A Master of Laws (LLM) or a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) provides law graduates with a specialist postgraduate qualification. Postgraduate study can give students a more sophisticated understanding of the law in its wider context to enhance their abilities in their intended area of practice, scholarship or policy work. These degrees provide the opportunity to gain more specialist knowledge in a field, and a strong basis for future research.
Postgraduate study at UTS Law
Many UTS:Law students come back to UTS: Law for their postgraduate degrees. The UTS Master of Laws (LLM) offers postgraduate coursework in three areas of specialisation; corporate and commercial law, intellectual property and dispute resolution. The LLM by coursework can provide you with specialist expertise that you might not have been able to obtain in your first law degree. This may allow you more successfully to position yourself for further postgraduate studies overseas, and attain scholarships funding and other elite opportunities.
Postgraduate studies overseas
Many law graduates from UTS pursue an LLM or PhD at an overseas university, to experience life in a foreign country and be exposed to a different legal culture and educational environment. Competition can be fierce for places in these postgraduate programs, especially at elite institutions in North America and Europe. If you are interested in pursuing postgraduate study abroad, you should consider your options early. You may wish to choose particular electives in your LLB/JD, or seek out paid or voluntary professional positions in order to position yourself as an outstanding candidate with a particular field of expertise on which you wish to build. The application processes, themselves, can be extremely rigorous and you should familiarise yourself with the requirements and timeframes with plenty of time to spare.
Consider the following issues before applying:
- Think carefully about the benefits of studying in a particular location or at a particular university and explain your commitment to this choice in your application.
- Consider sending a polite email to an academic at the institution with whom you wish to work to ask whether they would supervise your thesis, if you were accepted. If you impress them with your capacity for independent research and they agree, you might note this in your application to the university.
- Ask around to better understand how the particular university or faculty reviews applicants for admission to their postgraduate programs – often it is not just about marks but about showing your flair in a particular area of inquiry.
- Most universities provide some level of financial support.
Funding your overseas postgraduate studies
There are many scholarships available to fund Australian students’ postgraduate studies at universities overseas. These are often highly competitive and so it is important to plan ahead to give yourself plenty of time to understand the requirements of the scholarship, complete several draft applications and secure letters of reference from experts in the field who are familiar with your work. You might make initial inquiries about funding opportunities well over a year before the date on which you hope to begin your degree.
Funding bodies (including universities) award scholarships on the basis of a multitude of factors. These may include not only the quality of your academic transcript but also your track record of community involvement, leadership skills and work experience etc. Many require a personal statement which tells a compelling story about your intended professional trajectory and how it would benefit from the particular postgraduate study program at that institution.
Here are some tips for positioning yourself for a postgraduate scholarship:
- Check the eligibility requirements first - naturally you should only dedicate time to scholarship applications for which you qualify.
- Check application dates well in advance - applying for these scholarships can take months. You may need to obtain official transcripts from all the universities where you have studied, as well as personalised letters of recommendation from academics or workplace supervisors, so it is important to allow sufficient time.
- Make sure you know the criteria for each scholarship, and attitude of the committee which awards it. Read between the lines to understand what sort of candidate each scholarship is looking to support. Try to speak to former successful recipients, including alumni of UTS or members of UTS Law Faculty.
- Refine your personal statement. This is not simply an account of your strengths but should be pitched differently depending on the unique focus of each scholarship. Do not simply draft one statement and send this to multiple universities or scholarship committees. Your statement needs to distinguish you from other applicants, demon strate exceptional written communication skills and contain concrete examples which support your claims about your skills, experience and personal values. There is an art to drafting these and you should seek as much feedback as possible before submitting your application.
- Refine a proposed area of study or thesis research question. Your account of your proposed research should demonstrate familiarity with the field and contain a statement of the original contribution you wish to make. There should be obvious links between your proposed area of study and your previous work experience, volunteer work or program of study to show a clear professional trajectory.
- Proofread your application several times to make sure it is free from the smallest typographical error.
- References are vital to your application. An academic will be able to provide a much more detailed account of your strengths if you have undertaken an Honours research thesis under their supervision, taken one of their electives or have served as their research assistant. For further information on the research thesis, see here. For further information on becoming a research assistant.
- Information about scholarships available for postgraduate studies at UTS