Deposit deadlines can be intimidating. They are usually hefty, non-refundable payments in USD from abroad, you may face varying timelines for LL.M. admissions decisions and waitlists, and the fine print and expectations may be that you have finalized your choice.

I encourage my students to wait to deposit until they have determined which school they plan to attend and have a full sense of the financial aid packages across their options. Or when they reach a deposit deadline that cannot be extended. But I also explain how deposit deadlines help schools help them by determining the entering classes, freeing up some additional scholarship money and waitlist spots, and allowing schools to begin providing serious resources. This final part is crucial and allowed me to run free, intensive Pre-LL.M. Programs for incoming students at both law schools I worked at. These programs took a lot of work on my end, and I could only run them because my schools knew that those students were planning to join us through their deposits.  

If you are focused on U.S. job outcomes from your LL.M. experience, I share some of the questions I suggest my students ask before they deposit. But first, some caveats:

• Schools will vary based on how much information they’re willing and able to share, especially in writing, about LL.M. employment outcomes. Expect some general and broad answers, which makes sense given the varying goals of LL.M. students when it comes to post-LL.M. employment and the fact that the ABA doesn’t collect this data.
• Recruiting and admissions personnel are used to speaking with prospective students, even those they know are unlikely to attend their schools. Other members of the LL.M. team spend their time working with current students and alumni. I wouldn’t worry if some schools are a bit more guarded about having other personnel schedule meetings with you before you deposit. They are likely focusing intensively on helping their current students secure jobs, prepare for bar exams, and achieve academic success. As long as the recruitment and admissions team can provide satisfactory answers, I think that’s fine. But if you do get to schedule a call or video with other team members, I think that is a positive, either that the school is very interested in you joining or the LL.M. culture is one where the bigger team takes an active role in trying to differentiate itself at the recruitment stage.
• Remember that an LL.M. degree and a legal job in the U.S. are not a package deal. I am unaware of any LL.M. program that guarantees a post-LL.M. job to their students, which makes a lot of sense. Law degrees, even J.D. degrees, are not guarantees of jobs. And a lot of the post-LL.M. job outcome depends on the student. What is your educational and professional experience before the LL.M.? How well do you interview? What connections do you already possess? Does your personality, cultural IQ, and “vibe” mesh well with the people you network with?

Career and Professional Development Questions:

These questions are very important, in my opinion, because they set the expectation for how the school views LL.M. career and professional development.

• Can you tell me more about your LL.M. career and professional development department and how many people work to support LL.M. students?
  • This is important because I think the LL.M. job search and assisting foreign-educated lawyers is different from the traditional J.D. search. And so I personally like the LL.M.-specific model over being assigned to J.D. advisors, especially with personnel who have worked in or are from other jurisdictions. At the end of the day, J.D. career advisors need to ensure the J.D. graduates secure employment for the ABA Employment Outcomes, and so I would want to work with someone who is focused on LL.M. students entirely or primarily. This question also gives you a sense of the size of the LL.M. program and the resources dedicated to it. If you’re in a big LL.M. program and there is only 1 LL.M. career officer, how much face time will you actually get if everyone is always trying to schedule meetings?
• What programming exists, outside of the one-on-one meetings with the advisor, that assist foreign-educated students with career and professional development?
  • Obviously help with your resume and cover letter is crucial. But the programming surrounding career and professional development is equally important. Learning how to write a great legal resume and cover letters early on avoids the need for back-and-forth revisions and allows you to feel confident sending out job applications often. Learning about informational interviewing, networking, and how to prepare for interview questions is important. You’ll also learn more about activities some schools offer LL.M. students, like alumni mentoring, mock interviews sessions, and other resources that demonstrate their priorities. The more extensive the programming related to career and professional development, the more that indicates to people like me the school is focused on LL.M. students seeking to work in the United States. Is the school part of a consortium for LL.M. hiring? Do they have specialized LL.M. interviewing and hiring through their school?
• How does the alumni office assist LL.M. students with connecting with alumni?
  • Foreign-educated LL.M. students, especially on F-1 visas, need boosts wherever they can get them. And alumni as mentors and champions can make the difference between securing a job in the U.S. or not. This questions also helps you get a better understanding of the view of LL.M. students in the larger law school context. Have there been thoughtful discussions in the law school’s leadership about alumni activities involving LL.M. students? And learning about examples of where alumni have directly hired LL.M. students can demonstrate that the school utilizes its alumni for LL.M. hiring too. Does the school mention foreign-educated LL.M. alumni career sessions, as discussed above, early in the program to get you moving in the right direction on the job search.

Employment Outcome Questions:

With the caveats above, the school is not in a position to hand you a job after graduation. That said, attending certain schools can make it easier or more difficult, depending on your goals, target markets, and salary expectations.

• Do more of your foreign-educated LL.M. students on F-1 visas work in the U.S. upon graduation or return home?
  • This is an easy question to get a sense of the type of program a school runs. Schools that have most of their LL.M. students remain in the U.S may tailor their career and professional development different than schools where the majority of their students return to their home jurisdictions. This can cut both ways. If most students return home, you may have more opportunities to work with the career office and less competition for jobs. But the expectation in the program may not be one of securing jobs in the United States. And note I include the F-1 visa part here and below. Because you may have U.S. citizens and/or permanent residents in your program, even for foreign-educated lawyers. They likely have no plans to or need to leave America and don’t have the same restrictions you’ll have from your visa.
• What are typical foreign-educated LL.M. student job outcomes in the U.S. for F-1 visa students over the last few years?
  • Anecdotes and examples of a successful student are great for marketing and social media, but you want to see trends. Focus on F-1 students so those who are citizens/permanent residents are not listed, as they will have more job opportunities because they won’t go through the visa process. By asking for year-over-year, you won’t get a misleading picture from either one up or one down year. And by asking for a broader picture, this will help you get a more complete answer than just a couple of individual outcomes. Are students mostly working in a specific area? Can you get a sense of starting pay for those jobs?
• How do your students with my background/credentials perform in the U.S. job search?
  • If you just finished your LL.B., the job outcome for a 5^th year M&A associate in a Chambers-ranked firm may not be on point. Even from the same country or law school, let alone from a different country or significantly different level of law school. So asking for more information about how students like you stack up can be illuminating. Again, a big portion of the post-LL.M. outcome is student-dependent, and so knowing how students like you fare from that particular school is helpful as you compare options. In this regard, if one school shares multiple accounts of students like you securing the type of job you’re looking for each year and another school deflects and talks about networking, you may want to pay a little more for that type of support.

In Closing

Once you deposit, there is usually an expectation that you are attending that school. Certainly at schools like the ones I work at where I provide hours of pre-orientation support to help you have a resume and cover letter template before you arrive, a plan for connecting with alumni, and a targeted job search strategy. So ensure that you have learned as much as you can about the post-LL.M. job environment in the U.S. from the schools you have shortlisted. And once you make a decision, get to work on building those connections and relationships as you focus on doing what you need to do to be as competitive as possible on the LL.M. job market.