The LL.M. Roadmap author gave a presentation at the BARBRI LL.M. PREVIEW on the topic of LL.M. Survival and Empowerment.

The question is how you as an international student may get the best out of your LL.M. program year? The lecture provides tips and hints on how you achieve maximum benefits from your LL.M. program. How can you achieve your academic, personal, and career goals?

Listed below are some LL.M. Survival and Empowerment lecture suggestions. For more survival & empowerment tips, check out LL.M. Roadmap.

1.         Embrace the Socratic Method [link to section on Socratic Method – in section on success in the LL.M. classroom]. This method of U.S. law school instruction may intimidate international LL.M. students, but it presents an opportunity for you to gain an edge in thinking on your feet, analyzing complex issues quickly, and arriving at sound solutions. Leap at the opportunity to practice your lawyerly abilities!

 You will learn how to think quickly and arrive at reasonable conclusions. U.S.-trained lawyers are expected to possess this skill!

You can get practice at the Socratic Method from taking courses like BARBRI’s LL.M. Preview.

2.         Take advantage of opportunities to gain legal skills. Sometimes this means engaging in non-credit activities outside the classroom. This may interfere with some of your study or leisure time, but it is a worthy investment.

Your U.S. law school should have opportunities for you to do clinical work with real clients, pro bono work research, internships, or other work outside the classroom. You can learn a great deal from hands-on exposure to the law. See # 4 below.

3.         Understand who is who at your law school. What is the difference between the following officials at your U.S. law school:

The LL.M. Roadmap website has published an article devoted to Human Rights of International Students in the U.S. This is part of an effort to help inform LL.M. students of their human rights as international students, and to help inform other stakeholders of their obligations to help ensure that all rights are protected. It is also a general call for greater protections when students leave their home countries to study abroad.

The article covers the following topics:

(a)  Human rights that international LL.M. students are entitled to when they come to the U.S. to study;

(b)  Introduction to various local, national and international charters and principles adopted to protect these rights;

(c)  How some U.S. law schools violate the human rights of LL.M. students;

(d)  Selected charters and principles to protect the rights of international students; and

(e)  A call for a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of International Students.

Operating cash cow LL.M. programs or diploma mill LL.M. programs deprives international students of their human rights. But there are many other ways in which schools, governments, private citizens, and even other students deprive international students of their rights.

Learn about human rights denial, and about human rights protections!

Please check out the article here.

If you have further ideas about how to increase human rights protections of LL.M. students in the U.S., please submit a comment below! We are happy to hear from you!

Thank you.
LLM Roadmap

PS:  Please submit your comments below about human rights of international students.
        Do you have ideas about how U.S. law schools can better protect human rights of international students?
        Comments about protecting international students in the U.S. or in other countries?
        Any other insights or comments?

Chapter 6 of LL.M. Roadmap discourages students from choosing “diploma mill” LL.M. programs at U.S. law schools.

A “diploma mill” program would have low academic requirements for admission, low academic requirements for classes, and low standards to graduate from the program. Diploma mills make it very easy for LL.M. students to receive high grades, with very little work. Because the standards are low at diploma mill schools, the value of the degrees received is also very low. Law firms and other organizations will be less likely to hire a graduate who holds a degree from a diploma mill law school.

A diploma mill bestows LL.M. degrees at a high financial price, but with little worth to the student.

A school does not need to award hundreds of degrees in order to be a diploma mill. A school can be a diploma mill with only a few graduates. It is the quality of the education received that is important, not the quantity of diplomas offered.

LL.M. Roadmap author Professor Edwards answer the question "What is a Diploma Mill".