Marquette University's Board of Trustees has approved the offering of a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Sports Law for those with non-U.S. law degrees. This is the first graduate degree in Sports Law offered by a United States law school. The program, offered in conjunction with Marquette's internationally renowned National Sports Law Institute, provides lawyers trained at foreign law schools with both theoretical and practical education concerning legal regulation of the United States amateur and professional sports industries as well as Olympic sports.
The LL.M. degree requires students to complete a minimum of 22 credit hours, including a major research paper on an international or comparative sports law topic, during a nine-month period of academic residence at Marquette University Law School, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A. Required courses include Amateur Sports Law, Professional Sports Law, two sports law elective courses, and an LL.M. Directed Research Project on an international or comparative sports law issue/topic. Students also take two general elective courses from the Law School's civil litigation and dispute resolution, business and commercial law, employment law, and intellectual property law.
Marquette University Law School offers the nation's most comprehensive Sports Law curriculum, which attracts J.D. students from throughout the country. The LL.M. program makes Marquette's Sports Law curriculum available to lawyers who have earned a law degree from an accredited foreign law school. It enables foreign lawyers to earn a specialized post-graduate law degree in sports law that also develops knowledge and skills with general application outside the sports industry. In particular, an individual who earns the LL.M. in Sports Law degree will be able to:
- Understand how amateur, professional, and Olympic sports are regulated by the United States legal system, which will enhance one's ability to make comparisons with the legal regulation of sports in one's home country.
- Understand the key historical, sociological, economic, and public policy issues influencing the development of American sports law.
- Understand the different internal processes for regulating amateur, professional, and Olympic sports within the United States.
- Understand how various areas of American public law, particularly antitrust and labor law, shape and constrain the internal regulatory authority of private sports leagues and organizations.
- Use this knowledge effectively in matters involving American sports organizations, leagues, and athletes.
- Understand the international legal environment applicable to sport.
- Identify and understand policy issues affecting the legal regulation of sport and resolve legal problems from both a theoretical and a practical perspective.
Marquette University Law School currently does not offer this program for graduates of American law schools.
International Sports Law Resources
U.S. Legal Research for International LL.M. Students: Introduction and Select Materials