One of the reasons CWRU School of Law’s International Law Program is ranked so highly is the school’s unique Concurrent Degree Program. A decade ago, CWRU School of Law established three Concurrent Degree Partnerships—with Middlesex University in London, Université Paris-IX Dauphine and Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid. Today, we are happy to announce the expansion of the program to two additional foreign law schools.
Every year, CWRU sends two law students to each of the three prestigious partner universities to obtain their LLM degree. CWRU counts that year abroad as the third year of the JD at CWRU, so the students graduate in three years with the foreign LLM and the CWRU JD degree at no extra tuition cost. For the past few years, a generous alum, Lew Winarsky (LAW ’72), has been providing funds to support our outbound Concurrent Degree students' travel and living expenses.
At the same time, each of these partner schools sends two students a year to attain the CWRU LLM Degree, bringing stellar foreign students to our program. After graduating, several of these foreign students have elected to take a U.S. Bar exam and practice law in the United States; others return to practice in their home countries.
Several of the CWRU graduates of the program have obtained jobs in the foreign countries where they received their Concurrent LLM degrees, including at foreign law firms (Jessica Turner), foreign branches of US law firms (Garo Yaghsezian), NGOs (Mackenzie Kern) and even teaching at a French university (Clare Shin). Others, such as Caroline Moore, Douglas Pilawa and Teresa Azzam, have leveraged their foreign degree and experience to help them obtain jobs at U.S. firms such as Jones Day and Squire Patton Boggs that specialize in international business or international arbitration.
In Jan. 2025, CWRU expanded this popular program when it entered into two new Concurrent Degree partnerships with Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Lille Catholic University School of Law in France.
CWRU School of Law has a special relationship with Canada, having established the Canada-U.S. Law Institute in 1976. CWRU Law School’s most notable Canadian alumni is Francois-Philippe Champagne (LAW '94), who has served as Canada's Foreign Minister and Minister of International Trade and is currently the Canadian Minister for Innovation, Science, and Industry. So, Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law was an ideal partner for the expansion of CWRU’s Concurrent Degree Program. Founded in 1883, Schulich is the oldest university-based common law school in Canada. It is ranked as the 6th best law school in Canada out of the 24 Canadian law schools and has several outstanding specialty areas and is especially known for its expertise in Marine and Environmental Law.
University of Paris - Dauphine has been one of our most popular Concurrent Degree destinations because many CWRU Law students want to build on their fluency in French. Consequently, adding another prestigious French partner university was a priority. Lille Catholic University School of Law, located in the north of France about an hour from Brugges, Belgium, was founded in 1875. Its faculty of law is ranked the 11th best in France out of 59 French law schools. Like our partnership with Dauphine, most of Lille’s courses are taught in English, but the immersion in French culture is the draw.
We welcome our two new Concurrent Degree partners!