Hone Your Legal Expertise at CWRU
If you’re looking to excel as a legal expert and have already earned an LLM degree, Case Western Reserve University School of Law’s Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) for internationally educated students is an excellent fit.
The SJD offers advanced academic study of law and is highly individualized and tailored to your aspirations. The program will train you for positions of leadership in academia, research or policymaking upon graduation.
Degree Requirements and Dissertation Process
The International SJD typically takes three to five years to complete. As a student, you’ll:
- Work with CWRU’s distinguished faculty members on writing a substantial piece of scholarship of publishable quality
- Have access to classes from across the law school and the university’s many offerings
- Be eligible for scholarship support
During the first two years of the program, your thesis advisor may require you to take courses applicable to your thesis topic. By the end of your first year of SJD coursework, you must submit a final thesis proposal, including the introduction, background, literature survey and preliminary annotated outline.
Following approval of your thesis topic, you must appear before the committee to defend your thesis. The completed thesis must be of a publishable quality.
The school is well regarded internationally, and its curriculum provided exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a deep understanding of the U.S. legal system to build a strong foundation for comparative legal research. I'm very grateful I chose Case Western Reserve University.”