Description

This program is designed to provide a solid foundation in the methodology as well as the substantive and procedural rules of the common law tradition. It is particularly well-suited for jurists trained in the civil law tradition who wish to understand the foundational elements of the common law tradition in a global context where lawyers with civil law and common law backgrounds regularly interact.

As such, the program helps its students hone their cultural intelligence in a way that is responsive to the challenges raised in today’s legal context. Thanks to its bijural environment, where both the civil law and the common law are taught, the Faculty is uniquely positioned not only to provide civilian jurists with this foundational common law training, but also to assist them in developing an in-depth understanding of the methodological, legal, and cultural assumptions underlying common lawyers’ modes of reasoning and attitudes.

The Comparative Common Law LL.M. intends to meet the training needs of jurists and foreign students interested in a program that considers the globalization of exchanges, the economic integration of the Americas, and the specific legal needs arising from those events. With a theorical, critical, and pragmatic approach, the program will include various educational methods including lectures, seminars, and problem-based learning.

Objectives

The Comparative Common Law LL.M. program includes a final paper requirement that has a twofold purpose:

• Broaden common law knowledge in a stimulating environment combining theory and practice;
• Through the completion of a thesis, develop one’s ability to undertake and execute a research project in a specific field.

Strengths

In terms of some of its characteristics, such as the number of professors, students and programs, the Faculty of Law is the largest in Quebec and Canada. It has roughly 60 tenured professors who, with support from multiple legal practitioners, teach to roughly 1,300 registered students in the three levels of university studies, nearly one third of whom are doing graduate studies in our various programs. Most students are attending full time.

Therefore, the Faculty offers a comprehensive, varied legal education paving the way to the practice of law as well as to careers where knowledge of the law is a major asset.

The Faculty is a learning and research environment that goes back more than a century and that, over the years, has made a significant contribution to the development of the law and to the recognition of law as an academic discipline. Contained within an independent pavilion that houses a comprehensive library and a computer laboratory, it directs its priorities towards the challenges facing legal experts of the future.

Programs to explore

Applicants interested in this program also applied to the following programs: