While some states, such as California and Vermont, allow individuals to join the state bar association without attending law school if they complete a legal apprenticeship, most require individuals to have a law degree in order to practice law.
In the U.S., earning a Juris Doctor degree, commonly known as a J.D., is the typical first step for a career in the legal profession. However, some J.D. graduates want further legal education so they can become experts in a specific area, such as tax law. These lawyers may pursue a master of laws degree, commonly known as an LL.M. And because many U.S. state bar associations require people who attended law school outside the U.S. to earn a law degree from a U.S. school, these individuals often need an LL.M. degree.
If you’re evaluating whether an LL.M. program is a worthwhile investment, experts say it’s important to determine whether the program will help you advance in the legal profession.
Here are eight key differences between a J.D. and an LL.M., according to law professors, practicing attorneys and former LL.M. students.
[Read: Decide Whether an LL.M. Is Right for You.]
1. The purpose of a J.D. is to prepare someone to practice law, while the mission of an LL.M. is to provide advanced training. A J.D. is designed to provide aspiring lawyers who have no prior legal work experience with all the skills and training they need to practice law. It is a general law degree that includes mandatory overview courses in topics that are critical for any practicing attorney to understand, such as contracts and criminal law.
By contrast, an LL.M. degree caters to either foreign-trained attorneys who need lessons in American jurisprudence or J.D. recipients who want to master a specific legal discipline, such as health care law.
Christopher W. Smithmyer, a strategic resource development coordinator at Br?v Online Conflict Management, a dispute resolution company, and an adjunct faculty member at the University of South Florida–St. Petersburg, says that LL.M. programs are typically more narrowly focused than J.D. programs.
“If you’re deciding to get an LL.M., you don’t do it for general practice,” Smithmyer says.
2. An LL.M. is more theoretical than a J.D. Smithmyer says that J.D. programs are focused on preparing people for legal practice, while LL.M. programs are designed for students who have already learned basic legal skills. J.D. courses concentrate on teaching what the law is and how to apply it, whereas LL.M. programs frequently focus heavily on legal theory, he says.
An LL.M. program, he says, requires students to not only demonstrate an understanding of the law, but also to convey that they know how the law could change. According to Smithmyer, an LL.M. program helps students understand debates among lawmakers, and helps students formulate their own opinions on policy questions.
3. An LL.M. can help attorneys attract clients in fields where the credential is highly valued. Experts say that attorneys looking to advance in complex, highly regulated areas of law like environmental law can benefit from an LL.M., because it bolsters the credibility of their resume.
An LL.M. degree may also be an asset for attorneys who are vying for certain high-level government jobs, since some government hiring managers prefer lawyers with an LL.M. over those who only have a J.D, experts say. Plus, an LL.M. can raise the chances of an attorney getting a policy, academic or consulting position.
An LL.M. degree also serves as a positive signal to employers, conveying a person’s mastery of a complex legal discipline.
“LL.M. programs allow a student to focus on a particular area of study, developing a degree of expertise in a compressed period of time that would otherwise take years of practice and certification programs to achieve,” said Charles H. Rose III, a trial advocacy professor at Stetson University College of Law in Florida, via email. “In most jurisdictions advanced LL.M. degrees are also approved as a credential that an attorney can use in their advertising.”
[Read: 5 Questions for Future Lawyers to Ask About J.D.-LL.M. Degrees.]
4. An LL.M. is usually an optional degree. Many legal experts argue that people who already have a J.D. should be wary of pursuing an LL.M. degree since it is not mandatory to become a practicing attorney.
“With few exceptions, LL.M. [degrees] are completely unnecessary in light of what experience will teach,” said retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Michael Gilbert, who has served as a military lawyer and who holds a J.D. and an LL.M. degree, via email. “Even my LL.M., it was an admission ticket to a government job. Most of the classes I was required to take were of very little value compared to what I learned in my first case in the new area of law.”
5. An LL.M. program may offer an opportunity to take more rigorous courses. In law schools with especially strong LL.M. programs, the schools will typically offer some courses exclusively for LL.M. students, Smithmyer says. Law school classes that are reserved for LL.M. students usually have productive class discussions, since all the students participating have significant legal training, he explains.
6. LL.M. programs frequently require a thesis, while J.D. programs usually do not. Anna Urman, a former LL.M. student who left her LL.M program without a degree because she did not produce a thesis, says that the the thesis requirement of an LL.M. program can be a formidable barrier for people who enter the program right after receiving their J.D. degree.
“Personally, I would not recommend pursuing an LL.M. straight out of J.D., but rather gather some real world experience first — because unlike a law school, where graduation requirements are to pass classes and take tests, the LL.M program requires a thesis that must be defended,” Urman wrote in an email. “Because I pursued an LL.M. right after J.D., right after college, I didn’t feel that I had anything substantive to contribute — to pose a question, to build a thesis around, that would be relevant to a ‘real world’ practice of law, something more than just reading what others wrote and extrapolating my opinions.”
7. An LL.M. can help J.D. recipients overcome the stigma of a poor GPA or a low-ranked law school. Gilbert, who previously served as an administrative law judge with the U.S. Social Security Administration and now is the founder and owner of the PounceLaw disability law firm, says that becoming the valedictorian of his LL.M. program allowed him to make up for having slacked off as a J.D. student. He adds that attending an LL.M. program at a highly ranked law school may help attorneys get law jobs that are difficult to obtain without having gone to a prestigious law school.
8. An LL.M. allows attorneys to exclusively study one legal discipline. Remi Alli, the co-founder of Br?v Online Conflict Management, says that J.D. students are often unable to take all of the third-year elective courses they are interested in. So an LL.M. program gives J.D. recipients a chance to take law courses they missed out on during their J.D. program, she says.
[Read: Though Controversial, LL.M.’s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs.]
Experts say one advantage of an LL.M. program is that students in that type of program can home in on the specific area of law they find fascinating, whether their focus is on intellectual property or international law.
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8 Key Distinctions Between an LL.M. and a J.D. originally appeared on usnews.com
