Course description
Course overview
As a City graduate you will be well equipped to complete the professional training required for a legal career or, indeed, a range of careers. The study of law produces graduates confident of their academic abilities, with valuable skills in logical thinking and analysis of issues. These are amongst the qualities sought by today’s employers and City graduates therefore have excellent employment prospects. Recent national statistics show a 3.7 per cent graduate unemployment rate for law compared with 6.3 per cent for all other subjects.
If you do decide to become either a barrister or solicitor, you will be exempt from the Common Professional Examination (the academic stage) and can apply to proceed directly to the second part of the professional examinations (the vocational stage). To qualify professionally, all graduates must comply with the examination and training requirements of either the Bar Council (barristers) or the Law Society (solicitors).
Around 120 undergraduate students each year enrol on the three-year degree programme. The programme is designed to give you a general knowledge of central areas of law and to allow the development of special interests.
Course content
During the first two years of the programme, you will study the core legal subjects that are common to most undergraduate law programmes. These are: the law of contract, tort, criminal law, constitutional and administrative law, European Community law, equity and trusts, and land law.
The first year of the programme also includes a legal techniques module; an introduction to key issues – often controversial – in the organisation of a legal system; and a formal introduction to mooting, a traditional exercise in law schools involving the preparation and delivery of a mock legal argument on a hypothetical case.
In the third year you choose subjects from a range of options which currently include law of intellectual property, domestic and international banking law, healthcare law, business organisations, company law, competition law, European and international human rights law, commercial law, employment law, family law, environmental law, public international law and constitutional law of the USA. You can also choose to complete a written project in place of one option. Please note that not all options are offered every year.
Teaching and assessment
At the start of your programme you will be assigned to a member of staff who acts as a personal tutor and who can offer support and guidance where necessary. Teaching takes the form of lectures, seminars and tutorials. In regular tutorials, you will meet subject tutors as part of a small group to analyse problems and to discuss selected topics. Seminar groups are larger and meet to discuss assigned materials. Lectures involve all students in the year group.
Assessment is based on written examinations and/or coursework. The final degree classification is calculated on the results gained in the second and third years.
Professional placement and study abroad
The City Law School has established student exchange programmes with Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia and the University of Bordeaux, France. The arrangements provide opportunities for LLB students to spend half of their third year studying a range of courses at one of these institutions. Study in Bordeaux is in French. The assessment results from these courses count towards the final degree classification.
