Is first year law at uni easy or hard?

It's as hard as you make it. Tips (in no particular order): Read 'Getting Things Done' by Dave Allen. This book is a lifesaver when it comes to organisation and planning - you will have a lot of independent study time and you're thrown into the deep end. Take at least one day off a week and work Monday-Friday with regular hours. Attend all lectures/tutorials. Prepare for at least 5 hours a tutorial - and speak up. Go into revision mode in February. Use your tutors: they will have contact hours. Although you need to read important cases in full, you can just read a summary for most of them.

So if a person has lectures for 12 hours a week, how many hours should that person ideally do at home on top to have a good chance at a 2:1?

I didn't really do any work in my first year. Like 1hours prep for each supervision, I had 2 a week. And a couple of hours per essay, I usually had one a week. Managed to scrape a 2:1. But I definitely don't recommend it: not having a proper knowledge of tort has been a pain for research tasks on the LPC and may have made the difference between getting a first and not in the final year.

It is definitely about the quality of the work you do more than the hours. The time you take is very very personal. I reckon 2 hours of QUALITY work per subject per week would actually be sufficient. Ensure that your understanding is good, and that you quickly learn how to take a critical look at things. Read articles. And, most importantly, try out different textbooks - don't be a wally and just buy what it says on the reading list. No way do you have to do anything even approaching the time that you would need to spend working in a job.

It's easy.

I used to find that with additional reading it was a case of assessing the time/benefit of any particular piece of research. How long will it take me to read this document and what will I get out of it? Generally, textbooks and journal articles will give you a pretty high rate of "return" knowledge-wise on your reading time. Cases, on the other hand, offer a poor rate of return - they take a long time to read (esp first instance cases because of their long recitation of the facts) and will rarely give you any additional nuggets of information or understanding over and above your textbooks. To the extent you do glean anything from them, it probably won't have been worth the time it has taken.

Your approach should be - how much time do I have available for this reading/research? With that in mind, what can I read which will give me the greatest return on that limited amount of time?

That said, reading cases (and extracting relevant information) is a skill which is worth developing. Clearly that is the case if you want to join the Bar. Also, if you fancy a spot of litigation as a solicitor. However, chose the cases you read VERY carefully.

I generally don't read cases, except in fairly unusual circumstances.

You will know how to differentiate between what you need and what you don't. You should already know what a case is about and what was decided before you even start reading, because you will have already read a textbook or two. You read the cases that you recognise as being particularly important or ones you think you could do with more detail on.