Choosing modules at university

I don't think company law is difficult, just boring - it might also be worth waiting since you'll learn it on the LPC anyway and use it every day for the rest of your life if you practise in the city so you may as well study something you won't have a chance to in the future. Family law is supposed to be conceptually easy but has a heavy work load because there are a lot of cases (family stuff gets litigated a lot...). Do what you're interested in, it will make the workload seem less and you're likely to do better in it. Competition law sounds horribly dry to me, it would be one of my last choices, but if you find it interesting you should definitely consider it.

If you are definitely going for commercial firms I'd recommend Company law. Company law is probably as important as every other area of law combined at city firms. You do learn it on the LPC but not in as much detail and I find knowing Company law better than people who didn't study it useful.

That said, it is fine if you don't do it too. I'm not sure I'd describe Family as "easy" in comparison to other subjects. Most of it isn't that difficult conceptually but there are quite a lot of cases. Company law can be tricky in places but generally I don't think its too bad and it is certainly comparable with subjects like Equity or Commercial law or Conflict of laws and so on. Company law is basically just knowing your way around the Companies Act 2006, and if you can do that you are away - its a very statutory subject, but then again so is Family law. Some people have trouble adjusting to statutory subjects - with subjects like Criminal/Contract, much like at school, there is a fair bit of lee-way and you can get away with being sort of in the right area and referring to cases sort of accurately. With Company, you MUST read the relevant section of the CA and have it with you and refer to it in the exam. Vague recollections of the sections simply won't do, you've got to look at the precise words used. This is a skill that isn't used so much at uni in most subjects, but is essential in practice. Once you can do that, its a normal third year subject IMO. Family is very statutory too, but the statutes tend to be a little more vague and rely on case-law to flesh them out.

Thanks for the advice, I think company law's a definite contender now!

Anyway, I was also wondering what were your views on labour, competition and IP (trademarks and copyright) law modules?

Didn't do any of them at uni so can't really comment

From what I've heard from friends and from what I did on the LPC, IP is a bit nightmarish though that may just be the way it is taught at my uni.

I really wanted to do Labour law but my uni didn't offer it in the year I wanted to do it. I've found the bits I've learnt for my pro-bono work and on the LPC quite interesting.

Some people love competition, others less so. Be aware that Competition law is mostly just a particular part of EU law, so if you like EU law I guess its a good one to take

All of the above are fairly specialised areas (in practice anyway, tho less so for employment) so probably worth doing if u have a particular interest in the particular area

I do find the competition law interesting in practice, particularly in relation to M&A clearance and market regulation (e.g. price fixing etc.) although EU law is a bit dry. Go figure

Thanks for this though. Much appreciated.