All LLM programs are twelve months in duration.
Students writing a long thesis must:
- Complete 8 credit hours of coursework, including the mandatory graduate seminar, Alternative Approaches to Legal Scholarship (3 credits, fall term), and
- Write a 16-credit thesis (approximately 150 pages or 45,000 words) under the supervision of a graduate faculty member.
Students writing a short thesis must:
- Complete 20 credit hours of coursework, including the mandatory graduate seminar, Alternative Approaches to Legal Scholarship,
- Write a 4-credit thesis (approximately 50 pages or 15,000 words) under the supervision of a graduate faculty member.
Students may elect to write a thesis with a variable number of credits (between 4 and 16), with the approval of the Associate Dean, Graduate Studies. The coursework credit load will be adjusted accordingly. Thesis-intensive LLM students will be invited to meet with the Associate Dean in late August or early September to discuss potential supervisors.
Candidates choose the remainder of their courses from those available in the JD program. Graduate students usually choose upper-year courses, seminars, and specialized and intensive courses, which often require the preparation of a research paper.
The coursework and the thesis will be graded on the graduate grading scale. You must obtain a B- or greater in every course and on the thesis.
All course selections are subject to approval by the Associate Dean, Graduate Studies. Students are encouraged to balance their courseload between the terms. We cannot guarantee that all your course selections will be assigned, although thesis-intensive students will get special consideration for courses in their area of research.
Note: An LLM does not qualify foreign-trained candidates to practise law in Ontario, and LLM students are not permitted to take courses from the first year JD program. For information about requalifying to practice law, please see NCA Options at the Faculty of Law.
