Law courses

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.

 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.