| Topic Name: |
Attn: gurdonark |
| Message Name: |
variability. |
| Date Posted: |
05/09/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
Thanks for the kind word.
Emerging markets, differing legal systems, and your personal skills/experience set make this question difficult to answer. My impression is that some foreign law graduates come here thinking that if they get a top 5 LLM, they are made at BIGLAW firms. My understanding is things are not quite so simple. Other foreign law graduates seem to think that since a top 5 LLM is not a guaranteed ticket to NY's top firms, then an LLM must be worthless. The reality is at neither extreme. Foreign law graduates can and do come to the USA and carve out successful careers. They not only work at BIGLAW, but I've encountered them at strong regionals, at one-city defense firms, and even in solo practice. I'd have to think that an LLM from a top 5 law school will show that you are a "serious" candidate for US practice, but that an LLM is nothing like a top 5 JD when it comes to clout.
Still, you presumably bring to the table some knowledge of the emerging market where you've been practicing, and perhaps language/culture skills of value. I think
with basic research you ought to be able to find the smaller firms which regularly do work with businesses in your country. I think that just as JDs entering law schools ignore the reality that most lawyers go to work for small and midsize law firms, many foreign lawyers come here with an unrealistic "top 10 or bust"
look at their law firm chances. I rarely find law hiring to fit the neat formulae that folks devise for it. I do think that if I were a foreign lawyer coming here, I would go to as good an LLM as I could get into, and a top 5 school fits the ticket.
As for recessive economies and the like, who can say?
Legal recessions don't track
general recessions, and though the general recession has begun, the legal economy in most places is pretty good.
At the same time, even legal recessions tend to have wide regional variance (the early 80s was a lot less painful for the Sunbelt than the "rust belt" for example, and the early 90s legal downturn was not nearly so sharp in much of the midwest as in CA, NY and TX). So it's hard for me to look at a coming general downturn and prognosticate how that will affect your situation.
The lawyers I've met who immigrated here to practice are glad they did. I'm sure I don't meet the lawyers who didn't like it or failed to make it, because they went back home. But if you want to give it a try, I'd say get your top 5 LLM and go for it.
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| Message: |
shut your pie hole gorgleneck.
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