International Law Forum

[Vronsky]

why is it that on TLS, international law is said not to exist, to be a myth, and to be an obnoxious 0L pet peeve?

(1) on ATL, there are ads by lateral recruiters for midlevel, biglaw associates with a few years of transactional work, specifically in M&A, to work in hong kong, singapore, and china.
(2) according to firm info on ATL, corporate and tax associates at davis polk can take 2 year assignments abroad.
(3) cleary has a significant portion of its SA class spend part of the summer in a foreign office.

thus long term, medium term, and short term options.

does corporate work not count? does the 'myth' of international law instead refer to things like treating making and the UN assembly and such?

[MC Southstar]

I think it's cuz it's assumed most people who say international law think they are gonna be working at the hague or filing lawsuits on the behalf of starving african children or something.

There is stuff like international trade and international finance/capital markets work, I think.

[MrAnon]

why is it that on TLS, international law is said not to exist, to be a myth, and to be an obnoxious 0L pet peeve?

(1) on ATL, there are ads by lateral recruiters for midlevel, biglaw associates with a few years of transactional work, specifically in M&A, to work in hong kong, singapore, and china.
(2) according to firm info on ATL, corporate and tax associates at davis polk can take 2 year assignments abroad.
(3) cleary has a significant portion of its SA class spend part of the summer in a foreign office.

thus long term, medium term, and short term options.

does corporate work not count? does the 'myth' of international law instead refer to things like treating making and the UN assembly and such?

Yes that is the myth. 0Ls think they are going to preside over Serbian war crime trials.

The corporate work is the same thing you'd be doing in the U.S., in a different language.

[Grizz]

why is it that on TLS, international law is said not to exist, to be a myth, and to be an obnoxious 0L pet peeve?

(1) on ATL, there are ads by lateral recruiters for midlevel, biglaw associates with a few years of transactional work, specifically in M&A, to work in hong kong, singapore, and china.
(2) according to firm info on ATL, corporate and tax associates at davis polk can take 2 year assignments abroad.
(3) cleary has a significant portion of its SA class spend part of the summer in a foreign office.

thus long term, medium term, and short term options.

does corporate work not count? does the 'myth' of international law instead refer to things like treating making and the UN assembly and such?

Yes that is the myth. 0Ls think they are going to preside over Serbian war crime trials.

The corporate work is the same thing you'd be doing in the U.S., in a different language.

Any many times, not even in a different language.

[MrAnon]

why is it that on TLS, international law is said not to exist, to be a myth, and to be an obnoxious 0L pet peeve?

(1) on ATL, there are ads by lateral recruiters for midlevel, biglaw associates with a few years of transactional work, specifically in M&A, to work in hong kong, singapore, and china.
(2) according to firm info on ATL, corporate and tax associates at davis polk can take 2 year assignments abroad.
(3) cleary has a significant portion of its SA class spend part of the summer in a foreign office.

thus long term, medium term, and short term options.

does corporate work not count? does the 'myth' of international law instead refer to things like treating making and the UN assembly and such?

Yes that is the myth. 0Ls think they are going to preside over Serbian war crime trials.

The corporate work is the same thing you'd be doing in the U.S., in a different language.

Any many times, not even in a different language.

Yes excellent point. Often times the deals involve American law or maybe an IPO in the NYSE. Soooo basically you just end up interpreting american law for a foreign company. Not very James Bond-esqe.

[071816]

I don't think that working in a foreign office of a U.S. law firm is what most 0Ls would consider "International Law."

Also, technically speaking, international law refers to to laws that govern the conduct of independent nations in their relationships with one another. There are essentially no jobs in this area of law (if international law can even be considered a legitimate area of law).

[reasonable_man]

I work in a small wall street firm that focuses on litigation. I just worked on a pretty big deal for one of our clients selling a lot of expensive equipment to a Middle Eastern Firm. That said, I am not, nor will I ever be an "international lawyer" as dreamed about by 0Ls on TLS.

There are plenty of instances where lawyers work on international transactions. However, generally, they are not "international lawyers." Nor are they the super sexy "international lawyers" that 0Ls aspire to be. Working as the lawyer that is jet-setting to save rare spotted owls in newly formed african countries or representing indigents before specially formed international courts that exist for 6 weeks is something that about 14 people will ever do and most of them graduated from YLS a pretty long time ago.

[reasonable_man]

I work in a small wall street firm that focuses on litigation. I just worked on a pretty big deal for one of our clients selling a lot of expensive equipment to a Middle Eastern Firm. That said, I am not, nor will I ever be an "international lawyer" as dreamed about by 0Ls on TLS.

There are plenty of instances where lawyers work on international transactions. However, generally, they are not "international lawyers." Nor are they the super sexy "international lawyers" that 0Ls aspire to be. Working as the lawyer that is jet-setting to save rare spotted owls in newly formed african countries or representing indigents before specially formed international courts that exist for 6 weeks is something that about 14 people will ever do and most of them graduated from YLS a pretty long time ago.

[thesealocust]

http://www.annaivey.com/iveyfiles/2008/ ... e_the_hype

[Vronsky]

i'm not really interested in anything like prosecuting serbian war crimes or what have you.

this stuff seems like the exact same type of transactional work that most big law associates do in NYC offices. granted, doing a two year assignment for DPW or a summer rotation for CGSH are somewhat tame, but there are recruiters for all kinds of firms in hong kong and singapore. from what i understand, the vast majority of work is in english, and the cost of living and expat bonuses are near wacthell-level (50%).

what's not james bond about making that much bank?

[Anonymous User]

i'm working in a regional office of a un agency this summer. it is not glamorous. we do deal with international law to an extent, but mostly in the context of lobbying the government to ratify conventions and making sure national legislation and government training is in line with prevailing international law. though we have a whole unit full of lawyers, they never seem to do much legal work...