St. John's Bankruptcy LL.M Forum

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St. John's Bankruptcy LL.M

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jan 29, 2017 9:35 pm

I posted this in the choosing a law school forum, and someone said it may be better suited for this forum.

Apologies for the long post. I was wondering if anyone had info on St. John’s bankruptcy LL.M. Like most here, I am skeptical about the value of an LL.M. (tax from NYU/Georgetown being the exception). But I am curious about the program. My situation is this: I’m a 3L at a T25 school. Grades are solid (should be order of the coif), and I’ve got good extracurriculars (law review managing board, moot court, bankruptcy judge externship, etc.).

I have the opportunity to go back to the firm where I worked this summer. However, the job is in a city I dislike, in a practice group I have no interest in, and overall, I don’t feel like it was the right fit for me. My goal has been to do restructuring/bankruptcy work in NYC, but I haven’t had any luck getting the attention of firms. Only a handful of alum from my school work in New York and almost no firms do OCIs here. I was aware of this fact from the outset, but it was the only school offering a full tuition scholarship, so I took the risk…

My reason for considering an LL.M. is not that I think the added credential would benefit me much. I just want networking opportunities and greater exposure to the NY legal market. I did some research and found an unexpected number St. John’s alum (J.D., LL.M., or both) in top restructuring practices (e.g., Skadden, K&E, Davis Polk, Latham, MoFo, Willikie, Pachulski, Akin Gump, Weil, Jones Day, etc.). I actually reached out to some LL.M. grads, who seemed to come from a similar situation as myself—good grades at a school that for whatever reason (usually geography) didn’t place many grads in NYC. No one had anything negative to say.

I know the school isn’t elite, but it seems to punch above its weight in this one particular practice area. The website says they offer “a variety of generous scholarships,” and I’d only go if I was offered significant money. If anyone has experience with the school or in the world of NY bankruptcy more generally, I’d appreciate any information you could offer. Thanks.
Last edited by Anonymous User on Sun Jan 29, 2017 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

jduluoz54

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Re: St. John's Bankruptcy LL.M

Post by jduluoz54 » Sun Jan 29, 2017 9:41 pm

PM me

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Re: St. John's Bankruptcy LL.M

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jan 30, 2017 4:39 pm

Have you thought about clerking for a BK judge? That may be a way to accomplish the same goal without having to take on debt/go to school for an additional year.

I clerked in DE/SDNY BK and clerked with a few St. John's LLM alums. When the market (for bankruptcy) was bad in 2011-13, a lot of them really struggled to find work. More recently it seems that they have been able to find jobs.

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Re: St. John's Bankruptcy LL.M

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jan 30, 2017 5:03 pm

OP here. I would love to clerk, and I think my grades are good enough that I could make it happen. My classmates with similar class rankings as me who wanted to clerk all seemed to secure A3 clerkships relatively easily.

The problem, which I neglected to mention in my original post, is that I am a non-citizen so a federal clerkship is really out of the question. I can volunteer for a bankruptcy judge, but I cannot be paid under federal appropriations law. Otherwise, I would definitely go that route.

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