Studying Law at University - Ask Me Anything!

Are all lawyers boring?

What’s the toughest thing about your degree?

Nope!


Probably trying to ensure a decent work/life balance. It can be easy to spend a lot of time on readings for Law, and so it requires good time management to ensure you get everything done on time and that you allow time to get involved in the rest of the aspects of student life, such as societies, pro bono work, socialising, etc.

What's your favourite modules you've learnt in each year?

I'm currently in my third (and penultimate) year studying Law at The University of Leeds.

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have about studying Law, and I will do my best to answer. Please note How owever that there will be differences between different universities, as each university has its own approach to course structure, content, etc.

I specifically study LLB Law with French Law, so I can also discuss a bit about studying abroad and what it's like to study a language/a different legal system alongside English law, what it's like to learn in your second language, etc. I do however know as much about straight Law courses too, so don't worry about that!


This thread forms part of TSR's Ask a Uni Student series, which has been set up particularly in light of the cancellation of many open days and offer-holder days at this time.

I hope this may be of use to you!

I have never studied law but i have applied to do it at uni in sept. I thought a law degree is good as it has many job prospects and would help me in my daily life. But i don't want to be a lawyer. SHould i change my subject option, are there other students who choose law and don't want to be in the law sector?

Also, as i am studying home i feel like i will miss out on a lot, will it be harder to make friends?

- do you have to bring massive textbooks, is it that hard of a subject?

- I studied Ethics and Philsophy which involved a lot of debating over issues/laws surrounding ideas of abroton and i get A* - is that similar to the kinds of essays at uni?

Are interships/placemnts paid?

Does it matter if you go to a lower ranked Uni or is a Russell group uni the best way to get good jobs and further opportunities?

I'm currently in my third (and penultimate) year studying Law at The University of Leeds.

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have about studying Law, and I will do my best to answer. Please note however that there will be differences between different universities, as each university has its own approach to course structure, content, etc.

I specifically study LLB Law with French Law, so I can also discuss a bit about studying abroad and what it's like to study a language/a different legal system alongside English law, what it's like to learn in your second language, etc. I do however know as much about straight Law courses too, so don't worry about that!

This thread forms part of TSR's Ask a Uni Student series, which has been set up particularly in light of the cancellation of many open days and offer-holder days at this time.

I hope this may be of use to you!

Hi
Do you have any plans for after you graduate? & if you did apply for jobs what year of uni did you start applying?

Thank you for doing this, it's really useful.

My question is How did you choose your uni and would you recommend Law at Leeds?

I think that, by third year, I got into the habit of waking up early by force (e.g. up 9 am) no matter how late I'd gone to bed the previous night. I found it useful to be able to do half an hour or an hour of work before going to uni/classes/etc.

I honestly have never counted the number of hours it took me to prepare for each class. I had the (not very) unconventional approach of going in unprepared half the time and doing overkill prep the other half. My estimate for readings was that doing the core & further readings for a single week for one module should take between 2 to 4 days of just working (I used to work for a 'clean' 8 to 10 hours a day during term time at the very best - exam season was a different story). But then again I didn't really do any reading for half the topics I was taught so it was fine. There was a lot of variation in my schedule over the course of my second year due to applications and stuff. There were weeks when I'd spend the day at uni, then at some dumb grad rec presentation/evening thing, etc. I’d barely get any serious work done during the week because I was so tired and was running around the place.

I think that my extracurriculars towards the end of uni were a lot more flexible that yours – most could be done remotely (including through video conferencing software), and I only occasionally had to travel outside of London for one of them. That meant that my schedule was less fixed than many – it wasn’t a matter of ‘hockey practice at 6 pm’, more like ‘tentative group call at 4 pm unless X can’t make it’. I also did a lot of mentoring/volunteering remotely with a law clinic. I honestly valued the flexibility because I could do the ECs as a break between full concentrated work. I found that travelling to get to classes, law firm stuff, and my law clinic volunteering commitment was a massive hassle and resulted in a lot of mornings and afternoons being written off work wise (perhaps this is a London issue or a me issue idk).

Because I was often busy with other stuff, I’d often frontload or backload readings and be rather quiet in class (as opposed to preparing each week’s reading the week before). There were times when I had finished the entire reading for one module before Christmas and had done barely any real work on the others. This wasn’t great and I don’t recommend it because it resulted in me engaging less and not feeling very attached to the whole degree (the degree turned into a pile of reading lists I had to dispatch of, and that sucked).

I think that my 'going out' days were very fixed. Friday night was the main one (sometimes Saturday instead of Friday if there was a birthday party or something). I wouldn’t allow myself time off for anything more than a quick coffee or drink during the other days unless I had planned and accounted for it in advance. That’s just me though I'm not great at spontaneous stuff because I plan out my days quite carefully and feel bad if I don't stick to the plan (this sucks in the world of work btw because you can rarely stick to your to do in the order in which you neatly set it out the previous evening)

I think that, because I lived far enough away from campus for the trek to suck, I would basically ‘camp’ on campus (usually in the library) all day and use that as a base of operations. So I’d turn up in the morning, get a seat, and then go to whatever commitments I needed to do. In the evening, I’d just return and try to do more serious/concentrated work. In third year, I was pretty much eating lunch and dinner in the library and only returning home when it closed or when I got exhausted (the Tube/lack of availability of night buses to get me back to where I lived featured heavily on my mind).

My method of working really changed over the course of the three years. In first year, I would revise and hang out a lot in my halls of residence. In second year, I hated my room so I started spending my entire week at the library (literally 9 am to 9+ pm every day, including weekends… sometimes). In third year, I got a bit of a balance and had ‘uni days’ (when I’d use the gym close to campus, do the readings I could only access in physical copy in the library, etc.) and ‘non-uni days’ (usually involving me doing focused work on my dissertation at home and/or going out). I think that it has to change as your circumstances change and you figure out what works for you (working in my room all day resulted in a lot of lost productivity, looking back).
The one mistake I made with the library was that it became a second home and not a place for studying. It wasn’t uncommon for us to watch football matches on our laptops in third year and waste our time chatting and doing other dumb stuff (constant cigarette breaks are one of them – and they’re a very London uni thing lol). So I think that I kinda ruined the only true ‘sanctuary’ I had for quiet, focused studying!

Like you, I would only have about 12 contact hours a week, and I stopped going to some lectures by the end of each year, so that number would go down to 4-8. However, I a) didn’t mind because I would see my friends in the library or in other places as opposed to lectures, and b) used the time ‘saved’ by not going to study! I also came to value classes and one-on-one office hours a lot more – lectures were comparatively useless. I was always the sort of person who prefers figuring things out himself and only then asking someone for answers to a very, very specific list of questions. I don’t like being ‘taught’ stuff by another person, especially not in an essay subject.

In terms of how I approached the reading, my younger (and inexperienced) self merely had one big documents into which the notes were inserted sequentially (I did each reading in the order in which it appeared on the reading list). My older (and wiser) self started seeing the many downsides of this approach, and instead chose to a) create a topic outline using the lecture slides and past papers, which would in turn be filled in with b) notes on the cases + articles on the reading list and c) reading from outside the reading list that I had found through the footnotes of the reading on the reading list. I would then skim through the textbook at the very end of this process to see if I had missed anything. This was more difficult and time-consuming but had a noticeable difference to my grades.

Hi, this thread is super helpful BTW? I was wondering if having a part time job would be possible whilst studying law?Thank you. Also, is is possible to get journalism internships even when studying law?

After the summer I’m going into my first year of studying law, can you give me any advice or tips?

I have never studied law but i have applied to do it at uni in sept. I thought a law degree is good as it has many job prospects and would help me in my daily life. But i don't want to be a lawyer. SHould i change my subject option, are there other students who choose law and don't want to be in the law sector?

Also, as i am studying home i feel like i will miss out on a lot, will it be harder to make friends?

- do you have to bring massive textbooks, is it that hard of a subject?

- I studied Ethics and Philsophy which involved a lot of debating over issues/laws surrounding ideas of abroton and i get A* - is that similar to the kinds of essays at uni?

Are interships/placemnts paid?

Does it matter if you go to a lower ranked Uni or is a Russell group uni the best way to get good jobs and further opportunities?