Going Global
This year,
a whole new class of students at USC Law is thinking globally,
studying locally. They're part of the new LL.M. program for foreign
lawyers. Representing France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Pakistan,
Taiwan and the United Kingdom, these 12 international graduate
students will spend one year at USC pursuing the Master of Laws
degree.
Their legal
backgrounds are as diverse as their countries of origin. While
they have all earned law degrees outside of the U.S., they've
come to USC Law to familiarize themselves with American
law and the U.S. legal system, which is fast becoming ubiquitous
as the world's economies intersect and many countries adopt U.S.-style
legal documentation.
"The
economies of industrialized countries are increasingly becoming
international economies," says Law School Dean Matthew L.
Spitzer, who traveled to Asia last year to recruit candidates
for the LL.M. program from top law firms. "Lawyers serve
clients who do business in this global environment. So it makes
great sense to not only train your J.D. students to understand
this international complexity, but also to bring in lawyers from
other countries who have a critical need to understand U.S. law."
Michi Yamagami
is one of them. At USC, he plans to focus on international trade,
intellectual property, entertainment law and corporate transactions.
These are emerging practices in Japan, which is undergoing the
most extensive overhaul of its legal system since the end of World
War II.
"Between
Japanese companies, it was not so common that attorneys got involved
in negotiations," says Yamagami, 27, a fourth-year associate
at Anderson Mori, one of the largest law firms in Japan with about
100 lawyers. "But the legal culture is beginning to change.
Recently, because of contact between U.S. and Japanese companies,
the Japanese companies face the necessity of hiring law firms
to negotiate with U.S. companies."
Indeed, Japan
isn't the only country in need of attorneys with a global perspective.
Every day, lawyers in countries throughout the world are handling
transactions that rely on U.S. law and documentation. "The
U.S. market is the biggest market in the world," says Edwin
M. Smith, Leon Benwell Professor of Law and International Relations
and the faculty adviser to the LL.M. program. "Foreign
lawyers need to understand the American legal system so they can
understand how businesses operate in the U.S. and around the world."
Interaction
between foreign lawyers with years of legal experience and American
students with almost no professional training is one major benefit
of the LL.M. program, says Deborah Call, USC Law's executive
director of international programs.
"Many
of our J.D. students want to travel or work abroad, and some are
focusing their study on international law," she says. "It
will certainly benefit the J.D. population to have exposure to
lawyers who have practiced in other countries and are bringing
diverse, interesting perspectives into the classroom."
The LL.M.
program also helps fulfill USC Law's longstanding goal
of developing a more international student body, says Call. More
than half of the 182 law schools approved by the American Bar
Association offer degrees besides the J.D. Roughly half of the
students in those programs are foreign nationals, according to
the ABA. Thirty-four schools have created LL.M. programs specifically
for foreign lawyers.
For more
information on the LL.M. program, please visit: http://elawsite.usc.edu/llm/
--Phat
X. Chiem
