International Tax Program FAQ

The LLM in International Taxation, referred to as the International Tax Program (ITP), is a program for foreign-trained tax attorneys whose first degree in law was earned outside the US. Many ITP students are practicing tax attorneys in other jurisdictions who may intend to return to their home jurisdiction following completion of the LLM, or who may instead intend to sit for the New York bar exam and look for either short term or long term employment in the US. Students who have earned a JD from an ABA-accredited law school are not eligible to apply to the ITP, but may instead apply to one of our other programs graduate tax programs.

Students who have earned a JD in the US who wish to study international tax topics may do so through our full-time LLM in Taxation, part-time LLM in Taxation, Executive LLM in Taxation, or Advanced Professional Certificate in International Taxation.

Students who have not yet earned any law degree may apply to study tax with us as part of either our part-time online Master of Studies in Law in Taxation program (intended for experienced CPAs and other finance professionals) or our full-time, on-campus JD program. 

The ITP is a small program of approximately 20-25 students who are typically experienced tax attorneys from around the world who earned their first law degree in the US. The (full-time) LLM in Taxation program typically enrolls 60-100 students and is mostly composed of recent graduates of US JD programs who are looking for entry level jobs in tax law.  5-10% of the full-time LLM in Taxation students are foreign trained attorneys.  In both programs, students generally all get to know each other, but the ITP students typically feel very connected to each other due to the small size of their program.

The ITP has 17 credits of specific required tax courses, including a deal course which places students in small groups to negotiate a simulated cross-border transaction with the help of outside advisors from practice. The full-time LLM in Taxation degree requires a similar number of tax credits, but allows for much more flexibility in terms of which tax courses one takes. Both programs have significant events, but the ITP hosts about 13-14 small lunches each year which feature a range of exciting speakers. Past speakers have included senior officials from the US government and the UN, in-house tax lawyers for US multinationals, law professors, and law and accounting firm partners from around the world.

You can find the listing of ITP required courses here.

Many students find it convenient to live on campus in student housing. The campus is situated in Greenwich Village, a desirable neighborhood which is home to a mix of students and well-off New Yorkers. The center of the neighborhood is Washington Square Park.  The neighborhood has been home to many famous authors, artists, musicians, dancers, playwrights, and thinkers for many years.  Many important social movements have found their start in the Village. It is a great place to live, and students find it convenient to live nearby so that they can study together. Some students do live off campus and commute to the campus using the subway. New York City has many great neighborhoods.

Generally, yes, either program can be structured to allow a student to take both the required credits for those degree programs as well as the 12 credits of coursework required to “cure” a non-US law degree.  Unfortunately, no tax courses count towards the bar exam requirements, but up to four of those 12bar exam credits can be taken in the weeks prior to the start of the fall and spring semester, leaving only 8 bar-related credits to be earned during the fall and spring semesters.

It depends. In California, a licensed attorney may be able to sit for the bar exam without an LLM. In New York, an attorney with a common law education might be able to sit for the bar exam without the LLM.

The New York bar examiners require a prior non-US law degree to be both substantively and durationally equivalent to a US JD degree.  I.e., a common law degree that is at least 3 years in duration. An LLM can be used to cure one, but not both, of those issues.  Not all common law jurisdictions are deemed to suffice, however. Online degrees or courses are not deemed sufficient. The bar examiners will review your educational credentials to determine if you are eligible to sit for the bar exam or if you can “cure” your prior law degree with an LLM.  https://www.nybarexam.org/Foreign/ForeignLegalEducation.htm 

Many LLM students have a first law degree from a civil law jurisdiction and need to “cure” the substantive aspect of their degree by earning an on campus LLM within two years, and by taking 12 credits of coursework that meet the requirements of New York’s section 520.6 rule. 

No, the New York bar examiners do not recognize online classes or degree programs taken in the US or elsewhere as part of your first degree in law or as part of an LLM. 

In order to work at a law firm as an attorney, one must take and pass the bar exam, satisfy other requirements, and be sworn into the bar in the state in which they will practice. Each state within the US licenses attorneys separately. New York is one state that does allow foreign-trained attorneys to sit for their bar exam. California is another, if a student is already a licensed attorney in their home jurisdiction. The bar passage rates for foreign-trained attorneys in New York tend to be significantly higher in New York than in California.

The CA exam is three days long, while the New York (NY) uniform bar exam is two days plus an online NY-specific exam which one takes later on. The overall pass rate is much lower for the California bar than for the NY bar. In one recent year, the pass rates were 83% in NY and 63% in CA, just looking at JD test takers—not including LLMs. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-faigman-california-bar-exam-20181129-story.html   

Looking just at foreign trained attorneys, the pass rate for CA’s February exam was recently between 10.7---18%.  http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/FEB2019_CBX_Statistics.pdf     

The July offering’s pass rate for foreign-trained attorneys was a bit better: 13.1---18.8% http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/admissions/JULY2018_CBX_Statistics.pdf   

In NY, as many as 50% of all first time foreign-trained attorneys recently passed the bar exam: https://www.nybarexam.org/ExamStats/2018_NY_Bar_Exam_PassRates.pdf 

Some employers, such as the “big four” accounting firms, may have some positions where one is advising on foreign law and not US law—the “country desks” in New York, for example. These positions are generally short term and do not typically require bar exam membership since they do not involve advising on US law.  The accounting firms generally do want to see a bar membership or CPA (certified public accountant) license in order to progress within their organizations, however they tend not to care which state one  is licensed in. Law firms do require bar membership in their state in order to practice there.

Yes, after sitting for and passing the uniform bar exam, the New York law exam, and the multistate professional responsibility exam (MPRE), one must also pass a character and fitness review, perform 50 hours of pro bono legal services here or elsewhere, and either have worked for one year as a lawyer in your home jurisdiction or for six months after the LLM in a “law office.” We are not clear if an accounting firm practice would count as a “law office” for this purpose.

Generally the answer is "No," but it has been done. There are 17 required credits for the ITP, all of which are offered only during the daytime. Our part-time tax LLM program offers evening courses and fewer specific required classes. If one were to also try to satisfy the NY bar exam requirements at the same time as taking the ITP, that would entail completing all 29 credits in two academic years, per the bar examiners’ requirements, taking no more than four credits outside of the typical fall and spring semesters.