lawyer

Graduate law degrees  have come under the spotlight recently, with some questioning their value in terms of boosting employment rates  and salary prospects. There’s certainly been mounting recognition that Master of Law (LLM) won’t immediately guarantee a US$160,000 annual starting salary.

However, while figures relating to return on investment may have been over-exaggerated in the past, it’s still the case that a master’s or PhD-level degree in law is likely to open new doors – in terms of both career options and academic challenges.

“Postgraduate training is a sign that a lawyer has an advanced knowledge of one or more aspects of law and has successfully demonstrated this through an assessment process,” says laureate professor Cheryl Saunders, an associate dean at Melbourne Law School, Australia. “If the university that has conferred the degree is known to be rigorous, the degree will be more highly valued.”

She adds, “If an LLM program offers the opportunity to specialize in particular areas – for example, intellectual property – as is the case at Melbourne, it becomes a specialist qualification as well, through which graduates add to their legal credentials in a field in which they currently practise or are proposing to work.”

In some regions, Australia included, Saunders notes that graduate study is becoming increasingly common – “an accepted part of a lawyer’s continuing legal development”. Many undertake specialist master’s degrees for this reason, while others may take a graduate course as a way of moving into a new sector of law.

Then, of course, there’s simply the appeal of in depth analysis of some of the most exciting fields of law today. For Saunders these include medical, intellectual property, international, constitutional, competition, environment and resources law – all areas which are “challenged by the tensions between the need for law to respond to local community needs, and the realities of globalization.”