Hi,
I am an international applicant who has been admitted to the 2009-10 LL.M Programs of Columbia Law School, NYU and Berkeley. I am considering pursuing the LL.M at Columbia with a focus on environmental law.

I am still quite uncertain about taking up the course this year given the current economic slow-down. However, my request for deferral was rejected by Columbia. Any advise recruitment prospects for early 2010? I understand that this is a million-dollar question but I am quite reluctant to quit my job now, raise a loan and study in a year where everything seems to be going downhill!

Also, can anyone give me any information on prospective employers on completion of an LL.M in environmental law? Do law firms recruit for this practice area in particular??

Thanks in advance for any advise!

If you find out employers, not only for Environmental Law, but for any LLM in general, please please please, let me know where they are.

First of all, congratulations on your admissions!!.

I am a corporate attorney practising in-house here in the US (yes, luckily I still have a job) and a candidate for LL.M admission at Berkeley (thought I'll go get an LL.M. whilst the markets are in "shambles" -- and i guess thousands of others here in the US had the same idea).

As to the job market here in the US, it is currently dismal, a quick google search will show you that almost all of the AmLaw Top 100 law firms have laid-off anywhere between 10 to 40% of their legal staff, with more lay-offs expected over the next few months.

As to your LL.M decision (or for that matter, any graduate or professional skills degree) you should make your cost-basis decision based not on the short-term prospects but on the long-term cost/benefit perspective. Eventually, things will get better. I think the caveat for overseases trained LL.M. holders in the U.S. is that (i) there are no jobs right now for U.S. trained attorneys let alone foreign ones, and (ii) when the market does come around and pick-up, the firms will first absorb the hoards (and hoards) of U.S trained unemployed lawyers. It is just the way it works. Hence, if you are to quit your job to attend an LL.M degree here in the US, thinking that you will then get a job here in the US, DON'T DO IT.

If however, upon the completion of the LL.M you can go back to your country an easily land a good job (following the failure to land a job here in the the US), then go for it! But if you are uncertain about your prospects of quickly landing a job back home (since, landing one here for the next few years is almost out of the question and assuming that your home country is also affected by the current global "recession") then don't waste your time and money on it.

The U.S. legal market only accomodates foreign-trained US LL.M. holders when the market is going through a bonanza, and certainly that is not the present or near-future reality.