Course overview

The LLM enhances your knowledge of the fundamental principles of law, combined with the flexibility to explore your own interests with support from research-active teaching staff. The underlying philosophy of this course is to enable you to continue your professional, educational and personal development by consolidating, enhancing and extending your disciplinary expertise, professional ethics, experience and abilities.

You develop recognized subject-specific knowledge and understanding as well as cognitive, intellectual, practical, professional and generic key skills and qualities. The course enables you to more effectively plan, manage and evaluate your own learning to become an independent lifelong learner. You work with complex knowledge, theory and concepts appropriate to postgraduate study and are required to demonstrate high levels of personal responsibility and self-direction. The LLM course is the result of research carried out by academics and lawyers in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Law to develop a programme focusing on the philosophical theories that underpin the law and building on current perspectives in law. It focuses on the underlying legal theories that determine the scope of the existing law and proposals for changes to legislation and the common law. The student-centered nature of assessment across all modules allows you to tailor your studies to your own areas of interest. The LLM course:

• enhances your professional, ethical, intellectual and personal development and self-awareness
• enables you to plan, manage and evaluate your learning and continue your development as an independent lifelong learner
• helps you develop intellectual and professional independence
• introduces, enhances and extends your knowledge of contemporary theoretical perspectives and issues in aspects of law, appropriate to postgraduate study
• introduces, enhances and extends your understanding of research methods appropriate to the postgraduate study of law
• challenges the orthodoxy of the law by encouraging debate, exchange, application and reflection
• enables you to demonstrate your ability to integrate, synthesize and critique philosophical content, concepts and research methodologies in the production of a research-based dissertation in law
• equips you with the ability to contribute to the theory and practice of areas of law and to make informed contributions to the development of policy.

Career opportunities

pon graduation you will have developed recognised subject-specific knowledge and understanding, cognitive, intellectual, practical, professional and generic key skills and qualities, which have a directly beneficial effect on future employability, whether in the legal profession or in subject-related disciplines, including academia. You will be equipped to contribute to and inform policy-making decisions in your chosen sphere.

A number of our previous students have published work in academic journals, and / or have progressed to PhD study.