Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I'm Steve Webley, I'm the Admissions Manager for Law at the University of Birmingham. That
mean that part of my job is to look through the UCAS forms, look over the LNAT test and
make a decision about whether or not we're able to offer a place on the programme. What
we're going to be going through today is what you can expect from Birmingham, the courses
which we actually offer, admissions requirements. When I'm finished I'll be passing you on to
my colleague, Dr Gavin Byrne, who will be talking about why Law is a good degree to
do in the first place and why at Birmingham in particular. There will be time for questions
at the end so if you do have anything which you need further guidance on, please come
and talk to us afterwards.
These are the programmes which we offer within the Law School at undergraduate level. We
have the LLB Law programme which is our most popular one, Law with Business, our new programme
in Law with Criminology and two language based programmes, Law with French and Law with German,
which are four year rather than three year degrees, which include a partner year at a
university abroad. If you are thinking about doing another subject first of all and then
doing a conversion into Law, which is a perfectly acceptable route into the profession, we offer
one type of conversion programme which is the LLB Law for Graduates. We're not going
to be talking about that specifically today but if that is one you're interested in we
can talk to
Now coming in to study Law at university you don't need a background in the subject. Only
around about 25% of our students each year have any background in Law, either being taught
it at school or having gone out and sourced work experience. The vast majority of students
coming in have got no background in the subject. So during the first few weeks of the course
we take you through some of the core skills which you're going to need in order to successfully
get through the degree and get to grips with the study of Law at university. So this is
areas such as the structure of the legal system, how to read through legal cases and interpret
legislation within them and how to write and reference a good legal essay so you come away
with strong overall degree marks.
This is what the three year LLB programme actually looks like. The first two years of
this programme are all compulsory courses. The first seven listed, they're down to Law
of Trust and Equity, are the core modules which you will study during any qualifying
law degree. So wherever you go, if you wanted a qualified law degree, those modules will
be taken. We also have Jurisprudence as a compulsory module which is for Philosophy
of the Law. It's when you go into the final year here at Birmingham that the options present
themselves. It's entirely optional in the final year what you study. You can choose
any six of a range of modules which we have available. It's one of the largest ranges
of optional modules in the country, ranging from bioethics to mooting to tax law. It's
very likely by the time you get to your final year that you've got a good idea about where
you want to go with your career, which areas you're most interested in, which types of
law you're best at and likely to come away with higher marks in. And because the bulk
of your degree marks are located in that final year, the fact that it's entirely optional
what you take is extremely beneficial.
The Law with Business programme is slightly differently set up. In each year of the course
you will study two thirds Law and one third Business based subjects and the core modules
which you have to take are split across all three years of the programme and each year
there will be optional business modules and in the final year you also get to choose three
optional Law modules from the list which was brought up on the previous page and you can
see some of the optional Business modules which we actually offer set up up there. So
these are things such as retailing, research skills, managerial finance, managing organisations
and so on. We do have students on the Law with Business programme on our stand which
is in the Bramall building on the third floor, so if it is a course you're interested in
it would be well worth going and speaking to them directly.
Our new programme is Law with Criminology. You'll notice that there's slightly more modules
in the first and second year. This is because there are twenty rather than thirty credit
modules. You study the core Law modules across the first two years and then in each year
of the programme, one third of it will be specifically criminology based. So in the
first year Crime Social Harm and Social Justice and Criminal Behaviour; second year Criminal
Justice and Criminal Behaviour and for the final year you'll study Criminal Justice,
Youth Crime and Youth Justice, along with a dissertation which can be in Criminal Law
and three options from the LLB final year modules. In order for this to be a qualifying
degree you do need to choose one of your options or write your dissertation in what's known
as a foundation subject. So one of the core areas, so something such as Advanced Property
Law would fulfil that.
And finally on our programmes is the Law with a Language. Now this is a four year programme
rather than three years. In that third year where you go abroad, if you're doing Law with
French you can go to Bordeaux or Lyon, Paris or Strasbourg in France. We also have a partner
university in Canada in Quebec which is University Laval. If you're going to Germany on the Law
with German programme, there's two choices of university, it's the University of Berlin
and Bayreuth. In each year of this programme you'll be studying two thirds Law modules
and one third French Law and French Language, or German Law and German Language. So you're
both keeping up to date with your language skills, so when you go abroad you're able
to cope with being in with all of the local students in the lectures but you're also learning
a comparative legal system. So you're learning civil Law alongside the common Law which you're
learning through the English modules which you're taking. It's a really employable degree
programme. We also have students from both Law with French and Law with German on our
stand and they have been on the year abroad, so well worth talking to and again, that's
in the Bramall building on the third floor.
In terms of contact hours on the Law degree you can expect around about 10 to 11 hours
each week in lectures, 2 to 3 hours in small group seminars. Average size of these is around
about ten students. There will be a lot of reading before each one and it's a chance
for you to really engage with the subject, take into more depth the areas which have
been discussed in lectures and the reading which you will have done beforehand. When
turning up to seminars you will be expected to participate, be able to talk around the
subject and engage with the areas which are being discussed. Now Law is a very tough subject
to come into university to study, so there is a lot of independent study away from the
core contact hours. By the time you get to final year you're looking at anything up to
30 hours a week spent in the library, spent reading through cases, legislation, revising
and so on. But first years normally it's nearer 15 to 20 hours which they're putting in outside
of classes. If you are struggling with any particular areas or you want to discuss them
in more detail, all of our academic staff have office hours set aside each week throughout
the year so you can go and speak to them on a one-to-one basis.
In terms of entrance we do look at straight As at A-level. That excludes General Studies
and Critical Thinking. Most other A-levels are acceptable as long as they've got 60%
academic content. That includes a language Grade A for Law with French or Law with German
in the appropriate language and a GCSE Grade B in Maths for Law with Business. If you're
taking the International Baccalaureate we look for 36 points overall which includes
the bonus points from the Theory of Knowledge and extended essay and we look for three 6's
in higher level. Again, higher level language grade 6 for Law with French or Law with German
and GCSE Grade B in Maths for Law with Business. We also ask for the LNAT examination. This
is the national admissions test for Law, it's one of the core elements which we look at
when considering an application. It's the second most important thing behind the grades
which you actually achieve. When going in to sit the LNAT you don't need any legal knowledge,
it's not a test about what you know about Law. It takes the form of a multiple choice
section marked out of 42. Anything over 20 is a reasonably good score on that and then
you have an essay section where you choose one essay to write out of a choice of three
different topics and we're looking for you to make an argument which begins to convince
the reader of the point of view which you're portraying within that. We don't have a specific
score which we're looking for in LNAT because we do look at both the essay and the multiple
choice section. So if you do slightly poorer in the multiple choice but you write a strong
essay, the likelihood is that we will still be able to make an offer. With the entrance
requirements, just because we ask for straight As, it doesn't mean you need to be predicted
straight As at this stage. It doesn't mean you need to have achieved straight As at AS.
We're willing to make offers for students who realistically can get up to the grades
which we're looking for, so as long as you're predicted three Bs or above, we are willing
to consider an offer. The offer which you receive will always be to achieve straight
As or 36 points in the IB.
The same is true when it comes to August and A-level results come out. We will take the
vast majority of our students at our stated entry grades. We take around about 80-85%
of our students each year at three As or equivalent. We normally have 10-15% of our places available
for students who have narrowly missed these requirements, so if you are thinking that
you're likely to be borderline in getting those grades, there is a reasonable chance
that with grades AAB, 34/35 points in the International Baccalaureate, that we will
be able to offer a place on the programme.
That's about all from me. I would recommend you check out our website, that's where we
keep all of our most up to date information, full details of modules, descriptions of them,
student profiles, videos and so on. We do update that regularly throughout the year.
Thank you very much for listening and I'll now pass you onto Dr Gavin Byrne.
Thanks Steve. Morning everyone and thanks for making it along to the early show. As
Steve mentioned, Gavin Byrne's my name. I am a lecturer here in the Law School and I
do teach compulsory stuff. So if you find the next half an hour to forty minutes of
your life overly dull, I suggest you probably don't apply here; you'll be stuck with me
at some point. I'm going to talk about a couple of things really. First of all I'm just going
to talk about the study of Law generally, what you'll kind of be letting yourselves
in for if you did decide to pursue a Law degree at undergraduate level, and then towards the
end I'll talk about a few things that set this particular Law School apart. There's
certain things that are true of all Law degrees but you're trying to make your minds up where
you might want to apply. I won't give you any kind of hard sell, don't worry about that,
but I'm going to mention a few things that are perhaps unique to Birmingham and might
help you kind of make your mind up as to whether this is where you want to come.
So first of all I think whenever I'm speaking to a group like this, a group of people who
are wondering whether Law is what they want to do at university, I think it's important
to bust a particular myth straight away and it's this: a lot of people imagine that the
only thing that you can do with a Law degree is practice law. So some of you might be a
little bit apprehensive about choosing Law at university on the basis that you're not
completely convinced right now that you want to be a practising solicitor or barrister.
So a lot of people imagine that if you choose to do Law and you get that decision wrong
and it really wasn't for you, you'll be stuck on some sort of treadmill that you cannot
get off until the age of 65 or whatever age you guys will be when you retire, whatever
the retirement age is by the time you guys get round to that. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Now yes, there is a fairly obvious and let's face, it very lucrative
set of career opportunities opened up by studying Law at university but this is far from the
only thing that you can do with the degree. All sorts of people have Law backgrounds and
you're probably aware of some of the prominent politicians that began in Law. The Blairs
for example, that's Tony and Cheri Blair both have Law backgrounds. In fact Cheri is still
very important and very more a practitioner. The Clintons, that's Bill and Hilary Clinton,
both have Law backgrounds, as do the Obamas, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle both have
Law backgrounds. In fact, I think all three of these power couples met at university,
isn't that lovely? But we cannot guarantee that you will meet your husband or wife while
you are here!
But there are all sorts of other people you probably wouldn't think of. Novelists like
Balzac and Swift have Law backgrounds, or had Law backgrounds. Bob Mortimer from comedy
duo Reeves and Mortimer has a Law background. Kumar S.., wicket keeper and batsman of Warwickshire
and Sri Lanka who was in action last night -- they lost in fact -- has a Law background.
Even Chuck Dee from pioneering hip-hop act Public Enemy has a Law background and by the
way, wherever you go, whatever you do and whatever you study, your lecturers will do
things like that. They'll embark upon these pathetic attempts to ingratiate themselves
with the students by name-dropping bits of popular culture and that one doesn't even
work, it's like twenty years out of date. So please don't feel that practising Law is
the only thing you can do with this degree. There are all sorts of things you can use
it for and it's useful in all sorts of walks of life.
So what's actually involved? Well as Steve mentioned, in the first two years of the LLB
programme you only do compulsory subjects. Seven of these eight are what we call the
core modules. These are Contract Law -- some places might call that Obligations A but it's
exactly the same thing. The Law of xxxxx -- some places might call that Obligations B but it's
exactly the same thing. Public Law and Criminal Law in the first year. Then in the second
year we have Land Law -- again some places might call that Property Law A; it's exactly
the same thing. Equity and Trusts Law -- Property B in some places; exactly the same thing.
And the Legal Foundations of the EU, Legal Foundations of the European Union. Now these
are called the core modules and they're compulsory on any LLB course because you need to pass
all of these, every one of these, if you wish to get onto the LPC, the Legal Practitioners
Course, in order to train to become a solicitor, or the BPTC, the Bar Practitioner's Training
Course, what used to be called the BVC, the Bar Vocational Course, in order to train to
become a barrister. So doing all of these modules and passing them in the first couple
of years gets you a qualifying Law degree. It helps you on that route if that's the direction
you want to go. But let's imagine you don't. Let's imagine you're a couple of years into
your Law degree and you decide you know what, this is all very interesting but I don't really
want to be a solicitor or a barrister. You will not have wasted your time by doing these
core modules. There are very few certainties in life but every single one of you will,
at some point, either purchase or inherit or rent a piece of property, a piece of land.
So even if you never practice Law, knowing a bit about land law is just going to be useful.
It's just going to stand you in good stead. Similarly, very few certainties in life but
every one of you will, at some point, enter into an important binding legal contract -- perhaps
a contract with an employer for example. So even if you do reckon you're the next Kumar
S... or the next Chuck Dee or the next Swift or Balzac, knowing a bit about contract law
is just going to be useful. It's just going to help you out whatever you do later on in
life. It is for this reason that big multinational corporations and big financial institutions,
places like the Deloitte and Touche, places like Price Waterhouse Coopers, specifically
target law students. We have a bunch of career events throughout the year and at our law-specific
career fairs, yes we've got representatives from solicitors firms and barristers chambers.
But we also have representatives from those big financial institutions and multinational
corporations that have graduate training programmes specifically encouraging law students to apply.
They're doing this because they know that you've studied something at undergraduate
level that is of direct commercial applicability in the real world. What we study has real
world consequences and it's practically useful.
So that's the compulsory stuff that you do in the first and second year and the reasons
why you might want to do it, the reasons why it's kind of useful. In addition as Steve
mentioned, on the straight Law programme, Jurisprudence , or the Philosophy of Law,
is compulsory here and then in the final year you basically only do choices but the choices
represent a really wide range of subjects. Some of them, again, are the kinds of things
that you can imagine a practicing solicitor or barrister using on a day to day basis and
Steve had the list up on that earlier PowerPoint. You might have seen things like Company Law
or Tax Law or the Law of Adult Relationships which governs things like Divorce Law and
separation agreements and child custody battles and all of that horrible stuff. But you will
also have seen options that encourage students to look at Law from a wider historical, or
theoretical or philosophical kind of perspective. Things like political and legal theory which
is my module so I always give it a plug on days like today, and things like criminology
which is the study of the nature and the causes of crime. Why are certain things considered
morally wrong but not actually criminal, whereas other moral wrongs have a criminal sanction
attached to them? It's wrong to lie to your mother but it's not actually a crime. It's
wrong to steal a loaf of bread, but to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family,
is that morally worse than lying to your mother? So those kinds of questions are the sorts
of things we look at in criminology as well as the causes of crime, the nature of crime.
Why is it that -- what's the link between poverty and crime or education and crime and
what can we do to prevent people committing offences in the future? Now what this shows,
the fact that the Philosophy of Law is compulsory here and the fact that we have these options
that will encourage you to look at Law from a wider kind of perspective, what this shows
is that we are not looking for robots.
I think another big myth about the study of Law and about the practice of Law is that
it's kind of a memory exercise. It's all about learning a bunch of laws off by heart and
then being able to reproduce them word for word at an appropriate point. If you ever
see lawyers depicted on television, often in sort of BBC adaptations of Dickens novels
or TV programmes like Suits -- does anyone watch Suits? -- if you ever watch these kinds
of things, the lawyer is always this very well-dressed individual, sitting in this kind
of well-appointed mahogany office with row upon row of weighty looking leather bound
books on the shelves behind him and a lot of people imagine that the real skill in being
a lawyer is you can go into this person's office, pick any one of those big impressive
looking books off the shelf and this genius would be able to tell you word for word what
it says in a particular section of a particular Act on a particular page in that book. In
fact, that's the whole premise of Suits, right? They guy's just brilliant at learning stuff
off by heart. This is not what being a good lawyer and being a good law student is all
about. We do not memorise law, we do not reproduce law, we practice law. It's a skill based,
at times very creative kind of activity. You know those big, impressive looking books on
the shelves? Those are statute books. You're allowed to bring them into the exam with you.
Learning them off by heart would be a complete and utter waste of your time. So what are
the skills involved then? If being a good law student and being a good practising lawyer
isn't about just being able to memorise stuff and then just throw it back at us, what are
we looking at? What would make you a good law student? Well like I said, it's a practical
activity and like any practice, you couldn't really list everything that would make you
good. I mean let's face it, there's a high degree of snob value attached to studying
Law isn't there? Tell your gran or your next door neighbour that you're thinking of applying
to study Law and they'll say 'oh well done you, you must be very clever'. And I think
the reason why lawyers enjoy this reputation is precisely because of this. Because it's
a practice rather than a memory exercise, it tests a really wide range of skills. Like
any other practice, say being good at a musical instrument or being an artist, you couldn't
list everything that would make you good. There's always another technique, another
string you could add to your bow to make you a little bit better and similarly with the
study and the practice of Law, there are always more things you can add to your repertoire
that will make you a better lawyer. But what I will do is list let's say four different
key skills that you might want to think of and reflect on when you're deciding whether
Law is for you. Four or the key skills -- these aren't all the ones you need but these are
four really key ones -- the first of the four I will mention is an ability to communicate
effectively in the English language. That I think is fairly obvious. I don't think any
of you would be here if the idea of reading a book or something fills you with an inaneless
[sic] dread. You must, to at least some degree, be words people. So I don't think there's
too much more to be said about that one. The only thing I would say is that if you happen
to suffer from dyslexia, this does not mean by definition that you are bad at communicating
effectively in English. We had a recent graduate who came away with a First, went on to do
a PhD with us and is now a leading academic at a rival institution and he has suffered
from dyslexia throughout his life, quite acute dyslexia. I don't mean being good at spelling
and grammar. Now if you happen to struggle with that kind of stuff, we have a specific
legal writing clinic who will diagnose any problems you're having in that respect early
on and we've got a lot of support that can help you get up to speed. By being good at
communicating effectively in the English language that simply means that you're good at getting
your ideas across to others. That's the first kind of key skill I'd pick out.
The second one I would pick out is I think again fairly obvious. It is, let's say, a
willingness to read a high volume of at times very dense material. I'm sure you've all heard
horror stories about studying Law, right? The amount of stuff you have to read. This
one is true. You will have to read a huge amount of stuff. As Steve indicated with the
contact hours, most of your time will be spent in the library where you'll be reading some
fairly involved things. Now some of the cases we ask you to read will be really interesting.
Many's the Hollywood film that's been based around the facts of a criminal law case for
example and they're always kind of really interesting, lots of blood and lots of intrigue
and *** and all this kind of great stuff. Well not great if you're the victim obviously
but it's intriguing to read about. And also many of the cases that you read, many of the
leading cases, will be things that you're already kind of aware of, you might have seen
on the news or read in newspapers. For example, in the first year you do Taught -- some places
will call it Obligations B, as I mentioned -- and one of the leading cases in that area
of Law relates to the Hillsborough disaster. This was in the news recently because of the
enquiry into the cover-up after the disaster, but the original case relates to the 1989
disaster in an FA Cup Semi-Final when a bunch of Liverpool fans were tragically crushed
to death. Now this is one of the leading cases that you study in Taught in first year and
in every module there will be one or two cases that kind of ring a bell and relate to current
affairs and things you're interested in. So, many of the cases we ask you to look at will
be just really interesting things to learn about on the face of it. But a lot of the
cases won't be. A lot of the things we ask you to read will involve these kind of fairly
complex commercial transactions between two individuals you've never heard of before and
will never hear about again. Now we're not doing this just to torture you. If we ask
you to read a case study that's a little bit tougher to get through where the facts aren't
that gripping or exciting, there will be something in there that is important, that is significant,
that is going to change what we mean by justice from that point onwards. Do you think you'd
be good at dealing with that? Do you think you'd be good at reading a high value of at
times fairly dense material and picking out the part that is going to change people's
lives from that point onwards, picking out the bit that's significant in all of this
kind of discourse and discussion?
So those first two key skills I think are probably fairly obvious. The ability to communicate
effectively in English and a willingness let's say to read a high volume of at times fairly
tough material. The next two skills are less obvious or perhaps a little misleading. The
third one I would pick out is an ability to argue. In order to be a good law student,
and then as a good lawyer, you need to be good at argument and that always happens.
Any time I tell a group like this you need to be good at argument to be a good law students,
a parent looks at their teenage son or daughter with an expression on their face that seems
to say 'yeah, you're pretty good at that one, aren't you?. You know what, if this was a
degree now, there is nothing further you can teach them'. There's a difference between
what I mean by good argument and what you guys might be thinking of as you reflect on
the various disputes that you've had with friends and family members down through the
years. For the sake of clarity, let's call those types of disputes -- the ones you have
with your parents or friends or other family members -- let's call them 'rows' rather than
arguments. In one respect, a row and an argument are similar. To be good at rowing and being
good at argument are similar in one key way. In both cases you're trying to leave the other
person in no doubt what it is that you think about a particular issue. If you're rowing
with friends or a family member, you want them to understand what you think about this
particular issue, and an argument is the same. When we hear or read a good legal argument,
we want to be in no doubt what you think about this particular topic. But the person who
wins a row with friends or family members, normally does so by being louder or ruder
or more obnoxious or just by going on and on and on until you can't take it anymore.
You just have better things to do. You cannot do this to a judge. If you lose a row, if
you lose a shouting match, and I don't care how good you are at this, everyone's lost
at least one, you walk away with your tail between your legs, your ego is slightly deflated,
you feel a bit worse about yourself but in the back of your mind you still reckon you
were right don't you? You might have been out-shouted or out-insulted or maybe they
had more time on their hands so they kept going on and on, but you still reckon you
were right. You might still be thinking about that as you go to bed that evening. The next
time you see that person, in the back of your mind you're probably still thinking 'you know
what, I was right about that'. If you lose an argument your mind is changed. You're persuaded
at least a little bit. If you win an argument you don't just beat people over the head with
your opinions, you persuade them, you change their mind, you make them think the same way
that you do so that the next time they see you, they kind of agree instead of still thinking
'I was right'. Do you think you'd be good at that? Do you think you'd be good at not
only getting your opinion across clearly but winning over your classmates and academics
to that way of thinking? That's the third kind of key skill I'd pick out.
The final one I would mention is I think very underrated but definitely very important and
it's an ability to perform well under pressure. The way that we examine on LLB programmes,
and this is true pretty much in most institutions in the UK, the way that we examine is by the
end of year exams, typically. There tends not to be that much in the way of continuous
assessment. Your grades for the year and ultimately your degree classification depend upon a few
weeks in May or June. It all comes down to your end of year exam and what you will have
to do in your end of year exam is something like this. You'll be sitting in a great big
hall full of hundreds of people, there will be a sheet of paper in front of you and at
the appointed time you will be directed to turn that piece of paper over. Some of the
questions you'll be asked to do will be what we call essay type questions, so they will
invite you to discuss, present an argument, in some contentious area of the law. But most
of the questions that you do in first and second year at least will be what we call
problem questions. Now a problem question is basically a little fictional scenario that
we've made up. There will be a bunch of characters in a little story that's about three or four
paragraphs long and you will be invited to give legal advice to one of these characters
as your hypothetical client. So Anne, Barry and Colin purchase a house together, a whole
bunch of things will happen to their characters and various twists will happen in the tale
and then at the end you'll be invited to advise Anne, let's say. Now some parts of that story
will look similar to cases that you've read during the year. It's really a test as to
whether you can take the cases you've read during the year and see that they're materially
similar. Some of the things that happen in that story will never have been decided in
this jurisdiction before. They will never have come up in the courts of England and
Wales before. What you need to do in the space of about an hour per question is read through
this story, pick out all of the bits that are of legal relevance, identify the bits
that haven't come up before and try to come up with some sort of reasoned argument as
to how existing principles can be adapted to deal with this new set of facts. Do you
think you'd be good at that? Do you think you'd be good at keeping a cool, calm head,
reading through the thing carefully, picking out all the relevant stuff and then presenting
a reasoned argument, or do you think you'd be the type of person that would panic, that
would take one look at this thing and then start furiously scribbling down everything
that you can remember that loosely relates to the facts that have come up? If our students
are disappointed with their grades, it is rarely because they lack the ability. We're
really lucky here, we only attract really talented undergraduates and it is a real privilege
to teach them. And it's not because they haven't worked hard enough because don't worry, we'll
make sure you work hard enough. It's because people have cracked under the pressure. They
haven't done themselves justice in the exam because in the heat of the moment and with
people from other disciplines scribbling away either side of them, they've decided that
they'd better start scribbling too and they haven't managed to keep a cool head. More
than anything else really, that's what this LNAT aptitude test will examine, your ability
to keep nice and calm under pressure.
So, those are four of the kind of key skills involved in being a good Law student and after
that, a good practising lawyer -- communicate effectively in English, a willingness let's
say to read a high volume of stuff, an ability to argue as distinct from an ability to be
stubborn and just keep shouting at people, and then finally an ability to keep calm,
to keep cool under a degree of time constraint and pressure. If this sounds like you, if
these sound like the kind of skills that you have, I really don't think that there are
many other basic first degrees that you can do. It's one of the most respected undergraduate
qualifications that you can get. It is demanding but it's universally respected as an undergraduate
qualification. It opens up a whole bunch of career opportunities and it really doesn't
close many off. The only thing you might be wondering is why here? Why not any of the
other many very good Law Schools that there are in the UK and you guys are kind of spoilt
for choice because there are a lot of really good Law Schools in the UK and there are actually
more and more opening up. It's one of the few areas in academia what if anything it's
getting bigger.
I really can't tell you where to go and what to do in this respect. Really? Go to various
open days, check out various Law Schools, meet as many of your prospective lecturers
as you can, I think that's quite useful to see who actually will be teaching you and
wherever kind of fits best and feels right for you, it's really where you should go.
Ultimately the better you feel off the pitch, the better you play on it. Anyone who's witnessed
Mario Balatelli's remarkable transformation in the Confederation's Cup, will know exactly
what I'm talking about. Unhappy in Manchester, complete liability and nutcase. Happy back
in Italy, looks like an absolute superstar. And the same principle applies to studying
Law. The happier that you feel in the general environment, in the city, in the university,
the better you're likely to do in your degree and your employers will look at your degree
classification and your average mark before they look at anything else. It's the most
important thing. So really whatever feels right to you, that's the first thing you should
be looking at. But I'm just going to mention a few things that we do that make us a little
bit different and might help you in that decision as to whether this is the kind of place that
offers the things you're really looking for. The first thing that I think I should mention
that makes us different, that makes us quite unique, is our special relationship with the
professions. We are by far the best regarded Law School in the second biggest legal market
in the UK. So more legal activity happens in London than any other city in the UK; Birmingham
is second. But in London, think of the sheer number of really good Law Schools that there
are. You've got the LSE, you've got UCL, you've got Queen Mary, you've got Kings, you've got
SOAS, you've got Burbeck -- off the top of my head that's six. Every Law School worth
its salt will be competing to try to get leading practitioners in to talk to students about
career advice, to help them out with things like applications and to get involved with
the life of the School by judging things like Mooting competitions. These are an extracurricular
mock trial kind of thing that we do. We operate in the second biggest legal market in the
UK but we don't have anything like the competition. We don't consider any other Law School in
Birmingham to be a competitor with us. What that means is that we have a better monopoly
than any other Law School in the UK on getting legal practitioners in to help our students
out and also to get involved in their education generally. Here at Birmingham we have a unique
institution called [Kepler - 0:38:21] and what [Kepler] does is it basically integrates
the local professions with the legal education of our undergraduates. So they actually get
involved in delivering some of the lectures etc but there are also various initiatives
that they do, for example one really interesting new initiative over the last week is a number
of internships for our students at the Football Association in their legal division. So various
big institutions like the FA have legal divisions and a recent development with [Kepler] is
there have been a number of internships there, ring-fenced for our students. Now obviously
these are competitive, you have to apply to get them, but they're specifically identified
for our guys. That's just an example of the kind of thing that [Kepler] does and we can
only do that kind of thing because we have this historic unique relationship with the
professions. A bigger monopoly in that regard than anyone else in the UK. So that's the
first thing that makes us a bit different.
The second thing that I would mention is the fact that we have a dedicated Law library
in the Law School itself. If you manage to get a look around the Law School today you
will see that the [Harding - 0:39:39] Law Library is actually in the building. When
you go to various other open days and applicant visit days etc further down the line you'll
see that very few other Law Schools in the UK have that. Most Law Schools now will have
their library integrated into the main library or dotted somewhere else around the campus.
Now why does that make a difference? Well because the contact hours are not that high
in Law, it can be the case that it takes a while to get to know the rest of your year.
You don't have that many lectures per week, maybe ten. You don't have that many tutorials,
maybe another two or three, so you're not going to see other people on your course that
much for the first few weeks and it might take a while to get to know your year and
to get to kind of gel. I have firsthand experience of three different Law Schools and I would
say by far in this one it is the one where the year just gels and gets to know one another
much quicker and I think that's because of the Harding Law Library. Because our Law library
is in the Law building itself, you have a reason, and an obligation, to be actually
in the Law School every single day as an undergraduate, as distinct from somewhere on the campus.
In addition this also helps your legal education generally. Because we have this bespoke Law
library we have these various group discussion rooms and if you're in there with another
law student, you're reading some case, you kind of look at each other quizzically because
it's not making much sense, you can disappear off to one of the group discussion rooms and
kind of thrashes out these ideas together. In addition if you're studying in the Law
library and something really isn't making much sense, you can leave the library and
within a minute you'll be at one of our offices and you can just knock on our door and ask
us, 'listen, reading this thing really doesn't make sense'. If the Law library is elsewhere
on the campus, in some institutions it's a bus ride away, it's quite a long journey from
where you've been studying in the Law library to where your academic assistance lies. So
that's the second thing I would pick out that makes us unique. We've a dedicated Law library
in the Law School itself.
The final thing that I would pick out, and for me it's the most important thing, is the
degree of academic freedom you are afforded here. As an academic, so long as I'm producing
world class research, I can research in any area that I think is interesting. I can kind
of follow my heart and my instincts. That's not true of all Law Schools in the UK. In
many institutions they have what is termed the 'research police' that go around the place,
suggesting that really 'you ought to be researching in some other area because that's the kind
of thing we do here'. That doesn't happen to academics at this Law School. We've got
a lot of academic freedom so long as what we're doing is good and that type of freedom
filters down to the student body. There is no typical Birmingham Law student. One of
the real privileges of teaching here is that we get Law students from right across the
spectrum in terms of outlook, in terms of politics and in terms of background and interests.
We don't try to force any type of argument down your throat. We don't care what type
of argument you want to make, we just care that you're making good arguments and we want
them to be yours. OK, thank you very much for sitting through these couple of talks.
Are we doing a Q&A down the top? We can do some Q&A down here, some questions and answers
if anyone has any? Feel free to raise a hand, unless the speech was clarity itself! Every
single question answered! Yep?
Do you accept extended projects?
OK, with the extended projects, we wouldn't consider it in terms of the initial offer.
The initial offer will be your best three A-levels or equivalent. If you miss your grades,
additional A-levels, AS's and things like the extended project we'll take into account
at that stage.
What's your applicant places ratio?
We tend to have around about 7 or 8 applications per place. The important thing when you're
looking at applicants to places ratio is how likely it is you're actually going to get
into the School. As I mentioned, if you're predicted three Bs or above, do reasonably
in LNAT, we will make an offer of a place. If you then achieve our stated grades, you're
guaranteed your place and if you narrowly miss we normally have about 10 to 15% of our
places available for students at that. So I wouldn't get too hung up on the number of
applications and thinking oh it's hugely, hugely competitive. It is competitive but
within those parameters which I've set out.
It's worth mentioning as well that if you are worried that you might miss a grade, this
is a little further down the line obviously, when we're trying to fill up those spots with
people who've missed a grade, we give priority obviously to anyone who's put us as firm first
choice. I think that's probably the case most places. So if you're worried you might miss
a grade, put yourself firm first -- and you want to come here, put us as firm first choice
and your chances increase a lot by doing that.
Does every offer come with an interview beforehand?
No, we don't interview. Because we have LNAT it kind of takes that whole narrowing down
process out so no, we don't interview applicants.
So basically if you meet your grades you're expected that's it, you don't even look at
the LNAT?
No, no. When we get the application, you will submit your UCAS application and you need
to sit LNAT before the 20th January otherwise it's classed as late and we're not obliged
to consider it at that point. So before we make any offer, we have already looked at
the result of your LNAT, decided it's OK and then it's just down to you to meet the grades.
And is work experience important to have?
Work experience is absolutely a very beneficial thing to have done. As much as anything it
means you've got a better idea of whether or not this is going to be the right degree
for you, it's something you're genuinely passionate about. We don't expect you to have it when
it comes to the application. The majority of students won't because it can be very difficult
to source but if say you missed your grades, we look at a range of things including additional
A-levels, AS levels, extended projects, the LNAT score again. We also look at the personal
statement and reference for evidence of work experience and if you've got particular things
which make you stand out. So it does get taken into account but not really until that stage
because we don't expect people to have it.