Cross-Border Legal Studies Concentration
The School of Law is situated close to the Canadian border with the major business center of Toronto only two hours away.
We have a strong network of alumni based in Buffalo and in Ontario who engage in cross-border legal practice. These lawyers engage in the full range of cross-border work, including trade, tax, immigration, business transactions, and related areas that take them across the border regularly.
The Cross-Border Legal Studies Concentration capitalizes on our location and our linkages on both sides of the border. We engage with cross-border legal issues both in action and in the classroom to impart skills that students can then apply to cross-border work anywhere in the world.
Apply
To apply for a Concentration or Curricular Program, please submit an online application.
Requirements
The Cross-Border Legal Studies Concentration requires 15 course credits. There is one required course, the Cross-Border Legal Studies capstone course (which counts towards the JD and LLM experiential learning requirements), in which students will work with practitioners on a range of cross-border legal issues. In addition, students must take at least 12 elective credits selected from the list of eligible courses below.
Required Course
- Cross-Border Legal Studies capstone
(In 2025-2026 the fall course Cross-Border Dispute Resolution will be required in lieu of the usual Spring capstone)
Eligible Courses (not all courses offered every year)
- Accounting for Lawyers
- Acquisition and Restructuring
- Acquisition Transactions
- Advanced Commercial Arbitration
- Antitrust
- Bankruptcy
- Business Associations
- Business Basics for Lawyers
- Business Immigration
- Business Litigation
- Civil Procedure or Contracts (Cross-Border Legal Studies LL.M. students only; neither of these courses count as eligible electives for J.D. students)
- Commercial Arbitration
- Commercial Contracts
- Commercial Litigation
- Commercial Transactions
- Conflicts of Law (2025 graduates only)
- Copyright
- Corporate Compliance Conduct
- Cross-Border Dispute Resolution
- Entrepreneurship Clinic
- Estate and Gift Tax
- Estate Planning
- Externship/Internship (if related – by permission)
- Federal Courts
- Federal Income Taxation
- Federal Income Taxation 2
- Finance Transactions
- Financial Analysis and Reporting
- Financial Institutions
- The Global Business Environment – Closing a Deal Across the U.S.-Canada Border
- Gratuitous Transfers/Wills, Trusts and Estates/Future Interests
- Immigration Law
- Independent Study (approved on an individual basis)
- Intellectual Property
- International Arbitration or International Commercial Arbitration
- International Business Transactions
- International Finance
- International Finance Markets
- International Trade Law
- Intro to Compliance
- IP Litigation
- M&A Strategy and Financing
- New Zealand: International Economic Law in Context (Bridge Course held in New Zealand)
- Patent Law
- Problems in International Finance
- Public International Law (2025 graduates only)
- Refugee and Asylum Law (2025 graduates only)
- Sales Transactions
- Secured Transactions
- Start-up Law
- Taxation of Business Entities
- Tech and Innovation Management
- Topics in Global Finance
- Trademark and Unfair Competition
- Trademark Law
- U.S.-Canada Relationship