Master Program in Law

The Institute of Law initiated a Master of Law Program in order to address the immediate need in Palestine for better trained and educated lawyers. Until the year 1998/1999, all Palestinian lawyers had studied and obtained their law degrees at foreign law schools (mostly in Jordan , Lebanon , Egypt , and Syria ) and are not familiar with the peculiarities of the legal situation in Palestine . Therefore, the Program's primary focus will be law in Palestine . Graduates of the Program will become the legal experts of the future, and participate in the training of future generations of Palestinian law students.

Admission Requirements
Applicants must fulfill the following:

1. They must have satisfactorily completed a Bachelors of Law or an acceptable equivalent at a University approved by Birzeit.

2. They must demonstrate success in a legal reasoning exam and sit for an interview with the admissions committee.

3. They must demonstrate study of either English or French equivalent to 400 class hours (be ready for the Michigan Placement Test), and also must demonstrate proficiency through a general exam in one of these languages.

Program Requirements
The program requires student to finish 36 credit hours to obtain the degree of Master in Law. Students must take 30 credit hours of class work and complete their studies by completing 6 credit hours either as writing a Master's thesis on an advanced legal topic in the field of Commercial Law or enrolling in two seminars. The credit hours are divided as follows:

a. Core Courses (15 credit hours)

Students must finish 15 credit hours out of the following:

MLAW634 History of Legislation in Palestine 1

MLAW635 History of Legislation in Palestine 2

MLAW639 Applied Legal Methodology

MLAW636 Law of Contract

MLAW637 Private International Law

b. Elective Courses (15 credit hours)

Students must finish 15 credit hour divided as follows:

1-General Elective Courses (3 credit hour)

MLAW638 Administrative Law

MLAW631 Public International Law

MLAW632 International Organizations

MLAW633 Adjudication and Enforcement in Public International Law

2-Specific Elective Courses (9 credit hours)

Students must finish 9 credit hours out of the following:

MLAW731 Company Law

MLAW622 Accounting

MLAW623 Banking Law

MLAW624 International Trade Law

MLAW625 Special Commercial Contracts

MLAW724 Regional Integration Law

MLAW725 Labor Law

MLAW729 Special Topics in Law

3-Skills (3 credit hours)

Students must complete 3 credit hours out of the following:

MLAW611 Applied Information Technology (legal information systems)

MLAW612 Legal Terminology (English)

MLAW613 Legal Terminology (French)

MLAW711 Legal Drafting

MLAW712 Legal Case-Studies

c. Research Component: Student must chose between Track "A" and "B".

Track A: Thesis MLAW680 (6 credit hours)

Track B: ( Non Thesis ) Two Seminars MLAW830 and MLAW831 (6 credit hours)