The LL.M. program is designed to be completed in one academic year of full-time study. Students enter in the fall semester, which begins in late August and ends in late December, and finish in the spring semester, which begins mid-January and ends in late May. There are no spring admissions. Attendance during the summer session is permitted but not required.
Students enrolled in the LL.M. program must complete a minimum of 24 credit hours to obtain the LL.M. degree, and must also complete a substantial paper involving independent research and legal analysis.
Students who have a civil law degree are required to take “Fundamentals of American Law”, a course developed specifically for LL.M. students. The Director of International Programs may waive this requirement for students who have obtained a comparable introduction elsewhere.
In addition, students in the U.S. Law for Foreign Lawyers program must enroll in one course from the first year of the J.D. curriculum, which includes Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property, and Torts.
Students in the Latin American and International Law program are not required to take a first-year course. However, at least 12 of the required 24 credit hours in this program must have either a Latin American, comparative, or an international focus. Because of the importance of a foreign language to the practice of law in the Americas, students completing this program will be required to demonstrate a basic proficiency in Spanish or Portuguese before graduation. In special circumstances, proficiency in another language may satisfy the language requirement.