Why an LL.M. Degree is Almost Always a Bad Idea for Attorneys_ In Most Instances an LL.M Will Never Get You a Better Job and Only More Debt.pptx

Why an LL.M. Degree is Almost
Always a Bad Idea for
Attorneys: In Most Instances
an LL.M Will Never Get You a
Better Job and Only More Debt
BY HARRISON BARNES

Introduction
When you look at websites and magazines that
cater to law students, you will find a virtual
feeding frenzy of law schools offering LL.M.
programs. It is like entering into an Arabian
Bazaar, where the sellers are all jacked up on
stimulants and you have a sticker on your back
that says “SUCKER!” The sellers of LL.M.
programs come at you from every possible
direction, making it seem like everyone needs an
LL.M. like the one they offer.

Introduction
This is all a money play by law schools to cater
to your dreams and ambitions. It is basically a
con. Because it is a con, the subject matter of
the LL.M. is whatever you are interested in.
There are LL.M. programs in:
● space law,
● intellectual property law,
● health law,
● international law,
● indigenous peoples law,

Introduction
● financial services law,
● logistics and transportation law,
● tax law,
● environmental law,
● energy law,
● arbitration law,
● homeland and national security law,
● education law, air and space law (not just space
law),
● insurance law,

Introduction
● corporate law,
● corporate compliance law,
● fashion law (yep, that’s right!),
● entertainment law,
● sports law,
● international sports law practice (let’s go
international),

Introduction
● biotechnology and genomics law,
● animal law,
● global food law,
● intercultural human rights law,
● cyber and telecommunications law, and
● criminal justice law—among others.

Introduction
I have seen every type of LL.M. degree out there.
With limited exceptions (tax law and a foreign
attorney with a job already lined up in the US),
getting an LL.M. degree is about the dumbest
thing anyone can do.

Introduction
As noted, there are two exceptions. First,
attorneys practicing tax law can be benefitted by
an LL.M. degree and large law firms often require
it. Tax law is so specialized that this extra study is
considered quite meaningful. Second, foreign
attorneys who are already working for American
law firms and want to come to the United States
– or have spouses in the United States – are often
well served by getting LL.M.s.

Introduction
Note that this second exception does not apply to
cases where foreign lawyers do not already have
jobs lined up or where they have the option to not
relocate to the US. In those cases, foreign lawyers
will have difficulty securing jobs in the United States,
notwithstanding their LL.M. degrees or caliber of
schools where they earned them. Why would law
firms hire them? They are not from the U.S., they
need to be sponsored, and they generally will not
have any special skills the law firm needs. In almost
every instance, the law firm will prefer to hire
American attorneys.

Introduction
With the two exceptions described above,
getting an LL.M. is often counterproductive. It
actually shows potential employers that you have
no business practicing law with them and
highlights many “negatives” about you –

Introduction
● you are a sucker,
● you want to look like a foreigner,
● you did not go to a good law school,
● you are more intellectual than practical, and
● you would rather sit in a classroom than
practice law.

Introduction
An LL.M. degree is one of the most insane
degrees you can get and it generally never works
out the way you hope it will. Despite your best
intentions, getting an LL.M. degree is likely to
send your career (and bank account) backward
and not forward. You will spend money for
something that is largely worthless. In most
instances you would be better served not having
an LL.M. at all.

Introduction
I have had it with so many people from around the
world—and other Americans—getting ripped off
by LL.M. programs. Our company gets calls each
day from desperate LL.M.s who are not
employable due to these worthless degrees. At
the same time, I see all the law school
propaganda about their LL.M. programs.

Introduction
I am on the front lines watching people throw
away their careers with these degrees, watching
the failures stack up one after another. With very
few exceptions, most foreign lawyers who get
LL.M. degrees do not end up getting positions in
the U.S. and are basically just giving large checks
to law schools.

Introduction
Students contemplating these programs have no
idea how badly they are being misinformed and
scammed by schools eager to make money, pay
high salaries to professors, and stay afloat. I am
using harsh words here because I see the real
damage these programs do to careers of well-
intentioned attorneys.

Introduction
Education is generally a good thing, but the legal
profession is different, and many attorneys make
themselves less employable by wearing the
“badge” of an LL.M. Far from being a badge of
honor, in most cases the badge of an LL.M. is a
badge of dishonor—advertising that you are the
victim of a con job. Why would any law firm want
to hire you to represent their clients?

LL.M. Degrees Carry
Very Little Prestige: A
Harvard LL.M. Does Not
Mean Harvard Law
School, An NYU LL.M.
Does Not Means NYU
Law School, and So
Forth

LL.M. Degrees Carry Very Little Prestige: A Harvard
LL.M. Does Not Mean Harvard Law School, An NYU
LL.M. Does Not Means NYU Law School, and So Forth
People with average to lousy law schools on their
resumes often believe that they are somehow
“classing up” their resumes by going to schools
like Harvard, NYU, or Georgetown for LL.M.
degrees. This could not be further from the truth.
It is extremely competitive to get into the J.D.
programs of these schools; however, much less
so for the LL.M. programs.

LL.M.s cannot hurt a law school’s U.S. News
ranking because the law school does not have to
provide data on its LL.M.s. LL.M. programs do not
need to report profiles of their entering classes
and they do not need to report employment
statistics. They are unaccountable to the
marketplace when it comes to LL.M.s and this
enables them to admit just about anyone who can
pay tuition.

Law firms understand this and so for the most
part law firms are unimpressed by LL.M.s from
Columbia, Harvard, or other similar schools. The
best law firms contain people who went to law
school and did not get LL.M.s after law school.

These law firms contain people who went to good
law schools or did exceptionally well in the law
schools they went to. That is it. That is where
they get their prestige. You do not get a “do over”
in the eyes of law firms. They will look at you and
judge you on whether or not you could have
gotten a position with them before getting an
LL.M. Even if you have great qualifications, law
firms will likely wonder why you got an LL.M.
after that. There is no reason to.

There are some very smart attorneys who get
LL.M.s, but also some very dumb ones. I know of one
attorney who got an LL.M. from Harvard who did so
poorly on his LSATs he could not even get into an
accredited American law school and attended an
unaccredited one in California before attending
Harvard. I have also seen people who graduated
near the bottom of their classes from law school get
LL.M.s from NYU. Most LL.M. program’s offer “back
doors” to enter prestigious law schools, but the
degrees they give do not translate into the prestige
attorneys think they do.

The LL.M. degree is so suspect that some of them
do not even require you to be physically on campus.
One of the more prestigious LL.M. programs, NYU’s
executive tax LL.M., allows its students to watch the
classes on their computers from anywhere in the
world and only requires them to show up for exams
and at campus a few other times during the
program.

LL.M. Degrees
Offer Very Little
Substance of
Use to Actual
Lawyers

Lawyers are paid to do research and figure stuff out.
Going to get an LL.M. in environmental law does not
make you a good environmental attorney or give you
the right to practice this area of law. There is very
little that is taught in any LL.M. program that you
cannot pick up in your day-to-day practice if you join
a good law firm—in fact, in many LL.M.
LL.M. Degrees Offer Very Little
Substance of Use to Actual Lawyers

programs you are likely to learn very little at all.
What is important to being a good lawyer in any
practice area is developing good, on-the-job skills
that are useful in actual practice. You will not get
these skills in a lecture hall.

Most competent attorneys (in all practice areas)
have the ability to move around between different
types of work. Do you think that before a good
attorney does a certain kind of work he or she says:
“Hey! This case involves issues of corporate law! I
better go get an LL.M. before I tackle it!”

Of course not. Attorneys are paid to think and figure out
problems. You learn the basics of this in law school and
that is that. There is nothing more to add by getting an
LL.M. Moreover, law professors tend to be intellectual.
Most law firm attorneys are not. Law firm attorneys are
working for paying clients who are interested in
solutions as opposed to intellectualizing various ideas.

Attorneys solve real world problems. If your goal is to
practice in a law firm, you should get as far away as
possible (and as quickly as possible) from law
professors and their manner of thinking. Most law
professors would get eaten up alive inside of a law firm
and their thinking style could rub off on you.

One of the dumbest LL.M.s out there (and there are
several dumb ones) is the LL.M. in intellectual property
law. More baffling, the majority of people who go into
these intellectual property LL.M. programs have
undergraduate degrees in things like English or Political
Science.

IP law is very science-based, and it would make much
more sense for someone with a liberal arts background
who wants to get a job in IP law to get a degree in
something like electrical engineering or another
science discipline and then take the patent bar. Even
taking classes at a community college in subjects that
would help with patent bar preparation would be
preferable to getting a dubious LL.M. degree in
intellectual property law.

LL.M. Programs
Exist and Are
Heavily Promoted
Because They Are
Cash Cows for
Law Schools

Law schools are businesses and behave like
businesses. They report things like graduate
employment rates and average LSAT and grade
point averages because they are required to do
so. They need to maintain a certain level of
quality to look desirable to other law students
and to recruit faculty.
LL.M. Programs Exist and Are Heavily
Promoted Because They Are Cash Cows
for Law Schools

Building the most prestigious classes on paper is
important to all law schools. Law schools will
even shrink classes and take all sorts of other
actions (including offering scholarships) to make
sure they do as well as they can with these
statistics.
for Law Schools

Not so with the LL.M. programs of these schools!
LL.M. programs are huge money making
enterprises and everyone is welcome so long as
they pay the tuition. Unlike J.D. programs, LL.M.
programs are unregulated and law schools can
simply make up subjects and bring in whoever
has the money to pay.
for Law Schools

The beauty of LL.M. programs is that law schools
generally do not have to offer any classes beyond
those they are already offering. They simply bring
in more LL.M. students, have them sit in existing
classes, and then give them worthless LL.M.
degrees. You can think of LL.M. as standing for
“Lawyers Losing Money.”
for Law Schools

Law schools make up these ridiculous LL.M.
programs (anyone interested in an LL.M. degree
in intercultural human rights law?) because they
are businesses and businesses make money
when they have products that appeal to people in
all niches.
for Law Schools

If they cannot sell their name (look it’s Harvard
Law!), they will find a topic that may interest you
such as SPACE LAW! It does not really matter—
they are businesses and will offer whatever sells.
The genius of the LL.M. program is that law
schools are 100% unaccountable for the quality
of students and their employment rates. They do
not even have to offer any form of scholarships
to their students.
for Law Schools

None of the Best
Lawyers Have
LL.M Degrees.
Why Would They?

Not a single United States Supreme Court justice
has an LL.M. degree. Why would they? In fact, I
would have a very difficult time naming any
nationally known attorney with an LL.M. degree. I
am not saying there are not any—I just cannot
name many people who have gone all that far
with LL.M.s.
None of the Best Lawyers Have LL.M
Degrees. Why Would They?

With the exception of the occasional tax attorney
in a big firm, there are typically very few if any
LL.M.s in major law firms. In a major firm like
Skadden Arps, they figure that if you are smart
enough to work there the last thing in the world
you would want to do is pay someone to teach
you what you would learn anyway as a hard
working associate while earning a great income in
the process.

You generally want to look like (on paper) the sort
of person for whom you want to work. If you want
to work in a well-regarded law firm, you should
look like other attorneys who (1) got their J.D.’s
from the best schools they could get into, (2) did
their best in law school, and (3) moved on with
their lives.

Good lawyers do not get LL.M.s because they do
not have to. The best lawyers also do not have
time to get LL.M.s because they are too busy
practicing law, earning money, and working on
more important things.

Law Firms Will Assume You
Are a Foreigner If You Have
an LL.M. Degree on Your
Resume Because Most
People with LL.M. Degrees
Are Foreigners

I have nothing against foreigners. When you get
an LL.M., though, you are going to be studying
with a class that is likely to be filled with
foreigners. Many law firms that see an LL.M. on
your resume will (wrongly) jump to the conclusion
that you do not have U.S. citizenship and they are
going to run into all sorts of sponsorship issues if
they hire you.
Law Firms Will Assume You Are a Foreigner If
You Have an LL.M. Degree on Your Resume
Because Most People with LL.M. Degrees Are
Foreigners

Most law firms do not have time for this
nonsense and therefore no interest in LL.M.s.
While you can certainly explain to law firms that
you are not a foreigner, in most cases law firms
will not take you seriously anyway once they see
the LL.M. on your resume.
Foreigners

Generally, foreigners get LL.M.s because it
enables them to practice law in California and
New York (if they hit the lottery and get hired at
all—most do not). The LL.M. is basically a
“remedial degree.”
Foreigners

People who go to good law schools and get good
jobs do not turn around and then go back to
school for an LL.M. in animal law, for example.
This is almost unheard of. Why would they? It
makes no sense. Why lower yourself to a
remedial degree you do not need to get?
Foreigners

If You Think You Need to
Rehab Your Career by
Getting an LL.M., Maybe
You Should Consider
Another Career

There are far too many good attorneys out there
and the market is extremely competitive as it is.
In general, people who go and get LL.M.s often do
so because they think the degree will make them
more employable or more attractive to the
market.
If You Think You Need to Rehab Your
Career by Getting an LL.M., Maybe You
Should Consider Another Career

First of all, this is almost never the case. It is
generally the opposite: You are highlighting your
current shortcomings by getting the degree (not
an American citizen, did not go to a good law
school) and not helping yourself. You are
spending money you should not be spending
because you are in a profession where you are
already at a disadvantage.

However, the broader issue is that most people
who get LL.M.s are coming from a position of
weakness. People should pursue careers they are
good at and in which they have potential—not
careers where they are almost always admitting
weakness right out of the gate.

Most foreign attorneys hoping to work in the
United States are not even likely to get jobs after
getting LL.M. degrees. Some do, but very few.
Similarly, attorneys who get LL.M. degrees in any
one of a variety of topics are unlikely to get
positions in those subject matters. There are tons
of successful people who went to law school and
did not practice law. In fact, if you are motivated
enough to go get an LL.M., the odds are pretty
good that you would do much better putting that
drive into another career.

Herein lies the issue with the LL.M.: It telegraphs
weakness and not strength most of the time. This
does not help you. Lawyers are paid to telegraph
the strength of their clients. Because the
telegraphing of strength is so important, the first
person they are expected to telegraph strength
with is themselves.

Lawyers Are Not Supposed
to Be Conned and Are
Supposed to Protect People
from Being Conned

The LL.M. program is something that sells “hope”
to attorneys that somehow getting this LL.M. is
going to change their careers and employment
prospects. All of the advertisements that
attorneys see are understandably quite
exciting—especially if the LL.M. is in a big city, by
the beach, or in a sexy subject (cyber law
anyone?).
Lawyers Are Not Supposed to Be
Conned and Are Supposed to Protect
People from Being Conned

I have certainly been conned before. I have paid
sticker price for cars and made all sorts of
mistakes. But getting an LL.M. is getting conned
big time! It is the con of all cons for most
attorneys! Law schools are taking your money
and are 100% unaccountable after doing so.

The attorney who gets the LL.M. is almost always
putting a mark on his or her resume that shows
that he or she was suckered into getting a
useless degree. How can you be trusted with the
future of your clients if you were so easily conned
and ready to put the mark of being conned right
on your resume as if it was an advantage?
Lawyers are supposed to protect others and they
need to live by example.

I actually hate coming down on LL.M. programs.
But the reality is that in most cases the law
schools are taking your money because they can
get away with it. They know that the degree
offers you very little and they are selling you
something that does not translate into value in
the market and that is likely to hurt you as
opposed to help you.
Conclusion

Law schools do not offer scholarships for these
degrees in most cases because they do not care
who they attract. It is all about money. It is all
about money in a profession where the institution
that is taking your money is supposed to be
teaching you to protect and advocate for others
in society. This is messed up and it is wrong.
Conclusion

It is also quite sad because most attorneys
getting LL.M.s are doing so because they falsely
believe the degree and extra education will help
them be more effective and valuable members of
the workforce. While education generally is more
helpful than not, the opposite is true in the case
of most LL.M. degrees.
Conclusion

The LL.M. degree generally harms. The cost is the
financial cost of the degree, the lost
opportunities while getting the degree, and the
fact that the degree actually appears like a black
mark on the attorney’s resume after it has been
received.
Conclusion

I have been a legal recruiter almost my entire career.
I have worked with countless LL.M.s and—with the
exception of LL.M.s in tax, who started their careers
at top law firms (not accounting firms) and who did
very well in law school to begin with—most
attorneys with LL.M.s are not employable in top
American law firms.
Conclusion

If, of course, this is not something you want, then the
LL.M. may be a good choice. I think there is a lot of
value to education and learning. My criticism and
concern is with the myth versus the reality of what
an LL.M. degree actually will do for an attorney’s
career.
Conclusion

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Why an LL.M. Degree is Almost Always a Bad Idea for Attorneys_ In Most Instances an LL.M Will Never Get You a Better Job and Only More Debt.pptx

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