People at the Times spoke pot. Lots of it.

Why are you so keen to put your own faculty down all the time?

Look at the academics they have and look at the ones we have; look at the facilities they have and look at the ones we have; look at the library they have and look at the one we have.

Do you also know that UCL's Professors Ronald Dworkin, Jeffrey Jowell, Sir Basil Markesinis, William Butler, Norman Palmer, Eric Barendt, Michael Freeman, Hazel Genn and Ian Fletcher are all the absolutely leading experts in their respective fields?

whoop whoop.. go manchester

If I were you (and, of course, I am not, so feel free to ignore altogether my cheap shot at dispensing advice), I would still go to King's. I think, and once again this is a purely personal perception (though I suspect that it may be shared by others on this forum) that you would have a slight (note the emphasis) edge with regards to employment prospects if you were to go to King's despite the latter's somewhat disappointing recent performance in idiotic league tables and its obstinate refusal to switch to the AAA standard offer. Manchester may indeed be a brilliant faculty but I still think King's reputation for law is somewhat superior. But once again this is all smoke and no substance: if you achieve better grades than a King's candidate (maybe even marginally better) I strongly doubt the human resources people at We-Only-Recruit-The-Best LLP will have any hesitation as to which one to chose (you with the better grades, of course).

True, Ronald Dworkin may indeed be the most cited legal academic of all the times (and one of the most cited academics across the board) but have you ever seen him?

With regards to Eric Baredt and Micheal Freeman, though I am in no position whatsoever to judge their academic standing, can you really consider them to be "absolutely leading" in their field?

Contract and Tort (ha, this is the funny one: Alison Diduck - I mean seriously! has she published anything at all?)

Also, the fact that some of these academics moved from UCL to Oxford does tepidly support my opinion. Whereas those who moved the other way, apart from Redgewell, are all brilliant but relatively young researchers maybe looking for some more air to breathe.

I was taught by him for my special topic during my third year.



Eric Barendt is generally regarded as the UK’s leading authority on media law and freedom of speech. Michael Freeman played a substantial role in drafting the Children Act 1989 (one of the most important statutes in English child law since the Victorian days) and has been the Editor of ‘Lloyd’s Introduction to Jurisprudence’ (THE leading (albeit annoyingly complex!) textbook on Jurisprudence) for the past umpteen decades since Lloyd himself retired. If you don’t consider them ‘leading’, I don’t know who else is.



Alison Diduck is regarded as one of the UK’s experts on family, marriage and divorce law (she has published countless articles on those subjects, many cited by Oxbridge and Harvard academics – I know because I have read them). I don’t know why was she asked to lecture on Contract & Tort II!



Prof. Philippe Sands QC and Prof. Tim Swanson – relatively young researchers?! And Hazel Genn and Eric Barendt transferred to UCL from Oxbridge too - young?!


But all in all, I think I do know what you are getting at. You are frustrated (and rightly so) that the lecturers allocated to teach your year were perhaps not what you expected. I can understand that - in my year, I had really good lecturers for all four second year subjects, so it was never a problem. Do not despair – it should get better in your third year!

And btw, of course Oxford has better facilities than UCL! But I was just debating your assertion which seemed to be that UCL was miles and miles below Oxford in terms of academic staff. That is simply untrue. They face exactly the same constraints as you do – many of my friends at Oxford and Cambridge were tutored by fresh graduates bored with their LPC/BVC. And my friends mostly skipped all their lectures (and hence miss out if ever Treitel or Ashworth bother to lecture!).

(with the only dubious exception of Alison Clarke, Sean Coyle and Riz Mokal can hardly be called academic power-figures)

Selectivity is probably one of the commonest sins committed when replying to posts. Everybody, myself included, seems suffer from it. Of course Sands is not a “relatively young researcher” and neither is Tim Swanson, but to the best of my (admittedly limited) knowledge Christophe Hillion (who, by the way, seems to have disappeared for the past 10 months), Ralph Wilde, Diamond Ashiagbor and Ray Purdy are.

I did have a suspicion that Diduck was particularly keen on family law, but if she is such a great human repository of knowledge on the matter, why then confine her to the teaching of Contract and Tort II? – and please note, not only did she teach it (or at least half of it), she was/is the sole course convenor. During seminars you could palpably see her discomfort with the subject (I don’t want to say she lacked the necessary knowledge, which she probably did not, for fear of divine punishment when my results come in). If not bad academics, this is a prime example of appallingly bad allocation of good academics, which is equally (if not more) worthy of criticism and, in any case, something which I strongly doubt you would encounter at Oxbridge (at least according to one of my tutors who also teaches at Oxford and who incessantly rants about the administrative inequalities between the two noble institutions).

Also, despite the tone of my initial post, I never suggested (and would never dare to do so) that UCL is miles away from Oxbridge. All I meant is that the assertion that UCL is actually better than Oxbridge is nothing more than a far-fetched fictionalisation. However, like I said before, few could dispute the suggestion that it trails (relatively) close behind.

Personally I think Mokal is excellent. I have read a number of his articles on insolvency law, and have been impressed.

True, Ronald Dworkin may indeed be the most cited legal academic of all the times (and one of the most cited academics across the board) but have you ever seen him?

This is an extract from one of those unimaginatively identical articles about how difficult it is to get into law and medicine, how tough the entrance tests are and how much the latter are susceptible to coaching (or are they?), bla bla bla.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,716-1627018,00.html


"University College London (UCL) is fourth in this year’s list, but tipped by insiders as the best law faculty in the country."

However flattering it may be for all of us UCL lawyers -- a bout of re-invigorating fresh air and, simultaneously, a big cloud of dust for both the freak-show faculties down the road (not to mention the other two submerged in medieval squalor) -- I suspect (and the use of the word is not due the doubtful validity of my assertion but is the mere product of my charitable politeness) that only a three-legged donkey who's had the encephalon of a fly transplanted into is head would approve of it. "Tipped by insiders" ha! - does insider(s) mean Rodney Austin pissed on cheap plonk talking vengeful, envious crap? Probably so, in which case I wouldn't give much weight to Ms. Blair's (the writer of the article hopefully not related to our beloved Prime Minister) statement.

Personally I think Mokal is excellent. I have read a number of his articles on insolvency law, and have been impressed.

I had an offer to do the UCL MA in Legal and Political Theory, and I nearly took it solely so I could work with Dworkin. But I was advised that he's basically semi-retired now, and the UCL chair continued mainly as an honorary thing. In fact, haven't they now recruited someone else to the Quain chair?

Yes, a fellow named William Twinning.

Ah. Has he resumed it then? Profile at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/academics/profiles/index.shtml?twining lists hims as emeritus.

EDIT: I just noticed that that page hasn't been updated since October 04.