I want international law Forum

[jetsfan1]

Should I even bother looking, let alone going, anywhere else outside of HYS?

[stillwater]

Should I even bother looking, let alone going, anywhere else outside of HYS?

Int'l lawl is a farce. But if you wanna chase the unicorn, yea hit that HYS.

[Emma.]

/thread

[jetsfan1]

Yes I am well aware how tough it is to get, and I would be happy doing other stuff, but just making sure those are my only options. Thanks guys

[Emma.]

Yes I am well aware how tough it is to get, and I would be happy doing other stuff, but just making sure those are my only options. Thanks guys

IILJ at NYU, or CLS/UChi with full ride would be other solid options, since you'll still have a shot at those few genuine "International Law" positions, and won't be risking crushing debt.

[hephaestus]

I suggest you think (1) why this appealed to you and (2) what the most fungible path is.

[dissonance1848]

If you want international law, then go carry out a coup in a third world country, and then have the great powers from the UN begin riding your ass.... there, you now are involved in "international law"

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Yes I am well aware how tough it is to get, and I would be happy doing other stuff, but just making sure those are my only options. Thanks guys

What do you mean when you say international law? What do you hope to be doing after law school?

[jetsfan1]

As I said previously, I would prefer international law, but I would be happy in other areas as well. By international I mean something like the LAP program at the World Bank or something in human rights law.

Again, I KNOW how rare/tough to get these jobs are, and would not being going to law school with this as my only goal. I would be perfectly happy doing anything in law, but as international would be what I would prefer, I was just curious if any schools outside of HYS would give me a good chance at it (knowing full well "best" is still mediocre).

Trust me, I've seen the figures. I've read TLS. I know its almost impossible. I would never go banking on one of these jobs. But its still nice to know which would give me the best shot and I would still have great "backup" options that I would be perfectly happy with.

Sorry I didnt make all that clear in the OP.

[dabbadon8]

As I said previously, I would prefer international law, but I would be happy in other areas as well. By international I mean something like the LAP program at the World Bank or something in human rights law.

Again, I KNOW how rare/tough to get these jobs are, and would not being going to law school with this as my only goal. I would be perfectly happy doing anything in law, but as international would be what I would prefer, I was just curious if any schools outside of HYS would give me a good chance at it (knowing full well "best" is still mediocre).

Trust me, I've seen the figures. I've read TLS. I know its almost impossible. I would never go banking on one of these jobs. But its still nice to know which would give me the best shot and I would still have great "backup" options that I would be perfectly happy with.

Sorry I didnt make all that clear in the OP.

Can you please explain what is so appealing about international law per se? Doing banking related work (not familiar with the LAP program, but presumably the work is financial in nature) or human rights law (super vague, no idea what this means, can only guess what this consists of on a day to day basis) seem like they'd be quite different day to day and appeal to different interests. Does the fact that it be "international" somehow make you interested in finance, but you're not interested in domestic financial work? I'm just saying that I'm a 2L and still have no idea why people say they want to do international law without a more specific mention of what they actually want to do.

[jbagelboy]

okay, its not quite limited to HYS but you have to gun for it. It's not like harvard or stanford have an entirely unique caliber of opportunities in these cache fields; it's more that half the class of schools like GW and minnesota will enter wanting to practice "international law" and only a handful of them will have any realistic opportunity to do so upon graduation.

I think its not about scholarship money, but the programs do matter; in addition to IILJ at NYU, the Georgetown Global Law scholars program has solid contacts; the Columbia/Oxford international finance JD/LLM opens a lot of doors for international "banking" (note: this does not require anything like a hamilton, just admission to cls); and there are comparably opportunities out of Duke for international business. You just have to put yourself out there, maybe get some foreign language credentials and have your resume present an international profile/experience

[GMGP]

International law is NOT a farce. T14 IL here (Duke) and I have friends working in international trade litigation, acquisitions for the DOD, State Dept, JAG, cross-border transactional law (my firm does a lot of M&A in Latin America), and even firms like Freshfields or Milibank hire for their foreign offices consistently.

I mean you're not going to prosecute for the ICC right out of law school but there are PLENTY of opportunities that will get your foot in the door to awesome jobs like that.

[jbagelboy]

International law is NOT a farce. T14 IL here (Duke) and I have friends working in international trade litigation, acquisitions for the DOD, State Dept, JAG, cross-border transactional law (my firm does a lot of M&A in Latin America), and even firms like Freshfields or Milibank hire for their foreign offices consistently.

I mean you're not going to prosecute for the ICC right out of law school but there are PLENTY of opportunities that will get your foot in the door to awesome jobs like that.

thank you for this

[applepiecrust]

Doesn't the TLS international law doesn't exist (or the more tempered "it exists but it's impossible to get" shtick ever get old?
I'm currently doing a (gasp!) intl human rights law internship at the UN and working for a foreign office of a large firm this summer and I'm pretty sure both of those positions would be considered (different types of) intl law (and I'm not at HYS)

If you have the background and the motivation you can find ways to do it (though the route to actual jobs at the UN is far from clear but that's not the be-all and end-all of intl law-esque positions)

(OP (and others): Feel free to PM me for more details)

[WhatOurBodiesAreFor]

Working at an int'l office of an U.S.-based firm would also qualify as int'l law for most people. Those most certainly do not require HYS

[Danteshek]

The World Bank has never hired an American citizen in the nearly 10-year history of the LAP program

[20141023]

.

[haus]

The World Bank has never hired an American citizen in the nearly 10-year history of the LAP program

This reminds me of those people at casinos who like to sit at a slot machine that is not paying out, figuring that it is due. Although in this case, the slot machine might not even be plugged in anymore.

[20141023]

.

[haus]

Apparently the best place to go for "international law" is the University of Detroit Mercy.

If you define an International Law career as defending drunk people who tick off border agents as the travel back and forth between Detroit, MI & Windsor, ON, I am sure that they can do as well as anyone to start you down that path.

[Samara]

Doesn't the TLS international law doesn't exist (or the more tempered "it exists but it's impossible to get" shtick ever get old?
I'm currently doing a (gasp!) intl human rights law internship at the UN and working for a foreign office of a large firm this summer and I'm pretty sure both of those positions would be considered (different types of) intl law

Not really though. The int'l law doesn't exist meme is not supposed to be taken literally, it's supposed to get people to think what they actually mean and what they want to do.

Working in a foreign office is not int'l law in any meaningful sense of the term. You aren't jetsetting around and you aren't doing anything substantially different from what you would be doing in the US. Jobs in foreign offices are attainable from a wide range of schools for the right type of applicant, but it's not really int'l law.

As for your internship, internships, almost always unpaid, are a lot easier to get in int'l law, and in PI in general, than an actual paid job after law school. If you manage to turn your UN internship into a job, good for you, but the unemployment rolls are littered with PI-focused grads who worked great internships and couldn't find a long-term job to pay the bills.

That's why TLS says int'l law doesn't exist. Obviously it does, but making an actual career out of in a meaningful sense of the term is so difficult that it may as well not exist. I think there's a SCOTUS clerk from GW this term, but that doesn't mean you have any sort of meaningful chance of making that happen from GW or any other non-YHS school.

When people say they want to work in int'l law, they usually don't know what they are talking about. I have yet to see a thread where the OP explains why they want to do int'l law.

[Total Litigator]

Well in all fairness, I think there are a lot more international law internships than there are international law jobs.

[WhatOurBodiesAreFor]

Working in a foreign office is not int'l law in any meaningful sense of the term. You aren't jetsetting around and you aren't doing anything substantially different from what you would be doing in the US. Jobs in foreign offices are attainable from a wide range of schools for the right type of applicant, but it's not really int'l law.

My point was that a lot of people do consider that to be int'l law, not whether it should be considered that or not. I think working at the Paris office, for instance, of a U.S.-based firm for an extended period of time would be a more than acceptable outcome for someone like OP who wants to do "international law".

[Samara]

Working in a foreign office is not int'l law in any meaningful sense of the term. You aren't jetsetting around and you aren't doing anything substantially different from what you would be doing in the US. Jobs in foreign offices are attainable from a wide range of schools for the right type of applicant, but it's not really int'l law.

My point was that a lot of people do consider that to be int'l law, not whether it should be considered that or not. I think working at the Paris office, for instance, of a U.S.-based firm for an extended period of time would be a more than acceptable outcome for someone like OP who wants to do "international law".

It's dumb to call that doing int'l law though, in the same way that it would be dumb to call working in the SF office "doing California law." Calling working in Paris int'l law invariably outs someone as not knowing what they are talking about.

[eric922]

If you want international law, then go carry out a coup in a third world country, and then have the great powers from the UN begin riding your ass.... there, you now are involved in "international law"

Probably easier than actually getting one of the few real "international law" jobs.