I’m preparing to earn a law degree from a German university next spring, and I’d love to go to an American law school for an LL.M. afterwards. Most U.S. schools recommend applicants to do the application procedure with the support of a company named Law School Admission Council
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, which offers a service they call [URL=https://llm.lsac.org/llm/logon/splash.aspx]LL.M. Credentials Assembly Service. Basically, they collect the supporting documents typically required for admission and forward your data to the schools to which you wish to apply, so you don’t need to obtain and hand in the same documents again and again.
I agree that the idea behind that scheme is a clever one and that this service will surely save time and trouble, but since it appears rather expensive to me ($185 for five applications), I’d like to know if somebody here has previous experience with this service.
Dou you think this is worth the rather hefty price? What appeals to me with this idea is that it saves you the trouble to get the same stuff (primarily letters of recommendation, academic transcripts from university offices) over and over. This is rather important to me, since I don’t want the professors who I ask for letters of recommendation to have to put up with half a dozen different institutions requesting information from them. It would most likely annoy the professors to have to mail out such letters constantly. But letters of recommendation is just where the information on the openly accessible parts of the LSAC website is scarce - will they do that, too? I’m not entirely sure whether their service is confined to TOEFL test scores and academic transcripts.
Any input, comment, or previous experience from LSAC clients, primarily of their LL.M. service, is highly appreciated.
I don’t think there are many American law achools that will look at your application if you don’t use LSAC. It is pretty much required by all American law schools.
I know this applies for getting a J.D., though I don’t think it will be much different for a LL.M. Be sure to check a couple of law school websites to see if they will take your application without LSAC.
I really is worth it if you apply to more than say, one or two schools. The peace of mind in knowing that all your materials (yes, including letters of recommendation) arrive together and on the correct date is a darn good deal in my mind. Plus it saves you time (you only have to request an official transcript once, for example) and saves your recommenders aggravation.
I am not one to praise anything done by an Offical Testing Service, but LSDAS is something they got very, very right.
Disclaimer: I’ve only experienced the JD process, but I can’t imagine that the LLM process is all that different.
Oops, pardon for the miscoding (I really should preview my posts), and thanks for the input. Most law school websites state that using this service is not an essential prerequisite for your application to be considered, but they encourage it.
In a related thought, I’m guessing you want to get a U.S. LL.M to be eligible to be admitted to the bar in a U.S. state.
Before you apply, you might want to make sure your German law program and the LL.M. program you intend to apply to meet the eligibility requirements of the state you intend to be admitted in. In New York, Section 520.6 of the Court of Appeals Rules for Admission are applicable, but as usual, each state varies.
Thanks for that remark. I’m not yet sure whether I want to sit for the bar exam after completing the degree; my main objective is to gain knowledge of the common law system, and also to add a longer stay with an academic purpose in a foreign country to my CV, which many European employers require nowadays. I don’t plan to practice the law in the U.S.
I don’t think there will be a problem, though, since the German universitary law degree (the First State Exam) is pretty much standardized throughout Germany, and I know several people with this degree who have been admitted to a U.S. bar. But in case I decide to sit for the bar exam, I’ll check the requirements which apply in the respective state.