Programme Director: Simon Baughen
For further information please contact Stephanie Dimberline, Postgraduate Senior Admissions Administrator.
The MA in Law is an accelerated, fast-track, two year, full-time senior status postgraduate degree in law. The specially devised curriculum builds on the fact that students have already benefited from a university level education by enabling them to acquire a qualifying law degree in only 21 months, rather than the three years it would normally take to obtain an LLB.
The degree is carefully structured to cover the foundation areas of legal knowledge and to develop students' core legal skills, whilst providing an opportunity for further specialist study. The School's particular strengths in commercial, international and European law are reflected in the wide range of options taught by specialist researchers in these fields.
The degree offers the highest quality of teaching, delivered by a combination of lectures and seminars. Particular emphasis is placed on seminar teaching, dedicated to the needs and aspirations of MA students. That method of teaching enables them to secure a firm knowledge of basic principles, and to explore more difficult areas of law in a sustained way.
The School has flourishing mooting and client interview programmes in which MA students are encouraged to participate, and excellent links with the English legal profession.
The MA in Law is designed for UK non-law graduates, and for law and non-law graduates from other countries who wish to acquire a thorough grounding in English Law. It is particularly attractive for those who wish to enter the English legal profession. For those students, it is an alternative to a graduate-level CPE/GDL programme. By spreading study over two years of intensive postgraduate-level work, students gain a greater depth of understanding than is possible in one year CPE programmes, together with experience in legal research and in a specialist area of their choice.
Both arts and science degrees are a good foundation for the MA in Law. Students who have already studied some common law may be admitted. Applications are also encouraged from students who may have graduated some time ago and who are now seeking a change in career.
Students are required to take seven masters level Foundational Law units, plus one Specialist Unit selected from the LLM programme. Each Foundational Law unit pays attention to the relationship between law, society and the policy process, and to the theoretical context within which the particular area of law operates. The units also develop the skills of legal analysis, synthesis research and evaluation, as well as offering students the opportunity to engage in cutting-edge analysis of substantive law.
The programme structure is as follows:
120 compulsory credit points covered in:
See Programme Structure - Law (MA) for further details
Three compulsory 30 credit units in:
See Programme Structure - Law (MA) for further details
One optional unit from the list of Specialist Masters-level units or research project.
Please note that, as for the LLM, the School of Law does not guarantee that all Specialist Masters-level units will run in any particular year. It is also important to note that certain units have additional requirements regarding your eligibility to take them. Some are introductory units, designed for those who have never studied a particular area before. However, others require you to have studied certain topics already. If you have any queries about your eligibility for particular units, please check with the Postgraduate Office.
The MA in Law is recognised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board as a qualifying senior status law degree for practice in England and Wales. If students wish to practise in another jurisdiction, they should contact the regulatory body for that jurisdiction.
The MA in Law unlike the LLB, is a postgraduate qualification. As such, it is subject to those regulations that govern graduate programmes. This has a number of implications:
- the pass mark for our postgraduate programmes is 50% (not 40% as on the LLB)
- in the School of Law, postgraduate marks in individual units and in the dissertation are to be classified as follows:
For those students commencing their studies in 2011 and subsequently the classification rules are as follows:
Those students who commenced their studies in 2010 or earlier will be covered by previous classification rules:
There is no dissertation taken by MA students as they are required to do research for coursework completed in each core unit studied. The degree result is thus available after our exam boards at the end of June/start of July.
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