Master of Laws (LL.M.)

Welcome to the Fall 2008 Foreign Scholars – the largest in the school’s history.  The 44 students who will pursue LL.M. degrees represent 29 countries and 21 different languages, and include five Fulbright recipients. 

Click here for current Dean's Note.

A MESSAGE FROM DEAN NIMMER

It’s easy to see how a master’s degree can quickly help you advance your legal career. The hard part is deciding which school to attend.

Here is my perspective: the University of Houston Law Center deserves strong consideration as the school of choice for your LL.M. degree. Here are some of the reasons:

• Our faculty are leaders in their fields of expertise, and they blend groundbreaking scholarship with an innate love of teaching.

• LL.M. students benefit from an extensive curriculum that blends legal theory with practical applications to the broad legal community.

•We are located in Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city and a global leader in health care, energy, and other disciplines.

•We have a diverse student body, a vibrant extracurricular environment, and alumni who take an active role in our school.

I encourage you to get to know us better — and learn more about our terrific LL.M. program.

Raymond T. Nimmer
Dean and Leonard H. Childs Professor of Law
University of Houston Law Center

AS THE NATION’S FOURTH-LARGEST CITY, Houston offers unique business, cultural, artistic, and educational experiences. Its highly sophisticated legal community, one of the largest in the U.S., serves the global enterprises that dominate the “local” economy. This modern, multicultural metropolis has every practice area represented in its broad business base, and each sector offers a multitude of internship opportunities for students and career opportunities for graduates.

HEALTH SECTOR: Houston is home to the Texas Medical Center, the largest health-care complex in the world with its 41 hospitals and research institutions.

ENERGY SECTOR: Houston is the world center for every segment of the energy industry. Fortyeight percent of the region’s economic base is related to energy.

INTERNATIONAL SECTOR: Houston hosts more than 750 foreign firms, 67 consulates and honorary consuls, and is home to the nation’s third-largest concentration of foreign trade offices.

TECHNOLOGY SECTOR: Houston is headquarters to hundreds of scientific, aerospace, and engineering concerns, many of which have links to the nearby Johnson Space Center. It also is a leading center of nanotechnology research and commercialization efforts, as well as successful biotechnology, computer, and electronics ventures.

GOVERNMENT SECTOR: Houston, as Texas’s most populous city, hosts nearly every level of federal,
state, and regional courts and agencies.

For more information on Houston’s business climate and working in Houston, please visit www.houston.org.

THE FOREIGN SCHOLARS LL.M. PROGRAM AT THE UH LAW CENTER provides lawyers educated in other countries an opportunity to pursue intensive studies of the U.S. legal system—and earn an LL.M. degree that is recognized here and abroad as a high mark of achievement. The 2006 class includes students from Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Each Foreign Scholar has a faculty advisor who works with the student to tailor a curriculum that draws upon the student’s interests. Foreign Scholars may pursue a general course of study or focus their course selection on a specific area of law. For most of their coursework, Foreign Scholars attend classes with J.D. and U.S. LL.M. candidates— allowing opportunities to learn from and network with a diverse group of law students.

THE LL.M. DESIGNATION INSTANTLY DISTINGUISHES YOU as a member of an elite group of lawyers who have acquired in-depth insight and understanding about a specific area of the law.

ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT, AND NATURAL RESOURCES LAW. Houston is the energy capital of the world, and the use of energy and natural resources are affected by numerous environmental laws and policies. The UH Law Center’s focus on energy, environment, and natural resources law has earned an international reputation as a center for research and teaching.

HEALTH LAW. UH Law Center’s Health Law & Policy Institute is consistently considered among the top health law programs in the United States. The Institute governs the LL.M. program in health law and stresses interdisciplinary studies in all areas of health law and policy.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & INFORMATION LAW. UH Law Center’s Institute for Intellectual Property & Information Law enjoys a national reputation and offers opportunities for study and research on topics that include patent, trademark, copyright, trade secrets, and interdisciplinary legal protection for computer hardware and software.

INTERNATIONAL LAW. Houston’s international presence is considerable—and UH Law Center’s LL.M. program in international law capitalizes on it. Our program provides students with an in-depth understanding of international and comparative law and their roles in our domestic legal process.

TAX LAW. UH Law Center’s LL.M. tax program teaches tax policy frameworks, instills the practical business applications of these tax concepts, and enhances each student’s ability to deal with the complexities of the ever-changing federal tax rules.