Best corporate law schools: how to choose?

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Choosing the best corporate law school involves researching schools with strong business law programs, corporate law clinics, and job placement programs. Law schools offer a broad education, but some have a reputation for being predominantly corporate law schools. The strength of the faculty and reputation in the business community are also important factors to consider.

A career in corporate law always starts with a law degree, but different law schools tend to have stronger corporate law preparation programs than others. Choosing the best corporate law schools often involves research and persistence in asking questions. In most jurisdictions, law schools offer a uniformly broad education: schools rarely label themselves strictly corporate law schools. Still, schools with stronger business law offerings, corporate law clinics, and internship and job placement programs in the corporate sector often acquire a reputation in the legal market as being predominantly corporate law schools. Finding these schools is often a matter of assessing the market, interviewing professionals, and looking up alumni statistics.

Corporate legal training requires a broad understanding of the law. In many respects, law schools around the world are designed to provide this kind of fundamental breadth to all students, as the curriculum for most legal programs is more or less constant in each jurisdiction. For the most part, the purpose of legal training is to provide lawyers with in-depth knowledge that they can choose to apply to a variety of specialties.

It is rare for law schools to allow students to declare majors at school in the same way one would declare a degree at college or university. Still, many schools offer higher-level students the chance to take a certain number of electives. Corporate law schools offer a proportionately high number of courses in business entities, corporate tax, international finance, and other related subjects. Some schools also offer extensive corporate law clinics, internship programs and on-site contextual study opportunities for business-minded students. One of the ways to identify corporate law schools is to examine the breadth and depth of available business studies.

The strength of corporate law faculty is also often a way to identify the best corporate law schools. Many top law schools recruit former government attorneys and corporate consultants to large corporations to teach courses, either full-time or on a supplementary basis. The quality of corporate legal training provided by a professor with extensive national or international experience is often stronger than that provided by a professor who has only practiced corporate law at a local law firm.

Sometimes, the quality of a corporate law school can also be perceived by its reputation in the business community. In your search for the best school, it’s important to look at the schools where top companies and corporate-centric law firms recruit their new hires. Asking business professionals about different law school reputations for corporate readiness is a good place to start, as is examining a school’s course offerings. Speaking with law school admissions personnel can also often clarify whether a school simply offers corporate law classes or can truly be considered a corporate law school.




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