On August 6, Cornell Law School welcomed 103 students representing 26 countries by citizenship to Orientation for the General LL.M. (Master of Laws) Class of 2027. The average age of the class is 25 and 56 percent of the students have prior legal experience, ranging from senior associates and law clerks to in-house counsel and prosecutors.

Orientation programming includes introductory courses, seminars, tours of the Law School, resource fairs, and graduate and professional development networking events, along with opportunities to venture across campus and explore Ithaca and the surrounding area.

Aimée Houghton, Associate Dean for Graduate Legal Studies, encouraged the students to “take advantage of your time here to not only broaden your legal studies, but connect with faculty and classmates.” She added, “You will all gain new perspectives during your law studies and leave here transformed with friendships that span the globe.”

In his welcome address, Jens Ohlin, Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law, emphasized the participatory and transnational character of a Cornell legal education. He told students that they arrive at Cornell as experts in their own legal systems and that their experiences and perspectives will be essential to the classroom.

“When you’re in the classroom, you are going to provide as much as you receive in wisdom,” Ohlin said. He encouraged students to bring “every ounce of energy, creativity, and presence” to their classes and to learn from one another as well as from the faculty.

Ohlin also encouraged students to leave room in their academic plans for unexpected discoveries and connections. He told them that seeing Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey over the summer had prompted him to think about Ithaca, where he has lived and worked since 2008, and about the students’ own intellectual journey. In Odysseus’s long journey back to Ithaca, Ohlin saw not simply a physical return home, but a “journey of learning” that changed both how Odysseus understood the world and his place in it.

Ohlin asked students to carry that idea with them during their year at Cornell, thinking about what they want the global legal culture to look like and their own role in shaping it. “What is your contribution, your singular contribution that only you can do to the legal system?” he asked. “Always remember,” he concluded, “you’ll be Cornell lawyers forever.”

The one-year LL.M. graduate program is designed for internationally trained attorneys and recent law school graduates who have already earned a first professional degree in law outside the United States. Through the program, students deepen their understanding of American legal principles while further developing their areas of legal specialization.