Acquiring masters degree can be rewarding business

Changing by degrees implies slow growth, but not in postgraduate qualifications.

When the Legal Education Research Project surveyed law schools in the UK seven years ago, three in Scotland - one in old and two in new universities, reported no postgraduate academic courses.

All taught courses, both full and part-time, leading to postgraduate degrees in law were provided by old universities, although one new university offered a taught postgraduate mixed degree on both a full time and part time basis.

Now you can’t move for LL.M courses: three dozen at the last count.

They stretch from Aberdeen offering courses in Commercial Law, Property Law, European and International Law, Criminal Justice and Human Rights, to Strathclyde offering Human Rights Law, Construction Law, Commercial Law, and Information Technology and Telecommunications Law.

On top of this there are M.Sc courses in Criminal Justice and Criminology, and M.Phil and Ph.D research courses in law.

“LL.Ms and Ph.Ds concentrate on legal expertise which is very important as law develops, especially in specialist subjects,” said Neil Cochran, Convenor of Education and Training for the Law Society and chairman of Dundas & Wilson.

As if this were not enough, some lawyers are breaking out to take MBAs and a range of business courses. All of this, of course, is in addition to CPD and Law Society seminars.

What is going on? “In the Society we strongly support not saying: ‘I’ve got my degree, I have switched my brain off for a couple of years’,” said Douglas Mill, chief executive of the Law Society of Scotland.

“From age 50-plus there is a culture of not doing anything after your law degree. People are so bloody busy. It is knackering.”

So why the rush to go back to school? “When I was at university only a small minority of students did Honours,” said Professor Lorne Crerar, one of the founders and now managing partner of Harper Macleod. He is also part-time Professor in Banking Law at Glasgow University.

“If you want a good traineeship now you are going to have to have a good Honours degree. Once you are into your firm, people like us would be encouraging them to do a Masters and specialist qualifications.

“There are quite a lot of Masters degrees which are very focused on a particular subject.”

In fact, LL.M courses are becoming increasingly specialised. Perhaps the best example of this is Dundee University’s International Water Law Research Institute.

This offers postgraduate degrees in national and international water law and policy as well as specialised LLM degrees in environmental regulation and corporate governance for lawyers and non-lawyers.

A large part of its appeal is to international students and the Institute attracts students from more than 60 countries, including China, Namibia, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Uganda, and the United States, to study all natural resources and energy subjects.

The ability to attract - and charge - international students has undoubtedly fuelled the growth in the number of Masters courses and many of the subjects are not limited to Scots law.

Overall there are 400,000 postgraduate students across all subjects in the UK, accounting for 20% of university students and a 400% increase on 10 years ago. Overseas students, often with financial support from their governments, account for more than one in four of all postgraduate students.

A typical price for a one-year Masters course is just over £3,000. The full-time LLM in Commercial Law, offered by the Glasgow Graduate School of Law, which is a partnership between the Glasgow and Strathclyde universities, costs £2,805 a year but £7,300 for overseas students.

The fees for the M.Sc in Criminal Justice in the next academic year will be £3,600 for UK and EU citizens but £7,700 for non-EU students.

The LL.M in Human Rights Law is marketed with a quote from Nigerian lawyer and LLM student Fyanka Kasse Anthony: “The course will enhance my professional career and allow me to return to Nigeria with a far more informed sensitivity to human rights issues. I would encourage international students to consider this programme.”

Yet LL.Ms are not the most popular Masters degree. That accolade belongs to the MBA, the world’s most popular postgraduate degree, with around 90,000 MBA graduates in the US each year.

The UK has over 10,000 a year, making us the highest producer of MBAs outside North America. In the last 10 years the number of applications for MBAs in Britain has quadrupled.

This increase, though, has not come from lawyers. “I couldn’t name more than eight or nine lawyers in Scotland with an MBA,” said Mill, who was one of the first ‘ if not the first ‘ Scottish solicitor to take the degree in the 1980s.

“It is surprising how few of the big firms promote their rising stars. I think they take management for granted.

“The MBA gives insight. I absorbed over a three-year period what it would have taken 20 or 30 years to pick up in practice. Even if people are innately good at management they would be even better with these business skills. An LL.B and MBA is a stunningly strong brand.”

The latest career and salary survey by the Association of MBAs showed that the degree is a major path to senior management. MBAs, like LL.Ms, have developed a range of specialist courses and in the US they have even developed one for the medical profession.

Brian Allingham, who founded Allingham & Co 21 years ago before turning management consultant, did an MBA in Legal Practice at Nottingham Law School.

“It is a very specialised MBA delivered solely to lawyers and delivered largely by tutors who are primarily lawyers who have become managers or management consultants,” he said.

“While it is primarily aimed at medium-sized and larger firms, it would certainly be more than useful for anyone who was intending to be involved in the management of a law firm.

“I already had considerable management experience before I took the course, and I am glad to say that much of the course, which was very practical, confirmed what I already hoped was the case.

“However, I also learned a great deal of theory which has been very useful in my current business as a management consultant to law firms.”

He went on to take a Certificate in E-business from the Robert Gordon University’s virtual campus. “It was a useful introduction to e-business issues, such as e-marketing,  intranets,  extranets, etc, without leaving my computer desk except for a single written exam. It can be expanded into a diploma with additional modules.

“E-business is becoming more important for lawyers and this course would be useful for anyone with a little knowledge who wanted to explore the possibilities. However, it is mainly aimed at manufacturing industry, rather than service industries.”

Scotland has only two of the top 100 business schools in the world: University of Edinburgh Management School ranked at 77 and Strathclyde Graduate School of Business ranked at 89. The UK as a whole has only 12.

Professor Crerar took himself and three of his colleagues to Harvard Business School for one of its leadership courses, though he now thinks he underestimated Strathclyde. “I had always wanted to go to Harvard,” he said.

“I think the life experience was almost as important, being in a foreign jurisdiction and meeting people from all over the world.

 “The reason more lawyers are approaching MBAs is that law basically is a business like any other. Business skills are required. Some firms are trading beyond Scotland.

“One of the things that business lawyers will say is that we understand business. That sounds OK but it makes more sense if they actually know what they are talking about. We provide business skills training to our lawyers because they are important skills to have.”

If Master degrees were not enough, the next big thing may be a Doctorate in Business Administration, already being offered by the Henley Management College and Strathclyde Graduate School of Business.

However, although Strathclyde’s DBA programme has been running since 1988, it has only six students at one time.

“The technical side is something that all lawyers can offer,” said Cochran. “But the qualifications in service, ethics, client relationships and working as part of a team - you can find the MBA training will help with that.”