Undergraduate Law Degree: the Guidance
If you have decided for law as your career and you are passionate about it then LLB, an Undergraduate Law Degree is an ideal option for you, especially if your dream is to become a solicitor or a barrister. This degree is available almost in all the countries that are under the common law jurisdiction.
LLB is considered to be the first step towards the career in law, as a solicitor or barrister. Once they have obtained their degree, the graduates are required to take on with additional legal training before they can officially practice law. A qualifying law degree, such as LLB provides you with great experience in the most useful areas of law that you can apply to grow your career.
Apart from practicing law as a career, this honours degree offers a wide range of options in many attractive and profitable industries, including private firms, government entities, social policy agencies, businesses, etc. Nowadays, every large business employs lawyers, whose job is to deal with human resources issues like hiring policies and the company’s employment disputes.
Working in a corporate law firm often comes with a huge responsibility and – most importantly – a huge pay-check too. Small legal firms’ lawyers, however, can expect varied work with a lot of flexibility in their tasks schedule, but here they can gain hands-on experience for a better career.
To proceed further with the legal career, let’s see the eligibility criteria and other study related aspects.
Entry Requirement for an Undergraduate Law Degree course
The combination of expected grades that needs to be achieved in order to earn a place on an LLB undergraduate law degree course differs slightly depending upon the university. The LLB law degree is available as an online course too, which means that you can study at your flexible schedule. Still, there are a certain criteria at an entry-level, and they are as follow:
- A level and Grade C or level 4 or above at GCSE in maths and English, and at times a subject such as foreign languages,
- English language command that is equivalent to IELTS 6.5 or above with a minimum of 6.0 in each component.
- Scottish Highers, University foundation programmes, International Baccalaureate, Cambridge Pre-University (Pre-U) certificates.
Be clear that every university will outline their own entry requirements regarding these qualifications.
How to Proceed After Undergraduate Law degree
Once you have successfully completed your undergraduate law degree course, legal education system offers a range of options for postgraduate studies to obtain a specific legal profession qualifications. If you are planning to become a lawyer, as an LLB graduate, you need to qualify for commencing a Legal Practice Course (LPC), which is the final training stage for aspiring solicitors and barristers. Apart from this, LLB is a great foundation for entry onto many other postgraduate degree programmes that include the global MBA, LLM in Legal Practice, as well as a wide range of other Master’s Degree courses.
A degree level, LLM, is a postgraduate course that is undertaken by the students who belongs to different academic background. It is an ideal law course for the candidates who are aiming at developing their legal expertise in one component of the law. The LLM is an internationally recognised one-year course, suitable for both, lawyers and non-legal practitioners. It offers students a wide range of career opportunities that include law, business, academia, marketing, administration, and international diplomacy. Like LLB, the LLM is available as an online course. The students who study the online LLM in Legal practice (intellectual property) or LLM in Legal practice (Conflict resolution) from the University of Law have up to five years to complete the programme and obtain the degree.
LLM Requirement criteria:
The basic requirements to be enrolled for LLM in Legal Practice concerning both Intellectual Property and Conflict Resolution are as follow:
- a UK Bachelor’s Degree in any subject area at 2.2 or above or equivalent
- English language level that is equivalent to IELTS 6.5 or above, this is with a minimum of 6.0 in each component
Advantages of Studying Law in the UK
There are numerous advantages that the UK law graduates can obtain. For example:
- no need for LSAT to pursue law studies
- can complete LLB within 3-years
- a senior status LLB just for 2-year available to those with an undergraduate degree
- opportunities to join a law firm and obtain real-time work experience as a law student
- international and multicultural university experience
- lectures and small tutorial group, with one-to-one sessions with the available professors
- international recognition in qualification