- Bucerius Law School
-
Bucerius Law School 
Main buildingEstablished 2000 Type Private law school Endowment annual budget of € 14.7 million (2009) President Karsten Schmidt CEO and Provost Hariolf Wenzler Academic staff 16 full-time; 30 part-time; 1 adjunct; 10 visiting Admin. staff 121 Students 557 (2008) Postgraduates 55 Doctoral students 247 (2010) Location Hamburg, Germany Campus Urban Address Jungiusstrasse 6
20355 Hamburg
GermanyColors bordeaux and white Nickname Butze Mascot Butzemann (Glassblower) Affiliations Joint MLB program with WHU Website www.law-school.de 
Bucerius Law School (pronounced [buˈtseʁius]) is a small, non-state university affiliated private law school located in Hamburg, Germany. The school is the first private law school in Germany and is often ranked as the best law school in the country.[1] It admits 100 bachelor students per year, who achieve very high results in the German Judicial Examination (Staatsexamen). Due to its high selectivity and students' placement in the German Judicial Examination, the school is regarded to be an elite institution for legal education and scholarship.
Contents
Origins and Structure
Bucerius Law School was founded in 2000 by one of Germany's largest foundations, ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius following the model of law schools in the United States, and bearing the name of Gerd Bucerius, a noted German judge, attourney, journalist, politician and founding publisher of Germany's leading weekly newspaper, Die Zeit. Organized as a non-profit GmbH, its mission statement is "Freedom of Thought - Academic Renewal - Social Responsibility".
The faculty consists of 16 full-time professors, three affiliate, one honorary and one emeritus professor. There are specific institutes for the law of foundations and non-profit organizations and for corporate and capital market law. The school attracts a large number of visiting scholars and speakers from all over the world and hosts conferences to various topics.
Programs of Study
The school offers two different degree programs of study: The general law program, leading to a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) and to the German First Judicial Examination (Staatsexamen), and the Master of Law and Business (M.L.B.) program. Moreover, it grants doctoral (Dr. iur.) and habilitation titles and offers two summer certificate programs.
LL.B. and Staatsexamen Program
The three-and-a-half-year LL.B. program is divided into ten trimesters. Afterwards, students focus on preparation for the German First Judicial Examination (the regular law degree) in order to be admitted to legal traineeship. The entire program lasts 4.5 years and includes a trimester or semester abroad at one of Bucerius' partner institutions.
Besides an extensive legal education, the school places special importance on the mandatory Studium generale as well as an emphasis on foreign languages and economics. Students are required to complete internships at law firms, businesses or organizations, many of which support the school as donators. Students are required to spend their seventh semester abroad and study law in a language other than German.
The school admits the best 100 students every year for the LL.B./Staatsexamen program. They are selected through a demanding written and oral admissions procedure. Most of the admitted students graduated at the top of their high school class. Over 10% of the students are national merit scholars, which is more than at any other German institution of higher learning. Approximately 80% of the Bucerius graduates achieve a distinction (Prädikat) in the German Judicial State Examination, a rate which is more than five times the national average.[2]
The tuition fee is 3,700 Euros per trimester, for a total of 12 trimesters. Financial aid includes scholarships, student loans and a "study first, pay later" system. Moreover, many students are recipients of external scholarships.
M.L.B. Program
The Bucerius/WHU Master of Law and Business is a consecutive Master's degree offered jointly by Bucerius Law School and theWHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management. Courses are mainly taught at the Bucerius campus.
Applicants must have a degree in either law, economics or business. The program aims at training international executives at the intersection of law and economics and strives to enable its students to analyse corporate issues from a legal and an economic perspective in an international context.
The program is taught in English and runs from the beginning of September to the end of July and is divided into three trimesters. In the Fall trimester (September to December), two course periods are held. The second trimester (January to April) comprises one course block and an eight-week internship. In the third trimester (May to July), students write their thesis following another course block.
The M.L.B. program admits 50 students a year in a separate admissions test. Tuition is 22,000 Euros.
Other Programs
Bucerius also offers doctoral and post-doctoral studies. During the Summer, there is a Summer School for International Law and an introductory law program.
Bucerius Law School has a Bucerius Summer Program in International Business Law, which was inaugurated in 2008, and in 2012 will additionally offer a Bucerius Summer Program in Mediation. Both intensive English-taught programs bring together students and professors from around the world to explore the theory and praxis of the given topic.
The school has formed extensive international programs with currently 94 law schools in 31 countries, including leading law schools in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom and France. Each Fall, about one hundred students from the partner universities visit the school during the International Exchange Program, 30 per cent of which are from the United States.
Extracurricular Activities
There are two student-run publications: A political magazine called “Politik und Gesellschaft“ and the Bucerius Law Journal. There is a choir, orchestra, big band, theater group, Model United Nations Society, six political student groups, Phi Delta Phi Inn and many sport clubs, whose teams compete against other universities in the annual "Champions Trophy." Moot Courts are offered in English law, international trade law and labor law.
Location and Facilities
On campus: the Auditorium (right) and the library (background)
Bucerius Law School is located in the center of the city, near Hamburg's trade exhibition center and the park Planten un Blomen. Housed in a historic building that used to serve as the horticulture and botany buildings for the University of Hamburg, Bucerius features a full service Mensa, or cafeteria, offering a variety of hot meals daily. A new library building with a capacity of 450 places was added to the Eastern side of the main building in 2007. The library comprises 76,000 books and 2,355 periodicals in printed and electronic form; it is not open to the public. There are several computer labs, a gym, a theater and an on-campus, bilingual (German/English) kindergarten.
Coordinates: 53°33′34″N 9°58′58″E / 53.55944°N 9.98278°E
See also
- Bucerius Kunst Forum
- Education in Hamburg
- List of universities in Germany
References
External links
Categories:- Educational institutions established in 2000
- Universities and colleges in Hamburg
- Law schools in Germany
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
