Given that my entire career revolves around LL.M. students, I tend to think of my life in academic years.
A lot can change in a year, especially for me and for the international LL.M. students who choose the United States for their graduate law studies.
The 2024-25 LL.M. class has wrapped up their studies. U.S. law schools are preparing for a new group of international LL.M. students in 2025-26. And a lot has changed from July 2024 to July 2025 in the U.S. and around the world.
27 Pieces and counting, closing out Year 3
I could pretend I had a grand plan when I started writing for the International Jurist in Fall 2022, but I won’t.
I had just arrived in Bali, writing four 1,500-word pieces over nine months seemed manageable.
According to the International Jurist website, I’m now at 27 pieces. Well, 28 when this one is posted.
ChatGPT’s take?
Not to write this piece, obviously, but to look back at those 27 pieces and see how I have evolved.
ChatGPT gave me a wealth of information. Which of my articles had the most impact for LL.M. prospects and students? Which one ruffled the most feathers? How do my International Jurist pieces compare in tone and messaging with my Beyond Non-JD blog posts and my LinkedIn persona?
I found ChatGPT’s comparison overview (below) helpful. I also asked ChatGPT how to cite this: Created with assistance from OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
My evolving place in the LL.M. information ecosystem
Each year, I believe LL.M. students have access to more information, which I consider a good thing. You may recall the International Jurist’s September 2022 piece, noting: Alter feels LL.M. programs have an “asymmetrical information problem, especially for foreign-educated lawyers and law students.
The post-COVID landscape of more events being hosted online has helped a lot. You no longer must be in the “right” city or have the “right” connections to learn about LL.M. programs.
Much of that has also been driven by former LL.M. students sharing their experiences and creating helpful content.
But social media continues to also transform the information process. RedNote, a popular app in China, has provided me with way more insights into the admissions, scholarship and waitlist processes than I had access to in any of my three U.S. law school jobs.
So, that begs the question: Where do I fit in the LL.M. information ecosystem? Are the things I wrote about on Beyond Non-JD beginning in 2020 and in the International Jurist beginning in 2022 the answer? No need to retread old ground.
But as more information becomes available, prospective students have a new problem, which is how to figure out what information is accurate and in what context to consider. Importantly, how to take all that information and apply it to individual situations, circumstances and goals.
Meeting the moment: My theme for Year 4
I selected my theme for Year 4 before I finally joined the ChatGPT bandwagon: Meeting the moment.
Why?
The U.S., U.S. higher education and U.S. legal education are in a state of transformative change. There are too many articles to cite here. But the common theme for me? How do these changes affect international LL.M. students?
Will the changes be an overall net positive? Net negative? Or will the status quo not really change for the 2025-26 class?
And which U.S. law schools and their LL.M. programs are innovating and evolving to meet the needs of their students in such a time of uncertainty? In short, which schools are “meeting the moment?”
In more than six pieces in 2025-26, I’ll take an upbeat (dare I say optimistic?) tone. I’ll highlight the people, institutions and programs, doubling down on their commitment to and support of international students. I’ll look at schools that are evolving into the LL.M. 3.0 landscape. I’ll have more on that term over the coming year.
I haven’t asked ChatGPT what it thinks about this next phase. But I’ll be curious what it tells me about myself when I feed it the six articles from 2025-26.
Because whether it’s in New York City, Shanghai, Gainesville, Bali or Chicago, my life and work still revolve around international LL.M. students.
And that means I’m already thinking about 2025-26, even from outside U.S. higher education.
