College: Law School
Designation: Interdisciplinary program
Major: Legal Institutions
Degrees Offered: M.L.I.
Faculty: Law School Faculty--Professors Davis (dean), Althouse, Barkan, Brito, Carstensen, Charo, Church, Clauss, Clune, Dickey, Erlanger, Greene, Hendley, Irish, Kaplan, Kidwell, Klug, Komesar, Larson, Macaulay, McEvoy, Mertz, Nourse, Palay, Rogers, Schultz, Schwartz, Smith, Thain, Thompson, Trubek, Tuerkheimer; Associate Professors Mitchell, Monette, Ohnesorge, Ossorio, Weisbard; Assistant Professors Christians, Desai, Sharafi, Quraishi, Tai, Yackee
The master of legal institutions (M.L.I.) program is a course-based master's degree program in law for students who already have a first degree in law (usually the LL.B. degree, but in some cases a J.D. or comparable degree offered by a non-U.S. law school). The M.L.I. is typically for individuals trained in the law of a country other than the United States and is not available to persons who already hold a J.D. degree from a law school in the United States. Students who complete the M.L.I. degree may be eligible to take the New York Bar examination. For general information about bar examinations in different states, see www.ncbex.org .
The M.L.I. program provides an opportunity for the study of law from interdisciplinary perspectives. Most of the professors and instructors for the M.L.I. program teach at the Law School. Information about the professors and the law courses offered can be found on the Law School's Web site, www.law.wisc.edu . When students take courses outside the Law School's curriculum, they will have professors and instructors from departments such as economics or sociology, etc., or from the School of Business. For information about non-Law School courses, the interested applicant is advised to check that department's Web site.
The M.L.I. program usually has around 30 students in each year's entering class. Students in recent years have come from Albania, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Republic of China (Taiwan), Rwanda, People's Republic of China, Switzerland, Thailand, and Vietnam. Representative areas of students' interests vary widely and have included, for example, international trade and business, intellectual property law, human rights law, comparative tort systems, and comparative criminal law procedures.
Additional information about the M.L.I. program is available at www.law.wisc.edu/grad/mli.htm .
Applicants should have a first degree in law (usually the bachelor of laws; in some cases, the J.D. (non-U.S.)) or equivalent from their home country. In the case of applicants from universities where the greater part of instruction is not in English, proof of high proficiency in English is required. This is ordinarily demonstrated by a score of between 237-250 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) computer-based test or at least a 92 on the Internet-based TOEFL (iBT), or a score of 7 on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam.
In cases where applicants have TOEFL scores lower than 237/92 on the TOEFL, admission to the M.L.I. program may still be possible conditioned on the successful completion of intensive English work previous to entry at the university.
The M.L.I. program has fall and spring entry. Twenty-four credits of course work, including 3 credits of research, are required, and these may be completed in one academic year. The program can be extended by an additional semester to accommodate students who wish to have a somewhat longer time period for their studies. M.L.I. candidates are expected to be self-financed. The deadline for applications, including all related documentation, is February 1 for fall entry and October 1 for spring entry.
Applicants are not required to take the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) or the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) for admission into the M.L.I. program.
To be considered for admission, applicants must provide to the Graduate Admissions Office at the Law School (the "department") the following:
For more information: Ms. Ethel Pellett, Program Assistant, Graduate Admissions Committee, Law School, Room 4312, 975 Bascom Mall, Madison, Wisconsin 53706; 608/262-9120; fax 608/265-2253; gradprog@law.wisc.edu; gradprog@law.wisc.edu; www.law.wisc.edu/grad.