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Top(30) universities to study law?

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Reply 40
Original post by Jebbyxx
I know, but it should be in the top 5 or top 10 at least. It was ranked 3rd nationally by the Sunday Times University Guide.


im sorry are you honestly asking me to put newcastle in top 5 :lolwut:
Reply 41
Original post by lionboy
uh oh cardinal sin of assuming entry requirements = better uni, KCL shares alot of UoL resources, particularly in Law so debatably a student there has similar resouces to UCL...they also have access to the other UoL courses which are unis in their own right


Better entry requirements=better student quality. No cardinal sin there buddy. Is Birbeck now =LSE because its shares "resources" with UoL?
Reply 42
Original post by lionboy

8 Warwick=Nottingham
9 SOAS=QMUL
10 Manchester
11 Birmingham
12 York
13 Leeds
14 Exeter
15 Sheffeild=Newcastle
16 Southampton
17 Liverpool
18 Cardiff
19 Leicester
20 Queens University Belfast
21 Lancaster
22 Birckbeck (have a full time undergrad UoL degree)
23 Reading
24 UEA
25 City university
26 Hull (weirdly does have a lot more succesfull graduates than one would expect)

-I probably wouldn't put SOAS so high.
-I'd put Newcastle right behind Birmingham.
-I'd also knock City University out of the top 30. Probably even below top 50.
Reply 43
Original post by adam0311
Better entry requirements=better student quality. No cardinal sin there buddy. Is Birbeck now =LSE because its shares "resources" with UoL?


no all im saying is that the quality of student at kings is often = those at durham...and that by having access to the other unis of UoL it pushes it up more as a faculty and place to study on top of it being in city of london...thats all, calm please :smile: and birckbeck has only just started it full time llb but has access to all UoL facilities + being in London, I also emailed HoganLovells about it being so new and they claimed to have taken special interest in the graduates from birckbeck as often the students study in the evening and work in the day still doing full time but have generally alot more experience...
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 44
Original post by adam0311
-I probably wouldn't put SOAS so high.
-I'd put Newcastle right behind Birmingham.
-I'd also knock City University out of the top 30. Probably even below top 50.


no SOAS for international law is exceptional, and I rate city highly purely because of its business links and postgraduate professional courses, its the place to be for LPC :smile:
Reply 45
Original post by lionboy
no SOAS for international law is exceptional, and I rate city highly purely because of its business links and postgraduate professional courses, its the place to be for LPC :smile:

So we're picking one area of law and using that as a measurement to place it?

The facilities at City are god awful and its research output is on par with some of the lowest ranked unis. Also, some ABB/BBB unis have higher UCAS averages than City. Oxford Brookes>City
Reply 46
Original post by adam0311
So we're picking one area of law and using that as a measurement to place it?

The facilities at City are god awful and its research output is on par with some of the lowest ranked unis. Also, some ABB/BBB unis have higher UCAS averages than City. Oxford Brookes>City


no were taking many things into account, SOAS has a damn strong llb but on top of this the many specialized international law degrees really pick it up a few notches.

Citys entry standards are around AAB ...oxford brookes>City... :lolwut: your barmy :smile:
Original post by lionboy
no were taking many things into account, SOAS has a damn strong llb but on top of this the many specialized international law degrees really pick it up a few notches.

Citys entry standards are around AAB ...oxford brookes>City... :lolwut: your barmy :smile:


City seems a bit crap for law tbh.
Reply 48
Original post by Doughnuts!!
City seems a bit crap for law tbh.


its only on the list for its professional credentials, its crap compared to many AAA unis (which it claims to be a part of :s-smilie:) but it does beat the pants off of many AAB unis purely on the basis that it takes some modules from CASS especialy if you choose the LLB with property valuation
Reply 49
Original post by lionboy
no were taking many things into account, SOAS has a damn strong llb but on top of this the many specialized international law degrees really pick it up a few notches.

Citys entry standards are around AAB ...oxford brookes>City... :lolwut: your barmy :smile:


Fair enough, but I don't see how having a wide array of LLM's makes it a top notch program. I would agree its good for international law, but that is very niche type stuff--I don't know if it warrants a top 10 ranking.

-City's entry requirements are AAA (and a 350 UCAS avg), which is absolutely rediculous considering that Oxford Brookes only has a UCAS avg that's 10 points less.
-Oxford Brookes is ranked about 10 spots above City in the RAE
-5% more Brookes kids land jobs in law
-Satsifaction rate at Brookes is over 20% higher.
-Facilities are significantly better looking at bROOKES.
Reply 50
Original post by lionboy
its only on the list for its professional credentials, its crap compared to many AAA unis (which it claims to be a part of :s-smilie:) but it does beat the pants off of many AAB unis purely on the basis that it takes some modules from CASS especialy if you choose the LLB with property valuation


It doesn't beat one AAB uni in my opinion. It struggles to beat some ABB/BBB unis.
Reply 51
Original post by adam0311
Fair enough, but I don't see how having a wide array of LLM's makes it a top notch program. I would agree its good for international law, but that is very niche type stuff--I don't know if it warrants a top 10 ranking.

-City's entry requirements are AAA (and a 350 UCAS avg), which is absolutely rediculous considering that Oxford Brookes only has a UCAS avg that's 10 points less.
-Oxford Brookes is ranked about 10 spots above City in the RAE
-5% more Brookes kids land jobs in law
-Satsifaction rate at Brookes is over 20% higher.
-Facilities are significantly better looking at bROOKES.


its not just LLMs, SOAS has a seriously wide range in their LLB, if you look at the course mdules it lends it self to be extremely specialised and i just feel with similar applicants going into all straight A universities im finding the irregular but outstanding attributes attached to these different law schools.

i dont trust jobs statistics, particularly when many of the brookes kids go into being paralegals...its a route into law dont get me wrong but some wont get past the legal adviser stage. Also the points margins are different yes...but OB actually takes other things into account i.e if you got BBB and key skills =ABB requirement you would get in.City is excluding general studies however will be leniant if it is a fourth...i just dont believe the rankings are quite as representative in the real grad market... but having said all this OB would be very close as the oxford law instute it runs is joint with oxford for LPCs and professional courses
Reply 52
Original post by adam0311
It doesn't beat one AAB uni in my opinion. It struggles to beat some ABB/BBB unis.


looks like someone is from sussex :smile:
Reply 53
Original post by nulli tertius
Personal opinion:-

Cambridge has the better BA course structure. Currently Oxford has the better faculty.


Certainly at the top end Oxford has Burrows, Stapleton, Gardner, McCrudden, Craig, McKendrick. We do have Stuart Bridge, Graham Virgo, Kramer, TRS Allan, Forsythe here, though. I've been broadly impressed and pleased with my supervisors, and little to complain about. I don't know how the more junior level fellows at the two universities compare, and my sense is that quality as a tutor/supervisor isn't necessarily correlated to quality as a researcher or practitioner, or even to quality as a lecturer.

I'm inclined to agree on course structure--though the greater time period to consider the law before exams leads to a somewhat more reflective approach than you get here. This is something a lecturer/barrister here who read on the BCL commented on. He suggested that Cambridge produces people who know very good black letter law, but they don't always have *as* critical a perspective as from other universities.
Reply 54
Original post by adam0311
Better entry requirements=better student quality. No cardinal sin there buddy. Is Birbeck now =LSE because its shares "resources" with UoL?


One issue with the breakdown you posted further up. More students doesn't necessarily decrease job prospects--Cambridge has more than 500 undergrads (I think 700+ these days) doing law, yet still has better job prospects than Durham or KCL. I don't think student numbers actually matter much--class size is far more important and useful way of looking at teaching quality. Any idea how Durham and Kings compare on that metric?
Reply 55
im off to the harvester if anyone cares btw???
Reply 56
Original post by jjarvis
One issue with the breakdown you posted further up. More students doesn't necessarily decrease job prospects--Cambridge has more than 500 undergrads (I think 700+ these days) doing law, yet still has better job prospects than Durham or KCL. I don't think student numbers actually matter much--class size is far more important and useful way of looking at teaching quality. Any idea how Durham and Kings compare on that metric?


Cambridge-680
Durham-545
LSE-515
UCL-555

KCL-1025
Yay Reading :smile:
Original post by jjarvis
Certainly at the top end Oxford has Burrows, Stapleton, Gardner, McCrudden, Craig, McKendrick. We do have Stuart Bridge, Graham Virgo, Kramer, TRS Allan, Forsythe here, though. I've been broadly impressed and pleased with my supervisors, and little to complain about. I don't know how the more junior level fellows at the two universities compare, and my sense is that quality as a tutor/supervisor isn't necessarily correlated to quality as a researcher or practitioner, or even to quality as a lecturer.



It is always hard to tell with the junior folk because by definition they haven't acquired a lifetime's plaudits.

The Regius Professor isn't a civilian, he is an historian of the medieval common law.

The Downing Professorship is the senior common law professorship but because it was Maitland's chair a legal historian always has a call on it and Baker holds it until this summer.

The second English law chair the Rouse Ball is held by a public lawyer

The Professorship of Jurisprudence is held by a man who isn't really involved in jurisprudence.


I could go on but I won't. The main weakness is with the exception of public law, the central areas of the discipline are not led by the leading experts in the field.

These things are turn and turn about. Retirements and poaching leaves one university or the other stronger from time to time and it is Cambridge's turn to go through a thin patch.


I'm inclined to agree on course structure--though the greater time period to consider the law before exams leads to a somewhat more reflective approach than you get here. This is something a lecturer/barrister here who read on the BCL commented on. He suggested that Cambridge produces people who know very good black letter law, but they don't always have *as* critical a perspective as from other universities.


Traditionally, I think from the 1960s, Oxford had 3 compulsory papers for mods, 4 compulsory papers for finals and four optional papers. for finals that made 8 subjects in 7 terms. That gave ample time for specialist study.

However, from the 70s there was an overlay on this in the form of the QLD. Of the 6 QLD subjects, only 4 (not admin and trusts) were compulsory at Oxford. As a result for most students 2 of the 4 options were illusory. Eventually they have made these quasi-compulsory subjects actually compulsory probably just to make the timetable easier. Then they added EU law as an additional QLD subject and Oxford squeezed in a 9th finals paper.

If you read law at Oxford you do far more say Tort, than anyone else in the country, but there large areas of law that are studied by only a tiny proportion of the students.

And the less said about the Roman law course at Oxford the better.
Reply 59
Original post by lionboy
thanks for the newcastle btw there are soo many , sussex and kent are no no's for me, kent used to strongish but doesnt pull the weight it used. Sussex you would be surprised to know lets in students with far lower thn the asking requirements, not to say this makes it bad, however it is definately not in the league of unis that ask AAB but often get AAA students, I put Hull in as a wildcard, it seems to account for a large % of solicitors and even a fair no' or barristers so is stronger thn one would expect for a career in law

*I say a fair num of barristers in the Hull region tho lol i have to be carefull saying they have a presence stronger than the top 20 uni as they dont :smile:


I don't know why I keep seeing Sussex and Kent grouped together on this forum. They're not on par with each other. A university letting you in with AAB as opposed to AAA does not negate the credibility of that particular course. Sussex has a very strong law school.

The list is subjective and typical

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