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The Center for Tax Law & Employee Benefits
Degree Writing Requirement
Every LLM and MS degree candidate in both the Graduate Tax Law Programs and Graduate Employee Benefits Programs must complete the degree writing requirement with their program director before graduation. Diplomas will only be awarded to those degree candidates whose papers are published or deemed publishable.
To complete this requirement, degree candidates must do the following:
- Present a topic for faculty approval no later than the end of the fourth week of the semester;
- Submit an outline of the paper no later than the end of the sixth week of the semester;
- Provide a rough draft of the paper no later than the end of the eighth week of the semester;
- Provide a second and final draft of the paper no later than the end of the twelfth week of the semester.
The completed work must demonstrate original analysis, significant research, be well organized, carefully presented, and clearly written.
The scope of permissible research topics is broad, including:
- A public policy issue
- A critique of a leading case or doctrine
- A comment on a statute or the need for statutory modification
- A comment on a common employee benefits law doctrine
LLM Writing Requirement
An LLM candidate must satisfy the requirement by writing either:
- a paper of law review quality of at least 20 pages, properly footnoted according to Blue Book form
- an approximately 10-page article suitable for publication in a practitioner journal, properly footnoted according to the journal’s standards.
MS Writing Requirement
An MS candidate must satisfy the requirement by writing a paper of at least 20 pages of a quality consistent with the demands of master’s level work, properly annotated according to an accepted academic convention.
General Requirements
Your paper should be typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides, and set in 12-point, Times New Roman font. Additionally, page numbers must be included in the footer, and all endnotes must be in cardinal numbers.
