LLM in Corporate Governance & Practice
The Master of Laws (LLM) in Corporate Governance & Practice offers rigorous academic and professional training in corporate governance and transactional legal practice. This specialized program seeks to provide foreign business and transactional lawyers with a broad base of expertise in such areas as accounting, bankruptcy, corporations, finance, mergers and acquisitions, securities, tax, and venture capital that they can use when they return to law practice, most often in their home countries. So too, they may apply to the JSD program at Stanford (or elsewhere) with the goal of pursuing research in these fields. Candidates admitted to the program will undertake an individually tailored sequence of courses, primarily from among the Law School’s corporate and business-related courses.
The LLM in Corporate Governance & Practice is limited to students with a primary law degree earned outside the United States. Except under unusual circumstances, candidates must have at least two years of professional legal experience before commencing the LLM program.
LLM students are required to be in residence at Stanford during the full (nine month) academic year. They are required to take a minimum of 35 credit units and a maximum of 45 credit units.
Note to applicants:
The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program awards up to three years of funding to Stanford graduate students from all disciplines, with additional opportunities for leadership training and collaboration across fields.
Applications for the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program are due in early Autumn, one year prior to enrollment. View dates and deadlines. You can also sign up for Knight-Hennessy Scholars email alerts to stay up to date on the availability of their online application.
Courses
Candidates for the LLM in Corporate Governance and Practice must successfully complete each of the following courses:
- Introduction to American Law
- Professional Responsibility
- Corporate Governance and Practice Seminar I
- Corporate Governance and Practice Seminar II
- Corporations
- Strongly encouraged, but optional (required for the New York Bar): Advanced Legal Writing
In addition, LLM Corporate Governance and Practice students must successfully complete at least four (4) of the following courses, depending on offerings and availability (not all courses are offered every year). The following classes represent the core of the Corporate Law curriculum at Stanford. Note that 1) You are especially encouraged to take courses on corporate finance and accounting. 2) Some of the courses below may have prerequisites or limited enrollment, requiring you to lottery for the class or to otherwise obtain the instructor’s consent. Please consult the course descriptions on the Law School course catalog at https://law.stanford.edu/courses/. 3) At the discretion of the CGP Teaching Fellow, law school classes not on this list that relate to business law may be counted towards fulfillment of these requirements. 4) You may not count blockchain or cryptocurrency courses toward these requirements.
- Accounting
- Advanced Contracts: Commercial Transactions
- Advanced Negotiations: Transactions
- Advanced Legal Writing: Business Transactions
- Advanced Legal Writing: High-Tech Transactions
- Antitrust (and Advanced Antitrust)
- Banking Law
- Bankruptcy
- Big Tech, Market Concentration, and U.S. Antitrust Policy
- Business, Social Responsibility, and Human Rights
- China Law and Business
- Comparative Corporate Law and Governance
- Comparative Venture Capital: China
- Complex Litigation through a Securities Lens
- Contracts: American Law
- Corporate Finance (and Advanced Corporate Finance)
- Corporate Governance Matters – Shareholder Activism, Hostile M&A, and Control of the Company
- Corporate Income Taxation
- Corporate Reorganization
- Corporate and Securities Litigation
- Creating Value: Private Equity, Venture Capital and Entrepreneurism
- Data Privacy: From GDPR to AI and Beyond
- Deals I/II (counts as a single course)
- Deals in Latin America
- Derivatives
- Economic Analysis of Law
- Global Business Law (and Policy)
- Global Capital Markets/Global Financial Markets
- Global Corporate Governance
- Global Litigation
- International Business Transactions, Regulation and Litigation
- International Business Negotiation
- International Commercial Arbitration
- International Deals
- International Investment Law
- International Securities Regulation
- International Tax
- Introduction to Law and Economics
- Introduction to Financial Institutions
- Introduction to Finance
- Law and Economics Seminar I/II (counts as a single course)
- Leadership Vacuums in Government and Business: Law and Strategy of Temporary Leaders
- Mergers and Acquisitions
- Negotiations
- Partnership Tax
- Private Equity
- Real Estate Transactions
- Securities Litigation
- Securities Regulation
- Startup Law
- Taxation
- Tax Policy
- Tech Mergers and Acquisitions
- The Role of the General Counsel
- Transnational Litigation and Arbitration
- Venture Capital
- Venture Funds: Structuring, Advising, and Regulation
- White Collar Crime
You are welcome and encouraged to take classes offered by other schools and departments at Stanford University outside of Stanford Law School.
You may count a maximum of 9 units of non-law classes towards your L.L.M. degree. However, if you are planning to seek admission to the New York Bar, you should ensure that you have taken at least 32 units at the law school. If a non-law course is on this list, it has been pre-approved for law credit. If not, you will need to complete a petition for non-law credit. You can find physical copies of this petition in the Registrar’s office and digital copies on the Registrar’s website.
You can find descriptions and schedules for all Stanford classes at http://explorecourses.stanford.edu and you may browse syllabi for many of those courses at http://syllabus.stanford.edu. Please refer to individual course descriptions for more information on prerequisites, suggested background prior to enrolling, and enrollment restrictions. Note that individual departments and schools set their own requirements for cross-registration.
Faculty Supervisor
Related Programs
Corporate Governance & Practice LLM candidates have the opportunity to participate in several Law School programs of academic and professional interest. The Program in Law, Economics and Business, launched in 2003, builds upon the strengths of two of Stanford Law School's most respected programs, the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics and Corporate Governance, and the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance.