Are you a Chartered Accountant (CA) or Company Secretary(CS)?
Do you want to do a foreign Masters of Law (LL.M.)?
The demand for interdisciplinary knowledge continues to increase on the job market, particularly in companies and organizations that work internationally. The growing number of international agreements especially within Europe is making it difficult for employers to find people who have legal skill sets along with their existing skills which makes having a legal degree a real asset when applying for jobs.
The legal and accounting fields have many areas of overlap, and becoming dual-qualified gives you far greater insight and perspective than your average lawyer or accountant.
Everything from tax consequences to estate planning involves complex legal and financial principles that interlink. Becoming a dual-qualified lawyer-CA/CS gives you a more well-rounded understanding of how these abstract concepts work.
This helps you give clients better legal or financial advice due to your ability to avoid blind spots in your problem-solving methodology
Therefore it makes sense for a CA and/or a CS to do an LLM program in a specialization relevant to their field without having to do a bachelor of law (LL.B.).
What LLM specializations are relevant for CA and CS?
Considering the nature of work undertaken by CA and CS there are a handful of subjects of law where they can specialize in.
Masters of Law (LL.M.) in the following specialization will be highly beneficial for a CA or a CS professional:
- Business law and commercial transactions
- Trade and Taxation law
- Corporate and Finance laws
- Data protection and privacy management
But is it possible to do LLM without an LLB?
Only a few universities in the world expressly allow a non-law graduate to apply for an LLM program.
Without a law degree, the universities expect you to have some knowledge of the law and you’ll need to prove to them that you are academically capable of doing a master’s in law before applying for their LLM program
For instance, the London School of Economics (LSE) expects you to demonstrate a high level of professional or academic experience in areas closely related to the subjects they wish to study in order to apply for their LLM program.
The University of Edinburgh and St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami provides LLM in Human rights to non-law graduates like teachers, activists, and government workers.
Bucerius Law School in Hamburg offers a dual master’s degree in business and law to students from any academic background and long as applicants demonstrate their legal knowledge.
Should you study law in a foreign country?
One of the common questions we get is whether it is worth studying law abroad?
I had the same question too when I decided to pursue LLM after my law studies.
Isn’t the law very specific to a country? How can lawyers from one country work for another?
LawSikho’s co-founder Komal Shah recently expressed her opinion about this topic on social media. You can read the LinkedIn post here.
As the world is going global and businesses are expanding outside their geographical boundaries, they are also incorporating principles of international commercial law which remain pretty much standard across the world.
This has made lawyers from any country cater to clients from a different country as long as they are abiding by the laws of commercial and business transactions.
If you are a registered Accountant or a Company Secretary wanting to do an LL.M. from a foreign university but don’t know where to start:
Check out this course being offered by LawSikho on Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Business Laws and Commercial Transactions in association with Warsaw Management University. Click here.
Students of Lawsikho courses regularly produce writing assignments and work on practical exercises as a part of their coursework and develop themselves in real-life practical skills.
LawSikho has created a telegram group for exchanging legal knowledge, referrals, and various opportunities. You can click on this link and join:
https://t.me/lawyerscommunity2
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