LLM Program

Business & Commercial Law
Our faculty include leaders in the fields of business and commercial law. Professor Kent Greenfield is among the pioneers in the so-called stakeholder school of corporate law, and his most recent publication, in a long list, argues that Corporations are People Too (And They Should Act Like It) for Yale University Press. His research crosses both constitutional law and corporations law. Professor Frank Garcia is an international trade and investment law scholar, and has made several foundational inquiries into the nature of these fields of law, most recently in Consent and Trade: Trading Freely in a Global Market (2018) with Cambridge University Press. Professor Brian Quinn is co-author of a leading M&A casebook, Mergers & Acquisitions: Law, Theory and Practice (West), alongside others, and blogs on legal developments in corporate governance and mergers & acquisitions at the M&A Law Prof Blog. Finally, Professor Natalya Shnitser is a leader in retirement security and the regulation of financial intermediaries.

Environmental Law
Environmental litigation pioneer Zygmunt Plater and international law scholar David Wirth headline our faculty in this area. Professor Plater was recently awarded, in 2019, the ABA’s Award for Excellence in Environmental, Energy, and Resources Stewardship, and the Kravchenko Environmental Human Rights Award. His book, The Snail Darter and the Dam (Yale University Press) recounts the story of a small endangered fish’s travels through the corridors of American Power. Professor Wirth’s extensive work in climate change accompanies a more than two decade-career in international environmental law. In addition, the BC Law Land & Environmental Law Program is a multi-dimensional program for JD and LLM students, designed both to train professionals and encourage service in law, policies and doctrines that work for the sustainability of land, air, and water resources. 

Human Rights
Our interdisciplinary Center for Human Rights and International Justice—co-directed by Daniel Kanstroom—together with a range of courses in our concentration in human rights law, seeks to nurture a new generation of human rights scholars and practitioners that can address issues of globalization and inequality, and other pressing contemporary issues. Professor Kanstroom’s work in immigration law includes several extensive monographs, including Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora (Oxford University Press 2012) and Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History (Harvard University Press 2007). Professor Katharine Young, who is also Associate Dean for Faculty and Global Programs, has undertaking award-winning study, Constituting Economic and Social Rights (Oxford University Press, 2012), which examines the constitutional or international human rights to health care, housing, education and social security. She has also published on women’s rights, including her co-edited collection, The Public Law of Gender (Cambridge University Press, 2016). The law school’s human rights courses include a Human Rights Practicum offered by Professor Daniela Urosa that addresses the Inter-American human rights system, and the interdisciplinary human rights seminar, a university-wide seminar.

Intellectual Property
Our exciting concentration covers topics in copyright, trademark, and patent law, and incorporates electives in antitrust law, cyber law, and technology licensing. Our faculty includes Professor Alfred Chueh-Chin Yen, who directs our program on Emerging Enterprises and Business Law. With Professor Liu, he has authored Copyright: Essential Cases and Materials, West Publishing in 2008. Professor Joseph Liu is focused in his work on the impact of digital technology on copyright law and markets. Finally, patent law and antitrust law scholar Professor David Olson examines the legal uncertainties in recent patent laws and the market behavior of actors with patent portfolios. He is currently Faculty Director for the Program on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 

Taxation
Some of the country's most influential tax law scholars give students an important grounding in US and international tax concepts —including Professor Diane Ring, who served as our law school’s Interim Dean from 2021-January 2023. Her work examines cross-border tax arbitrage and international tax relations, and she served as advisor to the United Nation’s 2014 project on tax base protection for developing countries, and the U.N.'s 2013 project on treaty administration for developing countries. She is also Vice Chair for the Tax Section Committee of Teaching Taxation of the American Bar Association. Professor James Repetti is the author of groundbreaking tax equity work, including leader and contributor to numerous treatises, including Comparative Income Taxation: A Structural Analysis. Professor Shu-Yi Oei has written extensively on tax policy, technology, data and information, human capital investment, and social insurance. The program also features a Tax Policy Workshop that showcases emerging scholarship in the field.

Other Course Options
With deep connections to Boston College’s Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy, the Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy, and other collaborations, the LLM program has developed significant strengths in constitutional law, including comparative constitutional law, gender and family law, international law, and legal history. LLM students can cross-register for courses in Boston College’s other graduate schools and university departments as well.

Use our Fusion search tool for full descriptions of current courses and to search our faculty by subject area.