Student in law courts

Find the law course for you

Thinking about a career in the legal sector? Our courses give you the skills, experience and qualifications to start

Law touches on almost every aspect of society including business, politics and human rights. It affects global trade and international relations as well as business, personal transactions and family relationships - so a degree in law is always relevant.

Study law, and you'll tackle the pressing ethical and legal issues facing society. A law degree is the first step to a career in the legal sector and can prepare you for further training as a barrister or solicitor.

The knowledge, experience and skills you'll learn will also prepare you for many other graduate jobs. With your law degree, you'll be ready to move into a variety of roles in insurance and banking, and into managerial positions across many other industries.

The LLB Law syllabus at the University of Portsmouth really hones in on taking the law and the practical application of it to legal problems – I think learning this skill early on in my studies set me ahead of my peers.

Darren Gill, LLB (Hons) Law

Reasons to study law with us

1. Use our replica crown court

Our law facilities include a mock law court. This crown court replica is complete with dock, witness box, jury room and interview room.

2. Join the law society

Join the student law society to take part in social, charitable and career activities throughout your degree and make friends along the way. You could even boost your skills by joining the society committee.

3. Gain practical work experience

You can get work experience in our legal advice clinic with supervision from qualified solicitors during your studies. 

4. Start your career with a placement year

After your second year you can do a placement year to get experience in a range of different sectors ahead of graduating. You'll get support in choosing and applying for placements that fit your aspirations, whether you want to work in a legal or non-legal context.

Learn your craft in our courtroom

Replica Crown Court 

Watch this short video to discover our replica courtroom and see where you'll practise trials and take part in mooting competitions.

The benefits of having a replica Crown Court are that if one of our students wants to be a barrister in the future or a solicitor advocate, then it really gives them the opportunity to practise a trial and various court hearings in a courtroom setting.

Although this is a crown court, so it's a criminal court, we also use it for civil cases too. We're one of the only universities in the country that has a replica courtroom. This really gives students, when they go on from university, some really important skills that are valuable not only in a legal career, but also in a lot of other careers as well.

The student Law Society do a lot of activities in here, run mock trials, mooting competitions, and it gives our students really a chance to let their hair down and have a bit of fun in here.

We use the wigs, we use the gowns, we get a real judge in and we've got the cameras in here so you can go and film your performances.

You can -- it's a really good learning space. It's so lovely to see how our students grow in the years that they're with us. Our replica courtroom helps us to do that.

Law at Portsmouth

Hear course leader, Joanne Atkinson, talk about studying LLM Law at Portsmouth. 

 I'm a qualified solicitor, I worked in practice before joining the university and I really enjoyed bringing that practical experience into the classroom.

 I think what's exciting about law at Masters level is the sheer variety.

 So once you begin to learn about the subject and see how it applies you never look at life the same way again.

 For each individual student they can tailor make their own program to suit their preferences and that might include work based learning.

 It might include in-depth study in their preferred specialist areas.

 If you join without a qualifying law degree there's no requirement to have studied law before one of your options in that case will be our law conversion course.

 But the remainder of your program is available for you to choose.

 We are able to offer students opportunities to take voluntary career placements and those students receive professional training before sitting with clients and gaining practical experience.

 In order to succeed on the LLM in Law I think the three key attribute students need are first of all curiosity, a dose of commercial awareness is really helpful in order to understand the context in which the law is applying and finally I think the master's is quite an intensive course.

 If you take the full time option you're only here for a year so you also need a certain amount of tenacity.

 Portsmouth is a really vibrant place to live.

 You've got the beach you've got the seaside you got all of the cultural activities going on lots of festivals over the summer and in fact all year round it's a really buzzy exciting place to be in a great place to study and to develop.
 

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