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Courses
Aims and objectives
The LL.M. provides a rich, intellectual environment in which students can develop their interests. Students take four papers in total. They have the option of specialising in commercial, European or international law, or of taking a combination of papers from these areas and/or from the substantial range of papers in other areas of the law. Students who take at least three papers in one of these areas receive a designation to their LL.M., indicating the specialism pursued. Whilst a large number of students opt to specialise, particularly in commercial law, a substantial proportion of students decide to take a mixture of papers. In addition, those who do opt to specialise frequently take a paper outside their specialism alongside the three within it.
While many students know in advance which papers they would like to take, the Faculty does not require students to express that decision in advance. Students can attend a subject forum (sometimes jokingly called the ‘beauty parade’) on the first day of term where course convenors talk about their courses. Students are then permitted to attend various courses over the first week or so before deciding which suits them best.
Courses on offer
Each year there are approximately twenty-five courses on offer in the LL.M. Those subjects designated as seminars are examined by means of an 18,000 word thesis only. While most of the courses offered in 2011-2012 will run in 2012-2013, a few changes in the list are made from one year to the next and the Faculty cannot therefore guarantee that all subjects will be offered. The Faculty usually publishes a list of the available papers for the following academic year in January, with the final list normally available by the end of June.
Candidates generally have a free choice of papers from those prescribed although there may be unavoidable timetable clashes and certain combinations of papers may be prohibited.
Candidates who offer at least three papers from those listed under international law, commercial law or European law topics (or a thesis in lieu of one of them) will have the letter '(i)', '(c)' or '(e)' respectively placed against their name in the class list to indicate that they specialised in that subject. Please refer to the Form and Designation of Examination page for specific information.
An LL.M. Subject Forum is held at the beginning of each academic year to help current LL.M. students decide which courses to take. Course convenors for each course discuss the goals and objectives of their course. These presentations are available online to listen to or read.
Method of teaching
The LL.M. course is conducted in English through a mixture of lectures, seminars and small group teaching. For subjects with fewer than 15 students, teaching will normally be conducted through interactive seminars, usually one two-hour seminar a week. For larger subjects, in most cases lectures (again usually 2 hours a week) are supplemented by 4-6 hours of small group teaching. Given that this is a postgraduate level course, the Faculty considers that students benefit from the interaction with their peers from a range of backgrounds, both civil and common law. Even in larger subjects, there is space for student participation in the lectures. The seminars and all group classes will be based on reading lists circulated prior to the classes.
Method of assessment
The method of assessment for each course is typically a three-hour written examination at the end of the academic year (late May/early June). These exams might be open book (where all relevant materials can be taken into the exam) or closed book (no material apart from materials specified by the examiner can be taken into the exam). In some courses, students have the option of taking a two-hour examination and submitting a short written essay.
In seminar papers students are examined through a (compulsory) supervised thesis. In addition, in many of the LL.M. courses, there is also the option of writing a thesis in lieu of the examination. A candidate whose topic is approved for a thesis will be entitled to a prescribed amount of individual supervision from a Faculty supervisor. Students can, however, write only one thesis and their chosen topic cannot overlap substantially with material covered in another course.
Students receive their results and graduate at the end of June/early July.
Support for students from civil law backgrounds
The LL.M. is an advanced course intended for law graduates, not an introduction to the common law. Many students coming from a non-common law background successfully complete the LL.M., but any candidate who is new to the common law and who is taking papers which have a strong common law element should be prepared to do supplementary work before attending, or during the course, since the course is taught and examined on the basis that students are familiar with the case-law method and with the basic mechanics of the common law. Students considering whether the common law method is for them might consider attending the English Legal Methods summer course run by Cambridge’s Institute of Continuing Education.
The Law Faculty organises a series of optional Introductory Lectures which take place just before the start of the course to introduce LL.M. candidates to the machinery of justice in England, to the conceptual structure of English law, and to the elements of common law reasoning. Halfway through the first term the Faculty offers a further session considering common law methods in the light of the student experience of studying in the common law system, a session on examination technique and a session in thesis writing.
Sample timetable
You can download the current timetable to get an idea of what a normal timetable will look like.
Faculty profiles
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