The Bocconi School of Law Flies to America
A big step forward in the internationalization of the Bocconi School of Law was recently undertaken. That is how we might define the outcome of a Bocconi delegation's recent participation at the annual event of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), held in Washington in early January. The Bocconi group was composed of the school's dean Pietro Sirena and faculty members Oreste Pollicino and Miriam Allena.
"The most important fact," Sirena explains, "is that we were invited as speakers, too. And it is an honor reserved for few non-American universities, very few if we consider only European institutions". The annual AALS meeting is the place where academic programs and cultural orientations are discussed and it is also "a great networking opportunity", Miriam Allena is quick to add, "and it gave us the opportunity to present our two masters, the LLM in Law of Internet Technology, launched in the 2018-2019 academic year, and the LLM in European Business and Social Law which will be active starting this fall". In addition to being a prestigious opportunity, since "this engagement with the international dimension is strategically very important", Oreste Pollicino argues, "and it also gives us a major practical advantage, that of being able to present our programs in a single place, rather than having to go around to individual universities." In Washington, in fact, in addition to potential students, there were also "the deans and department heads of various U.S. universities, so it is a fundamental recruiting channel for us", Sirena concludes.
But the growing internationalization of Bocconi's law school is not only attested by Bocconi's participation in the AALS conference, the director wishes to clarify, "but also by our entry as Institutional Member in the American Society of Comparative Law which publishes the American Journal of Comparative Law, where my name and Pollicino's will appear in the publication's masthead among the editors. It is a great recognition of Bocconi's value and a sign of esteem accorded by American academia."
Another objective that the School of Law has set for itself is to attract foreign students, considering the focus and language of Bocconi's two Masters of Laws. "Our five-year law degree," continues Pietro Sirena, "focuses on Italian law for 70% and European law for 30% of its teachings. Particularly important, European law is always taught in English. Graduate students who decide to enroll in either one of our two LLMs will attend the latter classes taught in English, thus increasing the internationalization factor in classrooms."