No International Law at U Chicago?
Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 10:16 am
I'm not really seeing any indication that U Chicago has a strong international law program. Am I looking in the wrong places?
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Then again, by the time you have the chance to take upper level coursework, you hopefully will have realized that "international law" is not a thing.Doorkeeper wrote:Overall, NYU, Yale, and Harvard have the best international law faculties. Both Yale and Harvard are pretty strongly public international law focused, NYU is more balanced between public and private international law.
Chicago only has 4 faculty members doing work in anything related to international law (Posner, Huq, Abebe, Ginsburg), and they all do predominantly public international law. I would be worried about having a stable amount of upper level coursework in these areas.
Public international law is an elusive beast to be sure, but it does "exist" and isn't a completely impossible dream for someone who (1) will be attending a top-tier school, (2) has meaningful/relevant pre-law school experience in the field, and, ideally, (3) is a citizen of a non-WEOG country. Who knows if OP meets any of those requirements, but the jobs are out there for a select few.Emma. wrote:Then again, by the time you have the chance to take upper level coursework, you hopefully will have realized that "international law" is not a thing.Doorkeeper wrote:Overall, NYU, Yale, and Harvard have the best international law faculties. Both Yale and Harvard are pretty strongly public international law focused, NYU is more balanced between public and private international law.
Chicago only has 4 faculty members doing work in anything related to international law (Posner, Huq, Abebe, Ginsburg), and they all do predominantly public international law. I would be worried about having a stable amount of upper level coursework in these areas.
Fair. But whether those jobs are open to OP certainly won't depend on how many professors at his or her school focus on international law.FlightoftheEarls wrote:Public international law is an elusive beast to be sure, but it does "exist" and isn't a completely impossible dream for someone who (1) will be attending a top-tier school, (2) has meaningful/relevant pre-law school experience in the field, and, ideally, (3) is a citizen of a non-WEOG country. Who knows if OP meets any of those requirements, but the jobs are out there for a select few.Emma. wrote:Then again, by the time you have the chance to take upper level coursework, you hopefully will have realized that "international law" is not a thing.Doorkeeper wrote:Overall, NYU, Yale, and Harvard have the best international law faculties. Both Yale and Harvard are pretty strongly public international law focused, NYU is more balanced between public and private international law.
Chicago only has 4 faculty members doing work in anything related to international law (Posner, Huq, Abebe, Ginsburg), and they all do predominantly public international law. I would be worried about having a stable amount of upper level coursework in these areas.
Agreed. From my experience, placement programs and organizational relationships tend to be significantly more valuable than the number of professors focused on international law.Emma. wrote:Fair. But whether those jobs are open to OP certainly won't depend on how many professors at his or her school focus on international law.FlightoftheEarls wrote:Public international law is an elusive beast to be sure, but it does "exist" and isn't a completely impossible dream for someone who (1) will be attending a top-tier school, (2) has meaningful/relevant pre-law school experience in the field, and, ideally, (3) is a citizen of a non-WEOG country. Who knows if OP meets any of those requirements, but the jobs are out there for a select few.Emma. wrote:Then again, by the time you have the chance to take upper level coursework, you hopefully will have realized that "international law" is not a thing.Doorkeeper wrote:Overall, NYU, Yale, and Harvard have the best international law faculties. Both Yale and Harvard are pretty strongly public international law focused, NYU is more balanced between public and private international law.
Chicago only has 4 faculty members doing work in anything related to international law (Posner, Huq, Abebe, Ginsburg), and they all do predominantly public international law. I would be worried about having a stable amount of upper level coursework in these areas.
I get what you're saying but where would you put history or for that matter philosophy?Emma. wrote:There are plenty of opportunities to take classes with an international focus. But the school tends to concentrate on things that are, you know, real.
I'm not quite sure I understand your plan here. You want to take IL classes and then go work in another field? You can do that but the problem will be that you won't have coursework training you to do other work. You have limited time in law school and you can't fit in every IL class and useful stuff for your career.Seoulless wrote:I get what you're saying but where would you put history or for that matter philosophy?Emma. wrote:There are plenty of opportunities to take classes with an international focus. But the school tends to concentrate on things that are, you know, real.
I guess the important question is this - if someone burns all their electives on public international law, what are their chances of obtaining a lucrative career in an unrelated field?