This page is for prospective and current students who are interested in the LL.M. or S.J.D. degree as a means of pursuing a law teaching career either in or outside of the United States.

Introduction

If you’re thinking about pursuing an academic career, an LL.M. or S.J.D. degree program could be a helpful step for you. The helpfulness of an LL.M. or S.J.D. degree depends, however, on where you want to teach and which degree program you interested in pursuing. Our LL.M. and S.J.D. degrees tend to be valuable credentials for students who earned their first law degrees abroad and wish to teach or are already teaching in their home countries. Georgetown Law graduates, and some current students, teach in law schools and faculties in many countries.

For American lawyers, if your goal is to use the degree as a stepping stone for a teaching career, we do not generally recommend application to the LL.M. or S.J.D. programs, although there are exceptions to this recommendation. For some American lawyers, Georgetown’s LL.M. in Taxation has been a useful credential for teaching. An LL.M. in Global Health Law might also be a useful credential for lawyers interested in teaching health law. In either case, you should still be aware that the market for law professors in the United States is extremely competitive. It takes hard work and not a little luck to become a law professor.

Lawyers and law students interested in tenure-track teaching careers in the United States should consider applying to Georgetown’s Research Fellows program, which is specifically intended for lawyers who wish to teach. Other law schools offer similar programs.

If you are interested in clinical teaching, you should consider applying for one of Georgetown’s prestigious clinical teaching fellowships.

Some of Georgetown Law’s institutes, such as the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and the Center for National Security and the Law, also have institutional fellowships that can support budding scholars. These institutional fellowships may also be open to foreign lawyers. You should consult their web pages for updated information.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is the LL.M. a path to a legal teaching career?
2. How do law schools hire professors in the United States?
3. How can I best use my LL.M. year if I want to teach?
4. Is an S.J.D. right for me?
5. What are the criteria for entrance into Georgetown's S.J.D. program?
6. How should I spend my LL.M. year if I want to advance to the S.J.D. program?
7. Can I become a professor in the United States if I earned my law degree abroad?
8. What about becoming an adjunct professor of law?

 

1.  Is the LL.M. a path to a legal teaching career?

Whether an LL.M. is a path to a teaching career depends on where you want to teach, and on what field you would like to teach in. A Georgetown LL.M. is often a valuable credential for lawyers from outside the United States who would like to teach in their home country or who are already teaching and wish to advance their teaching careers.

For lawyers or students who wish to teach in the United States, the LL.M. has become a less valuable credential in recent years. American law schools are likely to rely more on applicants' records of publications than an additional law degree. Producing scholarship is one of a professor’s main responsibilities, and a track record of publication tends to be taken as the best indicator of the suitability of a candidate for a faculty position.

However, there are limited exceptions to the rule. Georgetown’s LL.M. in Taxation is a valuable credential for tax scholars who wish to teach. The LL.M. in Global Health Law and the LL.M. in National Security Law may be valuable credentials for lawyers interested in pursuing teaching careers in those fields.

 

2.  How do law schools hire professors in the United States?

First, you should be aware that the legal teaching market in the United States is extremely competitive. In general, the trend on the part of faculty committees has been to prioritize a candidate’s track record of publication. There has also been a long-running trend of hiring professors who have a J.D. and a Ph.D. in another discipline. Most commonly, new law professors have a J.D. and a record of publication or both a J.D. and a Ph.D.

Whether extensive practice experience is important to a faculty committee varies. In general, more than five years of practice experience is not beneficial for candidates for tenure-track positions. But practice experience may be more valuable for clinical faculty positions, as well as for some business-law focused academic specialties.

An option for American lawyers and students, before entering the market, is to apply to programs, such as Georgetown’s Research Fellows program, that are specifically geared for students who wish to enter academia. The Research Fellowships are similar to the Visiting Assistant Professorships available at some other law schools in the United States. These programs typically provide a stipend and allow fellows or visiting assistant professors time to produce scholarship. Sometimes they also require fellows and visiting assistant professors to teach courses.

A listing of some non-Georgetown teaching programs is maintained by the Associate Dean for Research and Academic Services here. Program information may have changed however, so searching for information about teaching fellowship programs elsewhere is recommended.

Depending on your interest, American lawyers and students might also consider clinical teaching fellowships. Georgetown has a highly prestigious clinical teaching program from which over a hundred graduates have been hired. Lastly, institutional fellowships might also give aspiring law professors time to write and publish. For example, Georgetown Law’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law has a fellowship program, and the Center for National Security and the Law has a National Security and the Law Fellowship.

The main process for law school hiring is administered by the American Association of Law Schools (AALS). For prospective new professors, the AALS administers the Faculty Recruitment Conference where law schools can interview prospective professors. Candidates include their information (personal, educational, teaching experience, and employment information as well as a resume) in the Faculty Appointments Register, which is then made available to law schools before the Recruitment Conference. A committee from each law school interviews selected candidates during the Conference. The committees then narrow the number of candidates to those whom they wish to bring back to meet their faculty. Invitees usually deliver something called a “job talk” based on a paper that is under submission or has been published.

For more information about this process, you can visit Georgetown Law's Law Teaching page or the AALS Faculty Recruitment page.

Other resources that may provide information about current teaching fellowship positions include individual law school web sites, the Graduate Connections newsletter, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and legal blogs. Entry-level visiting positions, entry-level tenure-track positions, clinical positions, and fellowships are also listed in the American Association of Law Schools' Placement Bulletin, which comes out four times a year. Students can peruse the Bulletin at J.D. Careers Services in McDonough 328. Students interested in clinical teaching might also want to browse the online jobs board of the Clinical Legal Education Association.

Lawyers or students interested in academic careers are encouraged to read Professor Robin West’s advice on planning a law teaching career, which you can access here.

 

3.  How can I best use my LL.M. year if I want to teach?

Approach the LL.M. year as an opportunity to focus on producing scholarship and to think about scholarship that you might want to undertake in the future. Take seminars and write on the subjects that interest you. Develop relationships with the professors teaching your seminars. Not only can they help you produce better papers, but they can also serve as important references for you in the future.

For students who have been out of law school for some time, the LL.M. year is also an opportunity to reacquaint yourself with law school, and to update yourself on recent legal developments and trends in scholarship.

If there isn’t a seminar on offer that adequately addresses a subject that you wish to write about, consider undertaking a Graduate Independent Research project under the supervision of a willing faculty member with relevant expertise. If you wish to write a more substantial Graduate Independent Research paper, you can request, in advance, to write a 3-credit paper of at least 10,000 words (about 40 pages). Graduate Independent Research projects must be approved by the Associate Dean of Graduate Programs.

You can also write one longer paper to satisfy the requirements of two seminars or writing projects. The longer paper must be at least 12,000 words (about 50 pages). To write one paper for two seminars or writing projects, you will need the approval of both professors and of the Associate Dean of Graduate Programs. For more details about Graduate Independent Research and about writing one paper for two seminars, see the Graduate Bulletin.

Finally, you should note that Georgetown does promote its graduates who seek to pursue legal teaching careers. For more information, contact the Associate Dean for Research and Academic Programs or read Professor West’s advice on planning a law teaching career, which outlines how Georgetown assists its graduates.

 

4. Is an S.J.D. right for me?

LL.M. students who wish to teach outside the United States should consider seeking the S.J.D. or Doctor of Juridical Science degree. The S.J.D. requires the submission and oral defense of a dissertation that makes an original and substantial contribution to legal scholarship. Students work under the supervision of a full-time faculty member. The Georgetown program includes the S.J.D. Colloquium and Methods Seminar. It requires two years of residency.

The S.J.D. program has been crafted around the goal of preparing students to teach abroad. It may also be appropriate for foreign-trained academics who wish to teach in the United States It is not a recommended program for American lawyers who wish to teach in the United States.

Although the S.J.D. program is directed at producing a substantial piece of scholarship, not all entrants into the S.J.D. program wish to become law professors. Some undertake the program out of a scholarly interest and some pursue other careers where the S.J.D. might be useful – such as serving as a judge.

 

5.  What are the criteria for entrance into Georgetown's S.J.D. program?

The S.J.D. program is highly selective. Admission is based upon the applicant’s academic qualifications, scholarly potential, dissertation topic, and the availability of a full-time faculty member willing to supervise the applicant throughout the program. Although Georgetown accepts S.J.D. candidates who earned their LL.Ms from other institutions, Georgetown prefers applicants who earned their LL.M. at Georgetown. For more information about S.J.D. admissions requirements and to see profiles of some of our current students and alumni, see the S.J.D. program page.

 

6.  How should I spend my LL.M. year if I want to advance to the S.J.D. program?

Students who are interested in pursuing an S.J.D. are encouraged to take courses in their area of interest with faculty members who could potentially serve as their supervisor. Taking courses with professors who work in your area of interest is the best way to determine with whom you could develop a productive relationship. You should also see the answer to Question Three, which addresses more generally how students may best use the LL.M. year if they have an interest in academia.

 

7.  Can I become a professor in the United States if I earned my law degree abroad?

It’s possible. There are professors in the United States, and at Georgetown, who earned their first law degree in another country. Some of these professors have an S.J.D. degree.

Another option for foreign lawyers that are already teaching in a foreign law school is to seek a position as a visiting professor of law. The American Association of Law Schools (AALS) circulates to law schools a list of foreign law professors interested in teaching in the United States twice a year. The list is called the Foreign Visiting Faculty Register. The Register includes biographical information about each registrant, including education, law school affiliation, subjects the registrant is interested in teaching, U.S. law teacher references, and dates of availability. Foreign scholars register to be on the list at the AALS web site.

 

8.  What about becoming an adjunct professor of law?

Serving as an adjunct professor of law can be an immensely rewarding experience for practitioners. It allows practitioners to be academically engaged and satisfy a desire to teach without the requirement of producing scholarship. If you’re an aspiring law professor, an appointment as an adjunct professor may also be a means of determining whether you genuinely enjoy teaching – and of compiling a record of teaching evaluations. Every year at Georgetown, two adjunct professors also receive the Charles Fahy Award for excellence in teaching.

But you should note that serving as an adjunct professor is also a substantial time commitment and doesn’t remunerate enough to be a sole source of income.

Extensive practice experience is a significant advantage in pursuing teaching as an adjunct professor. At schools like Georgetown, only practitioners who are at the top of their field are appointed as adjunct professors.