I come from Europe. I have completed postgradute research studies in Oxford/ MSt (I have studied for my LLM in UCL and for my undergraduate degree in Athens).

As I was interested in the general principles of US business Law (I am also a practicioner), I have also attended the Boston Executive LLM in International Business Law (it is a distance learning degree with 3 two-week Boston residencies). I will have finished the Executive LLM until this summer.

What I would like to ask you is the following:

I am aware of the fact that all top US Law Schools do not accept persons who have already completed a LLM degree in US.
Now, I intend to apply for Yale LLM and Stanford SPILS for academic year 2012-2013. My purpose is to focus on academia and leave practice.
Will the fact that I have studied for an Executive LLM (with only 6 weeks of total residence!) in US disqualify me from being accepted in the two programmes mentioned above?

According to my opinion that is absurd. Boston Executive is a degree intended to give practicioners a concentrated knowledge on a specialised aspect of business law. Yale LLM and SPILS are two degrees addressed to potential academics. The curriculum of the two programmes has nothing to do with that of Boston Executive. Their structure is totally different. Their purpose is also different. Boston Executive is a distance learning programme for executives, while eg SPILS is mostly a legal research methods course.

I can understand that it is a waste of student places to grant a graduate of Harvard LLM an admission to Stanford LLM.
However, I cannot understand what is the purpose of disqualifying a research student on the grounds of an executive degree!

Anyway, does an executive LLM disqualify somebody from admission to such Legal Research Degrees?

Thank you in advance.

Hy md524!

Congrats to your numerous endeavours in the past.

As to myself, I am a NORMAL LLM-Admit and chose to attend Columbia LS in 2011/2012 (instead of Stanford) for several - academic and private - reasons. I was research assistant at my home University in Europe, too, and obtained a Doctorate degree. Though I work as lawyer in a firm, I still maintain a bond to the academic surrounding and actively publish in law reviews. From an academic point of view, I can understand your constant striving to learn more and more, you know... to intellectually evolve ;-).

As far as I remember the published LLM-requirements in the US, I can't remember any University mentioning that an already absolved US-LLM was a problem. However, you might have to specify the reason of pursuing another LLM in your application. I now from partners in our (very large) law firm who pursued two LLMs (one general at NYU/Harvard, and then another one, specialised in Competition). Now they call themselves LLM, LLM ;-). I also know Professors who hold two LLM-Degrees, but again in two different fields - as a sort of substantive "deepening" (the professor I know holds a general LLM from UCLA and another specialised LLM from Stanford, the other professor I know holds a general LLM from Columbia and another, more international trade law oriented LLM from Europe). As you can see, I think your idea of a second LLM is not totally absurd, but in my personal opinion, you should also objectively question the expected additional value of another LLM for your academic career (besides: its always an expensive money issue again...). If it seems worth it, give it a try! I would even call the admission office and ask them, if they ever had such candidates...just to be sure.

After all, if the LLM wouldn't work out, why not consider to join a great university as visiting researcher/scholar and produce an interesting science project/habilitation/thesis closely together with a professor. You might also participate in classes as an "auditing student" and benefit from the academic teaching skills you might want to observe....

All the Best!

Someone on this board told me that SLS obviously has no problem with two LL.M.s bec. he graduated his first one from NYU about 10 years ago but still got admitted to the renowned SPILS program so I think it would better for you to ask the SLS admissions committee, while HLS is rarely able to accept the 2nd LL.M. but it is still --POSSIBLE--(like Chicago) this information came directly from HLS AdCom.. However, I can graphically remember that YLS has never received the persons who already hold the LL.M. from US institution to its program as a general rule(this mentioned fact came from YLS admissions instruction in 2007-2008) All the best to you!