Andrea Longaretti, Associate Director of Admissions at IE Law School, informs the In-House Community of a new programme specifically designed to address the needs of today’s international in-house lawyers.
What is the idea behind the Executive LLM Program between IE and Northwestern Law?
The Executive LLM Program started back in 2004, stemming from the idea that there are a number of successful executive MBA programmes for working professionals. Building on this concept, we thought that lawyers should be able to do the same thing. In other words, a practising lawyer should be able to get an LLM degree in a relatively short period of time (9 months from September to May), and be able to work at the same time.
Let’s take a moment to talk about both institutions
The gold standard in US law school rankings is published every year by US News & World Report, and consistently, Northwestern is ranked among the top law schools in the United States. IE is a relatively young institution, founded in 1973. Since its inception, it has become a leading educational institution for law and business. It’s consistently among the top 10 leading business schools in the world and was recently ranked among the three best business schools in Europe by the Financial Times.
Our shared commitment to core values with Northwestern University School of Law has made it possible to meet the challenges of this LLM, along with our experience with a similar programme for international executive MBA students, who combine on-campus and online education.
What exactly is the programme we are offering and why it should be of interest to in-house lawyers?
Global, law and business: these are the three words I tend to use to summarise what the Executive LLM Program is.
Today’s international in-house lawyers increasingly demand knowledge and skills in a number of areas relevant to their corporation: US law and practice based on Anglo-American common law (and increasingly present in the European and international practice); and the principal aspects of business administration necessary to understand and meet the needs of those corporations that they are part of.
The curriculum of the Executive LLM Program has been specifically designed to address these needs, with practising lawyers and general counsel in mind.
Is it only aimed at in-house lawyers?
I think this is another great part of the programme: across the last 4 intakes, in-house lawyers coming from all over the world represented 80 percent of the class, with 15 percent being composed of practising lawyers and the remaining five percent being made up of engineers, consultants, and senior managers. The programme, in fact, aims to combine different backgrounds and experience, creating the possibility of approaching legal and business cases from different standpoints, creating a continuous debate in class.
 How does this online/on-campus format work? The executive profile of the class is made possible thanks to this unique format: the possibility to earn an LLM (or an MSL for candidates without a Bachelor of Law) from Northwestern Law and a Certificate in Business Administration from IE Business School with little career interruption. The programme consists of one intensive on-campus period in Chicago and two intensive on-campus periods in Madrid (each approximately two weeks long), alternating with online coursework using IE´s state-of-the-art course platform. The program kicks off in September in Madrid with a short introduction to common law, then moves right into subjects fundamental to the business lawyer: contract law, corporations, financial accounting and business strategy, providing candidates with a solid foundation in these management subjects. Participants return to Madrid later in the autumn to continue their study of more advanced areas of interest to the international practitioner: international taxation, international arbitration, contract drafting, corporate finance and marketing for lawyers. The programme ends in Chicago, where participants come together for the final on-campus period leading up to the convocation ceremony in mid-May. What are the benefits for attendees, especially in Asia? More specifically for Asia, a few weeks ago we held the first IE Alumni Weekend – Hong Kong, one of our IE global alumni events. The idea was to bring together our alumni from the Asia Pacific region, and indeed worldwide, to reconnect, reminisce, learn, network and of course socialise in an exclusive setting. An Executive LLM alumnus, Akhil Prasad, Head Counsel at Boeing International, attended the event as a speaker and it was a great opportunity to meet other incredible potential candidates. |