The professional master's program adopted a research model guided by the formalization of innovative, legally sophisticated practices that are still little explored in the national academic literature.

Qualified reflection on legal practice initially assumes understanding its factual context, followed by recovering the theoretical basis, and then allowing a critical assessment, combined with the proposition of improvements or transformative solutions.

Final papers can explore complex problems, insufficiently formalized practices, or paradigmatic cases. Empirical and theoretical papers work as support for the production of knowledge that is applied and effectively used in the professional environment.

The papers produced in the Professional Master may be appropriated by the legal community as a public good, contributing to the improvement of Brazilian legal forms and institutions.

At the end of the first semester, the student defines his/her research project, based on  the coordination’s assignment of a professor responsible for guiding the final paper. To facilitate the student’s choice, the program offers an extensive list of non-binding research proposals prepared by faculty.

The student must advance in the execution of the research project, in parallel with the disciplines of the second and third semesters, according to the partial delivery schedule defined by the coordination. By the end of the fourth semester, the student must qualify for the provisional version of the final paper, in an open research seminar. After qualification, he/she will have two months to submit the final version to the examining board.

The examining board is composed of four members, and at least three of them must have a PhD degree. The fourth member does not need to have an academic degree, but must be someone with a professional background and practical experience in the subject of the final paper.

Below, there are some selected content related to research and the final paper of the Professional Master, which can be useful for candidates and students.

Assista a depoimentos de ex-alunos do Mestrado Profissional, profissionais que atuam em diferentes áreas do Direito e que falam sobre o programa e os desafios do trabalho de conclusão.

As a rule, the program's student wastes precious time trying to define his research object, and often the choice ends up being wrong, usually due to the impossibility of executing the project. To mitigate the problem, the Professional Master's Degree at FGV Sao Paulo Law School offers, from the moment the student enters the program, a wide range of structured research proposals, basically containing a thematic title, a short menu, and some key questions.

The proposals were formulated by professors of the program, in a suggestive, non-binding way, to inspire students to elaborate their research pre-projects. These are flexible proposals that allow adaptation and do not exhaust the research possibilities in the professional master's degree, and the student can choose any other research object of his/her choice, as long as it is compatible with the program's courses of action.