Freie Universität Berlin Fachbereich Rechtswissenschaft

Since April 1998, the Law Department at ‘Freie Universität Berlin’ offers a two-semester degree programme leading to a Magistra legum/Magister legum degree for law graduates and lawyers who have obtained their first law degree from a non-German university.

This Master programme provides students with an opportunity to learn the basic principles of the German legal system, its culture and its philosophical, social, economic and political foundations and to place this knowledge in the framework of the globalisation of the legal system.
The students will acquire theoretical and practical legal skills for their professional qualification.
Students will learn to recognise the differences and similarities between various legal systems and will acquire from this comparative approach the skill to develop new solutions for shaping the law. In this context, the aim of the thesis is to deepen the student’s understanding of his/her chosen area of law and connected legal problems.

Students must pursue 60 credits (cr.) of coursework throughout the year. 4 cr. for the LL.M. course “Introduction to the German law”, 15 cr. for the final thesis and oral examination and 6 cr. for the course of a four-week internship (in the term break between the first and second term). 32 cr. must come from a combination of two of the three general fields in German law (civil law, criminal law and public law) and 3 cr. from a course in legal philosophy, legal sociology, legal methodology or legal history.