Hey prospective students and those who were accepted.

Im a 25 old lawyer in one of the most prestigious law firms in Brazil (Siqueira Castro). I graduated in one of the best Law Schools in the Country (Milton Campos / Belo Horizonte) and Im coursing a 1 and ½ year program of Law and Economics in Fundação Getúlio Vargas, also known as FGV.

Regarding to the variety of programs around US and UK, I have a lot a doubts, such as:

1- Which are the best schools for Corporate or Trade?
2- Should I choose a specialized program or should I option for General Studies?
3- US or UK?

Well, since the best strategy (at least, I guess. Correct me if I am wrong) is to apply to the best schools, Im planning to apply at: NYU, COLUMBIA, UPENN and CHICAGO. What do you think?

Any other? Like Berkeley, Northwestern?

I read a lot of post and comments in the LLM-GUIDE site and to be honest, they just made me more undecided about my decision.

I really would like opinions on this matter.

Best regards,

Guilherme Azevedo

Hello,

You can't really go wrong with any of the options that you are planning on applying to. Good luck

i really wonder why you put corporate and trade together as if they are similar? trade lawyers don´t deal w corporate matters and vice a versa at least in N America. I would be interested to learn if this is different in Brazil. Thanks!

Dear friend,

Me intention was not to put them as a similar course.

What I meant, was to ask which schools for Corporate and for Trade were the best.

Just that.

Even though, If you analyze the subjects to each specific program, you will realize that there are some subjects that in both of them.

fair enough.

here are my thoughts about yr original question (its only fair) although they are far from conclussive.
for transactinal work there is a certain edge for being in new york because you are exposed to the wall street culture however indirectly; similarily, for trade it makes sense to be in DC. In this regard, you can see that Georgetown´s specializations within the LLM include both trade (intl eco law) and financial regulation. that being said, i have also noticed that NYU has some sort of institutional framework for focusing on trade, and Penn is strong in finance because there is the opportunity to take classes at Wharton.

hope it helps.

I would recommed Penn, it is an amazing school, very close to NYC for the purposes of networking but with a quality of life and prices far much better. There are many interesting subjects in Corporate Law, professors are incredible and you have Wharton a few blocks from the Law School.
Best,

Both: 1. Harvard, 2. Columbia
Corporate: 1. Stanford, 3. UChicago, 4. UPenn+Wharton, 5. Northwestern+Kellog
Trade/international trade: 3. NYU, 4. Georgetown

Specialized or general LL.M? Doesn't matter. Whichever has the best professors/reputation. For example, a general LL.M from Columbia or Harvard (provided you pick mostly corporate law related courses) is better than any other specialized corporate LL.M (with the exception of Stanford's corporate governance LL.M).

US or UK? I can't answer that question sorry.

Like I said so in the PM :)

Guilherme,

I sent you a PM.