Law

Questions of analysis and interpretation, logical reasoning, ethical judgement, political liberty and social control: Law at Cambridge allows undergraduates to see law in its historical and social contexts, and to examine its general principles and techniques.

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Overview

Law at Cambridge

Although our course (referred to elsewhere as LLB) is primarily concerned with English law, there are opportunities to study other legal systems, including civil (Roman) law, EU law and international law. You can also study theoretical and sociological aspects of law such as jurisprudence or parts of criminology.

Facilities and resources

The present Faculty teaching staff has expertise across nearly every aspect of English law and its history, as well as European Union law, international law, civil law, legal philosophy and criminology.

The Faculty building houses lecture theatres, seminar rooms and a moot court, as well as the comprehensive Squire Law Library, offering an extensive collection of printed and electronic resources and excellent computing facilities.

The Faculty and University Law Society organise numerous activities including formal meetings, informal barristers’ and solicitors’ evenings, social events, lectures and moots (debates about hypothetical legal cases).

Course costs

Tuition fees

Information on tuition fee rates for Law is available on the tuition fees page.

Additional course costs

There are no compulsory additional course costs for Law. However, most students prefer to purchase their own copy of a relevant statute book (c£17 each) for around 10 of their total 15 papers across the whole course (depending on papers chosen). If you have any queries about resources/materials, please contact the Faculty.

Erasmus+ Scheme

The Faculty currently has exchange agreements with universities in France, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain. Through the programme, students are eligible to spend a year studying at one of our partner institutions. Applications are made at the beginning of the second year, with the opportunity for around 15 undergraduates a year to take part in the Scheme. See the Faculty website for details and updates on the Scheme. See the Faculty website for details and updates on the Erasmus+ Scheme.

Changing course

To be able to change course, you need the agreement of your College that any change is in your educational interests, and you must have the necessary background in the subject to which you wish to change – in some cases you may be required to undertake some catch-up work or take up the new course from the start/an earlier year. If you think you may wish to change course, we encourage you to contact a College admissions office for advice. You should also consider if/how changing course may affect any financial support arrangements.

If you wish to combine law with another subject it's best to discuss this with your preferred College before submitting your application.

Students who wish to combine law with another subject usually study law after that subject rather than before. It's desirable to study law for two years wherever possible since it's not possible to pass all seven 'foundation' subjects at Cambridge in less than two years.

If your first subject has a two-year Part I, you need to consider the implications – especially the financial implications – of four years as an undergraduate.

After Cambridge

The BA in Law at Cambridge is currently considered a ‘qualifying law degree’ by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and the Bar Standards Board. Qualifying law graduates who have completed the seven ‘foundation’ subjects and the legal skills requirement meet the academic component of training as a solicitor or barrister and may proceed directly to vocational courses that lead to professional examinations. The foundation subjects are Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Law of Tort, Law of Contract, Land Law, Law of Trusts (Equity), and Law of the EU. Please note that the SRA is reviewing the requirements for qualifying as a solicitor and a new system may be in place for students starting in 2021. See the SRA website for further details.

Our graduates go on to qualify as barristers and solicitors, and find employment within the legal departments of the Civil Service, local government, industrial and commercial firms, banks, and international organisations. Others stay in academia or seek careers in administration, management, politics or finance.

Course Outline

Course outline

For each subject, you attend lectures given by teaching members of the Faculty. The typical number of lecture hours for each paper is 36 per year, mostly timetabled for the first two terms of each year, which equates to about 10-12 hours of lectures a week. You normally have a fortnightly College supervision in each subject as well.

With the exception of the Legal Skills and Methodology paper, for which you submit an extended essay, each paper is assessed by a written examination at the end of the year. In the third year, you have the option of substituting one paper for a dissertation.

Year 1 (Part IA)

In Year 1, all students take the same papers:

Criminal Law
Constitutional Law
Civil Law
Law of Tort
Legal Skills and Methodology – a half paper providing training in legal methodology and research

Year 2 (Part IB)

In your second year, you choose five papers from a wide range of options. Most students take Contract Law and Land Law. Other options are:

Family Law
International Law
Administrative Law
Criminal Procedure and Criminal Evidence
Legal History
Civil Law II
Criminology, Sentencing and the Penal System
Comparative Law
Human Rights Law

Year 3 (Part II)

In the third year, you select and study five papers from an even more extensive range.

Most students take Equity and European Union Law but you can develop your interests in, for instance:

commercial law
public law subjects
labour law
more theoretical aspects of law, such as jurisprudence

You can take certain half papers as well. In recent years, papers available have included:

Landlord and Tenant Law
Law of Succession
Personal Information Law
Law and Development
Banking Law

You can also participate in a seminar course, submitting a dissertation in place of one paper. Seminar courses vary each year but in the past have included Crime and Criminal Justice, Women and the Law, Law and Ethics of Medicine, Public Law, and Select Issues in International Law.

For further information about studying Law at the University of Cambridge see the Faculty of Law website.

Entry Requirements

Typical offers require

A Level: A*AA
IB: 40-42 points, with 776 at Higher Level

For other qualifications, see our main Entrance requirements pages.

Course requirements

Required by all Colleges: no specific subjects
Useful preparation A Level/IB Higher Level in an essay-based subject

See Law: Subject Requirements and Typical Offer by College for College-specific requirements/preferences. All undergraduate admissions decisions are the responsibility of the Cambridge Colleges. Please contact the relevant College admissions office if you have any queries about College-specific requirements.

See also Entrance requirements and The Subject Matters for additional advice about general requirements for entry, qualifications and offers.

Admission assessment

All applicants for Law are required to take a written assessment at interview, if interviewed.

Assessment format

Cambridge Law Test (essay version; 60 minutes) - see the Faculty of Law website for assessment details.

You do not need to register or be registered in advance for the assessment at interview – Colleges will provide details of arrangements in their letters inviting applicants to interview.

Please note that your performance in the assessment at interview will not be considered in isolation, but will be taken into account alongside the other elements of your application.

Submitted work

Applicants to some Colleges are required to submit one or two School/college essays as examples of written work prior to interview. See Law: Subject Requirements and Typical Offer by College for a list of Colleges that require submitted work and visit individual College websites for further details.

For further information about studying Law at the University of Cambridge see the Faculty of Law website.

Resources

Find out more about Law at Cambridge

Faculty of Law - Explore Law in more detail on the faculty website.

Law Undergraduate Website - Learn more about the BA Law degree at Cambridge

Course Guide - A detailed guide to the undergraduate Law degree

Think Cambridge Law - A blog for prospective law students

Preparatory Reading - Guidance on preparatory reading for applicants interested in Law.

Cambridge Law Test - Information about the Cambridge Law Test (used by most Colleges to assess applicants), including specimen questions.

Ask a Law Student - Email contact for questions about student experiences, with questions answered by current Cambridge Law students.

Funding opportunities - Details of the funds available to support Law students.

Discover Uni

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Contextual information

Discover Uni allows you to compare information about individual courses at different higher education institutions. This can be a useful method of considering your options and what course may suit you best.

However, please note that superficially similar courses often have very different structures and objectives, and that the teaching, support and learning environment that best suits you can only be determined by identifying your own interests, needs, expectations and goals, and comparing them with detailed institution- and course-specific information.

We recommend that you look thoroughly at the course and University information contained on these webpages and consider coming to visit us on an Open Day, rather than relying solely on statistical comparison.

You may find the following notes helpful when considering information presented by Discover Uni.

Discover Uni relies on superficially similar courses being coded in the same way. Whilst this works on one level, it may lead to some anomalies. For example, Music courses and Music Technology courses can have exactly the same code despite being very different programmes with quite distinct educational and career outcomes.
Any course which combines several disciplines (as many courses at Cambridge do) tends to be compared nationally with courses in just one of those disciplines, and in such cases the Discover Uni comparison may not be an accurate or fair reflection of the reality of either. For example, you may find that when considering a degree which embraces a range of disciplines such as biology, physics, chemistry and geology (for instance, Natural Sciences at Cambridge), the comparison provided is with courses at other institutions that primarily focus on just one (or a smaller combination) of those subjects.You may therefore find that not all elements of the Cambridge degree are represented in the Discover Uni data.

Some contextual data linked from other surveys, such as the National Student Survey (NSS) or the Destination of Leavers in Higher Education (DLHE), may not be available or may be aggregated across several courses or several years due to small sample sizes. When using the data to inform your course choice, it is important to ensure you understand how it has been processed prior to its presentation. Discover Uni offers some explanatory information about how the contextual data is collated, and how it may be used, which you can view here: https://discoveruni.gov.uk/about-our-data/.

Discover Uni draws on national data to provide average salaries and employment/continuation data. Whilst starting salaries can be a useful measure, they do not give any sense of career trajectory or take account of the voluntary/low paid work that many graduates undertake initially in order to gain valuable experience necessary/advantageous for later career progression. Discover Uni is currently piloting use of the Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data to demonstrate possible career progression; it is important to note that this is experimental and its use may be modified as it embeds.

The above list is not exhaustive and there may be other important factors that are relevant to the choices that you are making, but we hope that this will be a useful starting point to help you delve deeper than the face value of the Discover Uni data.

Undergraduate Study