December.
Be aware that you will have to provide academic letters of recommendation, and that all this is heavily bureaucratic so you may consider starting rather early (september from my viewpoint).

Many thanks again for all these details, that's really helpful. I'll try to get more information re the TOEFL and I will start quite early my applications as I know it is heavily bureaucratic.
Thanks again,
Benoit