Victoria Ronderos/ Contributing Writer
The College of Law has announced its new graduate degree, the Masters of Law. The degree is a one-year residential course of study for foreign graduate law students.
Through the Masters of Law, or LL.M, Program, students will have a chance to study, practice, experience and understand the concepts of American law and legal institutions.
Matthew C. Mirow, the Associate Dean of the International and Graduate Studies and the director of the LL.M Program, said the degree has been in the works since 2010.
“I was appointed at the beginning of the summer of 2010 by Dean Alex Acosta and it was one of the things he wanted to make a priority for the law school,” said Mirow. “He said we needed an LL.M program, so we began working on that.”
There are 24 credits: two required courses, one recommended course, and electives.
The program’s electives will be subjective to the student. It will allow students to choose classes in whichever specialty they would like to study, with environmental law, real estate development, international trade, and taxation being the most popular studies, according to Mirow.
“If you’ve got somebody coming in, who wants to do a lot of international courses, if they’re available in the curriculum, that student can do those,” said Mirow. “If they want to focus in business law, and they decide to take business organizations, corporate tax, securities regulations, all of the courses that are bundled around in that area, they can do those as well.”
A national survey from July 2012 shows that most LL.M students in the United States come from China, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. The program is open to all students from all countries around the world, but they are hoping to attract South American and Caribbean students in particular.
“Being here in South Florida, we are hopefully looking to draw students from around the world, particularly from Latin America and the Caribbean. Miami, as a location, is a big draw for those students,” Mirow said.
Mirow said that many students from around the world are interested in practicing American law.
“It’s good to know something about U.S Law, particularly if you’re going to be working with U.S lawyers, but also for the legal English part of it. To really gain a competency to be able to deal with law in English, is something that, you know, takes time to be in a place to do that,” Mirow said.
The LL.M program will begin during the Fall 2014 semester. The application deadline is March 15, 2014.