Studying Law at University - Ask Me Anything!

Is it possible for me to get a pupillage at commercial sets after going to southampton? I chose southampton over Warwick (which I put as my insurance choice) but I'm now worried as I've seen that it's difficult to become a barrister without going to a top RG

Is it possible for me to get a pupillage at commercial sets after going to southampton? I chose southampton over Warwick (which I put as my insurance choice) but I'm now worried as I've seen that it's difficult to become a barrister without going to a top RG

I'm no expert, as I'm now pursuing the solicitor route, but I was undecided for a while so I went to the odd talk or two about becoming a barrister. From what I see, no matter where you went to uni what seems to matter a lot is strong academics, engagement with mooting (for practice), and good networking skills/otherwise being proactive about securing mini-pupillages/judge marshalling to help with pupillage applications.

They are both good RG universities. No worries. Southamton is great for maritime law👏🏻

Thank you x
You've been helpful, thanks!

Hi.Ive taken the time to read through the majority of this thread and I’m a little fascinated. I applied to Law at my local university for this year, and have a few questions.Firstly, my own perception of studying Law. I’ve done mild research into Law, enough to warrant my interest and application. My experience previously isn’t linked to Law at all and will be something I’m fresh to. I don’t fully know if Law is what I want learn, but it is the first idea of an academic subject I could be interested in after leaving my previous role. Is this grounds to study Law? It would seem after doing some reading people have had a solid idea they’ve wanted to get into Law for years but for me this is a recent revelation.Secondly, workload, and learning curve are nothing I am scared of. I’m a quick study generally speaking, and have spent long hours devoting myself to something I really didn’t enjoy previously. My question is, if you were to advise someone to study Law that you knew capability wasn’t an issue, how would you convince them a career in Law is for them? Apologies for the lengthy text.

Hi there,
I'm glad you've found this thread interesting! In terms of your first question, I'd say that it's perfectly fine if your interest in Law is much newer than for others, as everyone is on their own path. It does seem however that you're not really sure if you want to do Law, which may actually mean you could benefit from some more research into what's involved in studying Law and doing some introductory reading to expose you to legal concepts and the kind of things you'd be reading as a university law student. I'd be happy to give you some recommendations of steps to take if you wish. It's great that you're a quick learner and a hard worker, as these traits will definitely set you up well for legal study!

Turning to your second question, I'd point out that studying law academically and practising law as a career are quite different experiences. Academic study is about learning the legal rules and how they apply to situations, as well as learning about and discussing the issues and arguments involved in legal debates/cases in all sorts of areas, e.g. 'should mercy killers be labelled as murderers?', 'should Boris Johnson have been able to prorogue Parliament in September 2019?' (which was the central issue in the Miller/Cherry case at the time being heard in the Supreme Court), 'to what extent do judges actually 'make law'?', etc.

On the other hand, law in practice is more a case of being presented with a particular problem and having to find the best solution to that problem for the party on whose behalf you are acting for, e.g. a company asking you to negotiate a merger with another company (commercial law firm work), a client asking you to help them make a will (high-street law firm work), defending your client who is charged with a criminal offence (criminal solicitor/barrister work), arguing in court that another company breached the contract it had with your client company (commercial barrister work), helping to stop human rights abuses in X country (if working for an international charitable organisation, for instance). There are many branches to explore, and what you might want to do will depend on your interests, but you may not necessarily know what those interests are without exploring them during your degree. You may even realise that you don't want to pursue a career in law, but a law degree will still equip you with many transferable skills, and indeed it's estimated that half of law graduates do go on to have careers outside the law, in a variety of different fields.

I hope this helps!

Thanks for the swift reply! Id greatly appreciate any recommendations you can through my way. I've been doing a little research here and there over the last few days but the answers to my questions were perfect so thank you. I'll take them on board as I figure out the next few steps to take.

Your praise for my swift reply is now ironic since it's taken me three days to get back to you now!

https://www.law.ac.uk/resources/blog/5-must-reads-for-future-law-students/
Here's a small list of five recommended books for future law students, and I'd add to that the Very Short Introduction books on Law and The British Constitution. These seven are also recommended pre-reading by my university. You can get them cheaply on eBay, but don't feel like you need to go out and buy them all. Have a look and see which would be most beneficial to you and your research!

You might also find it interesting to read a few cases. I'd recommend:


You should be able to find these on Bailii: https://www.bailii.org/

Professor Mark Elliott (a leading authority on constitutional law) also has some resources for prospective law students to explore: https://publiclawforeveryone.com/for-aspiring-law-students/

I'd even recommend a little browse on elawresources (https://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/). This is not a degree-level resource, but it offers introductory material and some useful summaries for cases and areas of law.

There's probably more out there, but this is what I know about to offer you!

Are presentations a common type of assessment in the universities? Do all of them implement it? Thanks!

At Leeds you'll typically have one assessed presentation a year. I'd assume it's a fairly common assessment method, but if you're particularly interested then you'd want to find out for yourself if they are used to assess on modules/courses you're looking at applying to.

As a general note, I wouldn't let them put you off too much (if indeed you are put off by them) as they develop useful skills and are generally not as bad as they might seem!

Good points, thanks!

I hear a lot of people claiming that an LLB student does a lot of reading. Could you please show us a small sample of this reading material to get a sense of it?

Wow, thanks so much for taking the time on this thread it’s so helpful! I’ve never come across anyone who does Law with French Law yet and since I think that’s what I’ll be applying for I was hoping you might be able to answer a question about the personal statement. I’ve found myself stuck on what to put for why I want to do French Law as I don’t have an awful lot of space left. So far I’ve just got stuff about French language and then being able to compare to English Law and learn differences - is it expected that you have read books on French Law or have any particular part of it that interests you? Would you have any advice on what to write? Also for unis that don’t offer the course do they care that you’ve written about something that would be irrelevant to them?

Is it as boring and tedious as everyone makes it out to be?

I was just going to ask if you’re applying strictly for Law with French Law only. I applied for mixed courses, so I kept my personal statement to just law only. I did however submit a PS directly to Leeds for this course, and in it I expressed why I wanted to continue studying French, and my enthusiasm about the mandatory year abroad (as it is for my course) and how the French Law aspect would enhance my understanding of law in general (it being an opportunity for comparison between legal systems and to interrogate why systems are set up in the ways they are).

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask 🙂