Top 10 Law Schools in the World
Studying law abroad is an option for students aspiring to pursue law as a career. If you wish to practice in India, it is important to know which of the foreign universities are recognised by The Bar Council of India prior to applying for the courses. The several advantages of studying Law abroad include exposure to different cultures, broadening your mind-set and enriching your personality as a whole. It will expose you to a variety of subjects that might not have been on offer in your home country and will in general be a great learning experience. It will also provide country-specific experiences, which will be useful if you intend to practise in that country.
Law in the United States is a post graduate course, unlike in the United Kingdom, Australia and India where it can also be studied as an undergraduate program. The Universities mentioned below offer Masters’, Doctorate and Research Programs in Law. The universities in the US and Australia offer Juris Doctor (JD), which is recognised in US and Australia. Both the LLB and JD are recognised law degrees in Australia.
Several scholarship options are available too.
These are some of the best Law Schools across the world:
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest continuously running law school in the world, and is amongst the prestigious Ivy League colleges. It has a large student body, and offers a wide variety of courses.
The admission requirements are the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) or Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores, all university transcripts, two letters of recommendation, a resume, and a personal statement.
Yale Law School
Yale Law School is located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, and is also among the Ivy League colleges. It has a small student community, and is probably suitable for those wishing to enter academia.
For admission, LSAT scores, all university transcripts, two letters of recommendation, a resume, and a personal statement are required.
Stanford University
Located in Stanford, California, it is among the world’s top law colleges. In Stanford, student collaboration is encouraged, as opposed to an emphasis on independent learning. This results in an atmosphere where everyone tends to look out for each other. Students have a lot of choices in picking their courses, and can create their own joint degrees.
For admission, LSAT scores, all university transcripts, two letters of recommendation, a resume, and a personal statement are required.
New York University (NYU)
Located in New York, the university is known for International Law and Public International Law. Those interested can get joint degrees from not only other graduate programs in NYU, but also through institutions such as Princeton and Harvard.
LSAT scores, all university transcripts, two letters of recommendation, a resume, and a personal statement are required for the admission process.
University of California, Berkeley
Located in Berkeley, California, UC Berkeley is great for those wishing to study Intellectual Property, Environmental or International Law.
For admission, LSAT scores, all university transcripts, two or three letters of recommendation, a resume, and a personal statement are required.
Faculty of Law, Columbia University
It is located in New York City, New York, United States. It is well known for its strength in Corporate Law, and several of its graduates have been placed in the country’s elite law firms.
For admission, LSAT scores, all university transcripts, two or three letters of recommendation, a resume, Dean’s letter (if applicable), and a personal statement are required.
 Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge
It is situated in Cambridge, England. The university offers both undergraduate and post-graduate courses. The University’s one-year LLM program consists of four classes and a number of general courses that students can choose according to their interests. The undergraduate law course is a three-year BA Tripos degree, and is offered in 29 out of the 31 colleges in Cambridge. The course is flexible, in the sense that students may combine law with another subject.
For applying to the undergraduate program, International students need to submit a UCAS application, a Supplementary Application Questionnaire, a Cambridge Online Preliminary application, and academic transcripts.
For the LLM program, the applicant must have a first-class degree in law, IELTS or TOEFL scores, letters of recommendation and a resume.
Oxford University
It is located in Oxford, England. The undergraduate course is a BA in Jurisprudence as opposed to an LLB, but all Oxford Law courses qualify as a qualifying law degree. It is a four-year course.
For applying to the undergraduate program, applicants need to submit a UCAS application, may have to write an admission test, along with essays.
Oxford has two main post-graduate programs; the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL), which is designed for students from a legal background, and a Magister Juris (M Jur.), which is designed for students from a non-legal background. Academic transcripts, written work, three letters of recommendation, a resume, and a personal statement are required for application.
London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE)
Located in London, England, LSE’s LLM is a leading programme ranked first overall in the UK in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014. It offers courses with international, comparative and interdisciplinary approaches. Courses are offered in a broad range of fields including arbitration, human rights, international law, corporate, commercial and financial law.
The undergraduate law degree offered is a BA in Anthropology and Law. Applicants must submit a UCAS application, a personal statement and references from teachers.
Admission to the LLM program are open to those who have an undergraduate degree in law. IELTS scores, references from teachers and a personal statement are required.
Melbourne University of Law, University of Melbourne
Located in Melbourne, Australia, it is regarded the best law school in the Southern Hemisphere. The program teaches law through an international perspective and the focus is on globalisation. The class sizes are small, with 60 students per class. The University offers a joint degree from Oxford, so students have the option of pursuing a part of their degree at Oxford.
The programs offered are JD, LLM, Ph. D and LLD degrees.
For admission, LSAT scores and all university transcripts are required.
