Looking to work for a top law firm in NY or CT. I graduated from a 4th tier school in the top 15%. I was managing editor of the law review and am currently clerking for an intermidate state appellate court. I am getting job offers in CT (just passed CT bar), but I want to work for a top law firm in CT or NY or an investment bank. Will a tax or corporate LLM from NYU or any where else help. Thank you.

Hi Confused.

I'm a LLM student at NYU right now, but not in the Tax or Corporate programs. From my experience I'd say that a Corporate LLM is not going to help you -- you'd be much better off getting into a very highly ranked business school and getting your MBA. I can tell you that there were no firms that interviewed non-tax LLM students on campus this fall. My job search efforts have been self-initiated mailings.

If you still want to do a LLM, you may be able to get to a top or near top firm by doing a LLM at NYU in domestic tax. NYU has great contacts in New York and the entire Northeast for tax jobs. There are many special resume drops and job fairs just for tax LLM students. And the tax LLM is the most marketable to employers. Some employers even give you 1 year credit towards partnership for doing the tax LLM.

All of that being said, NYU themselves tells LLM students (and applicants) that doing a LLM at NYU will not make up for a mediocre performance in law school, or for going to a lower-ranked law school. No matter how many great contacts and resources and job postings NYU has, the fact of the matter is that you are an LLM student at NYU and NOT a NYU JD. NYU JDs seem to get jobs without even trying -- I mean last year's placement percentage was something like 99.5% of graduating NYU students secured either their first or second choice job.

I definitely know that is not the case with LLM students. Like I already mentioned, the Office of Career Services has many specialized programs and resources for LLM tax students, but not really any for LLM students in other specializations (unless you're a foreign student who does not have a JD, then there's a special international LLM job fair for jobs overseas in the Spring).

It's not quite NYU's fault that they don't have more resources for non-tax LLM students -- it is really dictated by the legal job market, i.e. law firms. They come to campus and specify they want to interview 2Ls, or 2Ls and 3Ls, etc. Barely any specify that they want to interview non-tax LLM students. We are kind of a strange category -- students with American JDs who are doing LLMs for whatever reasons. Technically we could apply for entry-level positions for after graduation, or even summer associate positions (for the summer after graduation). But law firms don't really know what to do with us. For the most part, we are too inexperienced to be "lateral" candidates, but since we've already completed our JD degrees (and many of us have been working for 1-2+ years, and have passed a bar before coming to NYU), we're not really "entry level" candidates either, as 3L students are.

So if you do decide to go, I'd definitely reccomend tax for you if you're interested in the subject matter and would like to pursue tax law or trusts & estates, etc. I think my LLM will help me get a job in my desired area of specialty, but thus far it hasn't resulted in interviews or job offers (and I graduated in the top 1/3 at my law school in the top 20 and I'm admitted in California). I hope that changes once we have grades next semester. But I know that I will have to do 99% of my job searching by myself.

All of that being said, I still feel that my decision to come to NYU was the right one. I am further specializing in the area of law I love, and NYU has some amazing resources in terms of professors, conferences, special events and speakers, etc. Good luck with your decision!

Thank you for the detailed response. I guess tax is the route to take if I deicde to apply. What if I graduate in the top of my LLM class. Does NYU rank their LLM students?

Hi again.

I don't know whether NYU ranks their tax LLM students but I highly doubt it. I know for sure that NYU does not rank LLM students in my program, nor do they give out any greek honors (cum laude, magna cum laude) at graduation for my program. I think that must apply to the other LLM programs as well.

Also, NYU does not allow you to put any GPAs on your resume for on-campus job programs (i.e. on-campus-interviewing, submitting your resume to a OCS-ran resume solicitation). You can do so for independent job applications.

Obviously grades still matter and you want to do well here. But it definitely is not the same as JD studies where there are percentage cut offs (top 10%, top 25%) or rankings of students.

ipforme

Reading your post, and upon leaning that you an NYU student, I am tempted to ask you one or two questions concerning NYU. The questions runs as follows-is NYU an ivy league university? how strong is NYU LLM programme generally? However I am particularly interested in the International Trade programme. how strong is the programme? and how difficult is it to be admitted to this programme. Thanks

Do you believe that I will have a chance at admission to NYU's LLM in Tax program, if my intention is not to work at another large law firm upon graduation? I want to use it for my business.

Bruno

NYU is clearly not an ivy league school and neither is The University of Penn State.

I don t know if your message is ironic......hope so. How can u say Penn and NYU are not ivy leauge Schools when they are in the top 10 Penn end top 5 nyu since so many years?

nor do they give out any greek honors (cum laude, magna cum laude) at graduation for my program.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_league

NYU, Chicago, Stanford....They are all not in the Ivy league. It's just a league guys.

Then it was my ignorance of the history of the Ivy league.......But it has nothing to do with legal academic excellence......if it does not include Stanford.....and other schools.

caro leonardo buona sera. sempre dubbioso su NYU? se puo' esserti di qualche consolazione, sto pensando e ripensando se sia davvero il caso di spendere 65.000 dollari per un master in diritti umani senza alcuna borsa di studio. sto seriamente valutando la possibilità di posticipare il master di un anno, magari riprovando anche ad Harvard e facendo domanda per la fulbright, ma il tutto e' legato ad un lavoro da trovare pressoché subito e che ancora non c'e'...tu che mi dici? buona serata

Then it was my ignorance of the history of the Ivy league.......But it has nothing to do with legal academic excellence......if it does not include Stanford.....and other schools.

For clarification purposes, the Ivy league is an athletic league, which has nothing to do with academics. There are 8 Ivy League schools: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania (which is a private school and is NOT the same as Penn State), and Yale University.

With respect to NYU, large firms tend to view the program very highly, so it is definitely worth pursuing if you can.

NYU is the top tax LLM program in the country and it is not even close. I graduated in 2010 from the program. The faculty is amazing. We shared an interview program with Georgetown, the #2 tax llm. They were complaining that NYU students got 75% of the interview slots.