Legal Practice – LLM

Why study this course?

The LLM in Legal Practice aims to prepare you for employment as a trainee solicitor and to provide you with a solid foundation for subsequent practice as a solicitor. In addition, this course offers you an opportunity to extend your research in an area of interest within legal practice, through a research module and a dissertation. This course can be studied full-time or part-time (in the day or in the evening).

More about this course

This course provides graduates who have completed the academic stage of legal training with the professional stage of training required to qualify as a solicitor. We have a long-standing reputation for training solicitors and were one of the first universities to be validated to run the Legal Practice Course.

The course imitates the nature of the work you would encounter in legal practice and follows clients through various legal transactions and court hearings. It builds on the substantive law that you will have already learnt and includes the study of both law and procedure in the major areas of practice.

You’ll also learn the everyday skills of legal research, interviewing, writing, drafting and advocacy to prepare you for your subsequent professional training and for practice as a solicitor.

In addition, we aim to help you apply academic understanding and research techniques to the analysis of law, policy and practice within your chosen area for the final LLM qualification. You’ll also learn how to produce analytical, creative and original research that demonstrates the relationships between substantive law, policy, socio-economic context and legal practice.

The combined qualifications of the Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice (LPC) and the LLM in Legal Practice are designed to enhance your career prospects, demonstrate your research capabilities and knowledge of a particular legal area, whatever branch of law you intend to follow.

The course has dedicated facilities. These include an LPC resource room (with its practitioner library and IT resources) and teaching rooms with audio-visual recording facilities. Materials and case studies are provided within the course fee.

Accreditation of Prior Learning

Any university-level qualifications or relevant experience you gain prior to starting university could count towards your course.

Modular structure

The modules listed below are for the academic year 2022/23 and represent the course modules at this time. Modules and module details (including, but not limited to, location and time) are subject to change over time.

Year 1 modules include:

Advocacy Skills (core, 0 credits)

Business Law and Practice (core, 24 credits)

Drafting Skills (core, 2.25 credits)

Legal Practice Dissertation (core, 60 credits)

Legal Research Methodology (core, 20 credits)

Legal Writing Skills (core, 2.25 credits)

Litigation (core, 39.5 credits)

Professional Conduct and Regulation (core, 1.5 credits)

Property Law and Practice (core, 24 credits)

Research Skills (core, 2.75 credits)

Solicitors Accounts (core, 6 credits)

Wills and Administration of Estates (core, 2 credits)

Child Law and Practice (option, 13.5 credits)

Civil and Commercial Mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution (option, 13.5 credits)

Commercial Law and Practice (option, 13.5 credits)

Employment Law and Practice (option, 13.5 credits)

Family Law and Practice (option, 13.5 credits)

Housing Law and Practice (option, 13.5 credits)

Immigration Law and Practice (option, 13.5 credits)

Intellectual Property Law and Practice (option, 13.5 credits)

Interviewing Skills (option, 5.5 credits)

Where this course can take you

The Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (LPC) qualifies you to enter into a training contract with a firm of solicitors or an in-house legal department. The LLM in Legal Practice further enhances your employment prospects. The course also provides a good grounding for practice as a paralegal, in local or health authorities, in local or central government, in commerce either in company secretarial/governance/ regulatory areas or if you aspire to being on a board of directors.