Students doing the stand-alone LL.M. program study full-time for one academic year. During the Fall semester, students take relevant core coursework (described below) at Main Campus in Philadelphia. During the Spring semester, students spend a semester taking relevant coursework overseas at one of three locations: Temple University Japan in Tokyo, our partner Jindal Global Law School located in Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), or at Tsinghua University in Beijing, with whom the Law School already operates an LL.M. program for Chinese lawyers. Students doing the J.D./LL.M. program, having already spent multiple semesters in Philadelphia, would only have to spend a semester at one of the three aforementioned programs in Asia, assuming they had taken a semester’s worth of qualifying coursework in Philadelphia.
To satisfy the Philadelphia requirements for the LL.M., students must take six credits (typically two 3-credit courses) on Asian Law – one of which may be a guided research paper – plus two more 3-credit courses in a related area of international law from a menu of courses released by the Program Director every year.
The LL.M. Asian Law can be satisfied by taking two 3-credit courses from the following list:
- Chinese Law
- Guided Research
Additionally, both stand-alone LL.M. and JD/LL.M. students would be required to take six credits (typically two courses) from the following list of International Law courses:
- Advising the Multinational Company on Global Legal Issues
- Business Immigration Law
- Business Planning for International Transactions
- Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Law
- Comparative Law
- Comparative Competition Law
- Comparative Constitutional Law
- Comparative Criminal Procedure
- Comparative Immigration Law
- Constitutional Law and Foreign Policy
- Current Issues in Japanese Law*
- East/West Negotiation*
- Foundations of International Criminal Law
- Immigrant Low Wage Workers in a Global Economy
- Immigration Law
- International Civil Litigation
- International Commercial Arbitration
- International Commercial Mediation and Arbitration
- International Commercial Transactions
- International Contract Drafting
- International Criminal Law
- International Development Law and Policy
- International Dispute Resolution
- International Entertainment Law
- International Finance
- International Health Law
- International Human Rights and US Litigation
- International Intellectual Property
- International Intellectual Property Licensing
- International Investment and Trade
- International Law
- International Law Colloquium
- International Organizations
- International Protection of Human Rights
- International Taxation
- International Trade
- International Trade Contracts
- Introduction to International Business Law
- Introduction to Japanese Law
- Law of the European Union
- National Security Law
- Refugee Law and Policy
- Regulating Cyberthreats
- The Global Workplace
- Treaties and Negotiations
Courses marked with an asterisk (*) are offered only at Temple University Japan.
The Semester Abroad
All students in the Program must complete their Spring semester abroad, at one of the 3 campuses in Asia already mentioned. The Law School has already had discussions with our partner institutions, Tsinghua and Jindal, as well as with TUJ, and we have ascertained that the various institutions’ academic calendars work together quite well under this plan.
Below are the list of courses students can choose in each location taught in English, based on current course schedules from the respective institutions.
Courses at Tsinghua University, Beijing
- Chinese Foreign Trade and Investment Law
- Chinese Practice of International Law
- Chinese Civil Procedure
- Chinese Contact Law
- Chinese Banking Law
- Chinese Intellectual Property Law
Tsinghua is an elite, large Chinese university with a large law school primarily aimed at domestic, Chinese students; students with sufficient language proficiency could petition to take courses taught in Chinese to count towards the LL.M. degree.
Courses at Jindal Global University, Delhi NCR
- Law of Contracts I
- Constitutional Law I
- Family Law I
- Criminal Procedure Code, Juvenile Justice Act & Probation of Offenders Act
- Clinic II- Drafting, Pleading and Conveyancing
- Administrative Law and the Regulatory State
- Law of Evidence
- Public International Law
- Corporate Law
- Environment Law
- Introduction to Banking and Finance Law
- International Trade Law
- Law of Taxation
- Elective – Law Stream (Business Law)
- Special Contract (Contract Law II)
- Constitutional Law I
- International Criminal Law
- International Law and Terrorism
- Civil Procedure Code & Law of Limitation
- Labor Law
- Law of Evidence
- Jurisprudence
- Clinics I – DPC
- Intellectual Property Law
- Environmental Law
- Treaties and Negotiations
The courses available to the LL.M. students at Jindal are taught in English and are aimed at domestic Indian students earning their LL.B., a graduate law degree equivalent to the J.D. in the United States. Although the course titles do not explicitly use the word “Indian,” they are focused on Indian law in much the same way that a J.D.-oriented Corporations class at at U.S. law school will be focused on American corporation law.
Courses at Temple University Japan
- Business Planning for International Transactions
- Current Issues in Japanese Law
- East-West Negotiation
- International Contract Drafting
- International Intellectual Property
- International Law
- International Organizations
- International Protection of Human Rights
- International Taxation
- Guided Research
All of the above courses are commonly taught there. All except from Current Issues in Japanese Law are taught in English.
Examples of One-Year LL.M. Course Selections
For examples of the kinds of academic programs that students could assemble, please see the charts below. As one can see, our solid offerings in Philadelphia, combined with the richness of the offerings at the three Asian institutions, allows for students with strong yet diverse interests to tailor their course of study to those interests.
Beijing Option
Fall (Philadelphia)
Chinese Law
Guided Research
International Business Transactions
International Tax
Spring (Beijing)
Chinese Contract Law
Chinese Banking Law
Chinese Intellectual Property Law
Chinese Foreign Trade and Investment Law
Delhi NCR Option
Fall (Philadelphia)
Guided Research
International Compliance
International Criminal Law
International Law
Spring (Delhi NC)
International Law and Terrorism
[Indian] Constitutional Law
[Indian] Administrative Law and the Regulatory State
[Indian] Environmental Law
Tokyo Option
Fall (Philadelphia)
Chinese Law
Japanese Law
International Investment and Trade
International Commercial Transactions
Spring (Tokyo)
East-West Negotiations
Special Topics in Japanese Law
International Business Transactions
Guided Research