Hi guys,
I know there were many similar threads in the past, but thought it might be good to open a more up-to-date topic where current or recent LL.M.s from major U.S. law schools (primarily from HLS, YLS, SLS, but not limited to) could inform prospective students / applicants of the chances of landing a job, either temporary or permanent, in major legal markets (NYC, London, Brussels, Singapore, Washington, Paris, etc.)
Where did you/your peers land a job, or where did you seek employment but were unsuccessful, what type of job (which specialization; M&A, arbitration...), what market?
It would be great if you could elaborate what you think helped you land a job or what you perceive as a main impediment to securing a position after LL.M.
As there are many fresh out of law school people here, are there any chances for employment of people without extensive post-graduation work experience (or no experience at all)? How about people from countries that are not that interesting to big law firms (i.e. countries other than Brasil and other emerging markets, non-common law countries etc.)
Would you find it justifiable to get indebted and to what extent (percentage of total annual budget? 20%, 50% with the rest of costs covered with scholarships/grants?) if you deem career prospects slim or even non-existent?
Hope this thread will be of interested to many peers here and very much look forward hearing from those schools' students. Of course, others are also more than welcome to contribute to the thread with their constructive comments.
Many thanks!

Hey, I can just give you some insight into HLS. First thing after you are accepted they let you know that there is no guarantee for a job in the US after graduation. So well, no there is no guarantee... But as rule of thumb:

1. if you are a proactive and outgoing personality and if you go about it smart and put a lot of effort in it you have a decent chance at a big law job and you could very likely secure a job outside bitg law in a big corporation or an NGO etc.

2. waiting for the ny job fair is russian ruoulette. Some will get lucky but for those who dont get a job there it will be very hard to get one till the end of the year.

Here some advice that I found helped many of my peers:
- Join a few student organisations in the field of your interest (arbitration, tax, business law, energy law, litigation ...) and really use your participation to get exposure to law firms be it by organising events of just joining those events and get some time with partners.
- Go to EVERY social event where law firms are present even those that are aimed at 1Ls. Usually noone will care if it is an informal event and you can meet partners in a very informal environment.
- Choose your courses based on the professors: if a prof. has a lot of practical experience and maybe even was or is a partner in a law firm it is really just one call for him to get you a job interview or even directly the job. Build good relationships with a few professors, that could help a lot.
- Focus on areas of law that are in high demand or traditionally focused on international topics. Especially tax law, M&A and to a certain extent arbitration were quite good choices during my time.
- Go to every conference at the law school that has the slightest to do with your area of interest or where people are present from organizations where you would like to work. Participate in the discussion, get business cars of people and write them an email within 48h.
- Talk to other LLMs, more eyes see more, maybe they run across a job offer in M&A but they want to do litigation so they can forward you the information on that job.
- Use all resoruces of the career office, be a bit anoying if necesseary, ask a lot of questions, talk to everyone there BUT DONT RELLY ON THEM IN THE SLIGHTEST
- Activate all your connections. If you know someone from big law in your home country ask them to help you get in touch with someone from big law in your target country.
- Sometimes it could even help to just send personalized emails out to a few partners that do work which is interesting for you but this can be also quite anoying for them so rather combine this with some activities of your student org as explained above.
If you follow all of this and take it as your primary job during the LLM and not something to do on the side then you have a more then decent shot if you come from HLS. Same applies for Columbia from what I have heard.

I hope it helped a bit. Good luck with everything, and also always calculate with the worst case scenarion when taking student loan debt on in the US. You will not get rid of it ever.

llmhls, Great post, thanks for sharing your insights!