Courses

Why do the LL.M. at Cambridge?

Students study for the LL.M. for many reasons. Most want to develop their knowledge and understanding of law. Others want to experience another legal system, others to specialise in particular areas of law. All want intellectual stimulation; and all want to improve their career prospects – whether in practice, in academia, in government service. The Cambridge LL.M. offers all these things. It is one of the most highly respected LL.Ms in the world. It is rigorous and intellectually demanding. It is taught by some of the finest academics; and it is studied by students who are the best in their generation.

If you come to study for the LL.M. you will be joining an elite group of students who go on to excel in their chosen profession, as leading academics, practitioners and judges. In difficult market conditions, employers value the skills that a Cambridge LL.M. offers. For those wanting to go on to careers in research, a Cambridge LL.M. provides an excellent foundation.

Reputation

Cambridge’s Law Faculty was rated 5* in the 2001 RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) and in the top cohort for the 2008 RAE. It consistently receives ‘excellent’ in its teaching reviews. The university itself ranks as the best in the world.

Intellectual life

Teaching staff

Law has been taught at Cambridge since the fourteenth century. Giants of the common law have all taught at Cambridge: Maitland, Winfield, Jolowicz, Glanville Williams, de Smith, Milsom and many others.

The Faculty of Law now has approximately 80 teaching members, including 17 professors (which in the UK is an accolade awarded only to those at the top of their profession) and 7 readers. In addition, the Faculty invites a scholar of international distinction to be the Goodhart Professor for the year. Recent holders of the post have included Jane Ginsburg , Sir Robin Auld, Silvana Sciarra, Martti Koskenniemi, Cheryl Saunders and Paul Finn. They participate in the LL.M. programme by offering specialised courses.

Almost every area of legal interest is represented, ranging from international law to legal philosophy, European Union law to criminology, intellectual property to legal history. There are around 740 undergraduates and 250 postgraduate students in the Faculty.

Faculty profiles

Brian Cheffins S.J. Berwin Professor of Corporate Law, began his academic career at the University of British Columbia. He has held visiting appointments at Duke, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2002 and is currently a Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute. He is the author of Company Law: Theory, Structure and Operation (Oxford, 1997), The Trajectory of (Corporate Law) Scholarship (Cambridge, 2004), Corporate Ownership and Control: British Business Transformed (Oxford, 2008).

 

Jo Miles teaches and researches principally in family law, as one of the seminar leaders on the LL.M’s Comparative Family Law and Policy paper. She has an international reputation in the area of the law relating to family financial disputes. She is particularly well known for her work on non-marital couples, having been seconded to the Law Commission for England & Wales to work on its Cohabitation project, and recently completed an empirical study with colleagues at Edinburgh on the new financial remedies for cohabitants in Scottish law. Co-author of one of the leading English texts on family law, her work on financial relief on divorce has been cited in the highest courts in England & Wales, New Zealand and Ireland.

 

James Crawford is Whewell Professor of International Law, having previously held chairs at Adelaide and Sydney. He is a Senior Counsel (NSW) and a member of the English bar, practising from Matrix Chambers. He was the first Australian member of the United Nations International Law Commission and was responsible for the ILC’s work on the International Criminal Court (1994) and for the second reading of the ILC Articles on State Responsibility (2001). He has appeared frequently before the International Court of Justice and other international tribunals, and is engaged as an expert, counsel and arbitrator in international arbitration.

A full list of the teaching members can be found on the Law Faculty’s website.

The Centres

Within the Faculty there is a range of internationally recognised centres which attract scholars and students from all over the world:

• Institute of Criminology;
• Lauterpacht Centre for International Law;
• Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS);
• Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law;
• Centre for Public Law;
• Centre for Tax Law;
• Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law (known as ‘3CL’).

The Faculty is also associated with the Centre for Business Research, a research centre based in the University’s Judge Business School.

These centres organise a range of additional lectures and seminars that LL.M. students are encouraged to attend. For example, CELS and LCIL offer weekly lunchtime seminars on a wide range of topics throughout the first and second terms of each academic year. The Centres also host annual lectures which attract speakers of the highest calibre. Recently, the Rt Hon. Jack Straw and Advocate General Sharpston have been the Mackenzie-Stuart Lecturers. Michael Beloff QC and US Chief Justice Roberts have given the recent Sir David Williams Lectures.

Law journals

The Faculty’s reputation is further enhanced through the publication of Law Journals, including the internationally respected Cambridge Law Journal. The Centres are responsible for their own publications, including the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies, the British Yearbook of International Law and the International Law Reports. Faculty members edit other well-respected journals, including the Industrial Law Journal, Journal of Corporate Law Studies, and Journal of Legal History.

International environment

Students come from about 40-50 countries from all over the world with a range of backgrounds, both academic and professional, and from a range of jurisdictions, both common law and civil. The exceptional quality of those we admit is recognised both by funding bodies in applicants' respective countries, and by international organisations such as the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the British Council's Chevening Scholarship programme and the University's Cambridge Trusts, who provide full scholarships and partial bursaries to a large number of LL.M. students every year.

Each year the LL.M. class also contains a small number of Juris Doctor students from Harvard Law School, admitted through the Harvard-Cambridge Link. This arrangement permits the JD students to use the LL.M. year as credit towards their JD in lieu of one year of study in the US.

This internationalism makes for a lively and enriching peer group from which students form life long friendships.

Outstanding facilities

The Law Faculty building

All teaching for the LL.M. course takes place at the Faculty of Law, 10 West Road, Cambridge (directions). The beautiful, airy Law Faculty Building was completed in 1995 to a design by Foster and Partners whose work also includes the 'Gherkin' (30 St Mary Axe) and the Millennium Bridge in London.

This dedicated Law Faculty building offers students and staff excellent facilities for study and research, including lecture theatres, teaching and seminar rooms and the Squire Law Library, which is part of Cambridge University Library.

Computing facilities

Students have the benefit of excellent computing facilities, including wireless access throughout much of the Law Faculty Building. Further information and support is available from the dedicated Computer Office website.

Library facilities

The Squire Law Library occupies the first, second and third floors of the Law Faculty Building. Students enjoy working in its light, bright, comfortable space. It houses – on open shelves - the principal law collection of the University of Cambridge. One of the major law libraries in the Commonwealth, it contains over 180,000 volumes, and provides excellent electronic research facilities, including the Freshfields Legal IT Centre. It has particular strengths in US, European and international law as well as legal history. The full listing is available on the Squire website.

Students also have access to the University Library, a copyright library and one of the world’s leading research libraries. It is only a short walk from the Law Faculty. Most college libraries also have their own law holdings to which LL.M. students have access.

Academic and pastoral care

Colleges

Cambridge University is organised on a collegiate basis, with 31 colleges. Colleges provide accommodation, access to dining and sporting facilities and various forms of student support.

All LL.M. students have a Director of Studies in their college who is able to provide academic support. Most colleges also have a graduate tutor who can provide pastoral support. Lectures and seminars for the LL.M. course are, however, provided exclusively by the Faculty of Law.

LL.M. students are encouraged to participate fully in the rich academic and social life of their college. Most colleges have their own law societies and other alumni networks complementing those offered by the Faculty and the University.

Further information about the Colleges is available from the University of Cambridge Graduate Studies Prospectus or the individual college websites via the University's website. Whichever college you join – and they are all different – will capture your heart and you will feel a life-long bond to it.

More details on the process by which colleges and students are matched is available on the Board of Graduate Studies website.

Mentoring

At Faculty level, overall responsibility for the LL.M. students lies with the Course Director. In addition, all LL.M. students are given a mentor from among the teaching staff of the Faculty who can advise on academic and other matters.

Small group teaching

Small group teaching (in groups of 10-15 students) is available in addition to lectures in almost all subjects for classes where numbers taking the subject exceed 10-15. On average, students can generally expect 5 small group classes per subject during the course of the academic year.

Since the LL.M. is a postgraduate course, we consider that students no longer need their hands held through the supervision system found at undergraduate level. Rather, they benefit from the lively interaction of their peers. We consider 10-15 to be the optimum size for discussing difficult and controversial issues: it is large enough to allow for different standpoints to be represented and expressed, and small enough to allow all students the opportunity to participate in class discussions and develop their own ideas.

In these small groups, students are expected to analyse complex legal material, critically examine legal questions, apply this knowledge to 'problem' situations and consider underlying policy issues. Students are strongly encouraged to express their own opinions.

Students are also encouraged to submit written work (up to three pieces for each paper they are taking). This might take the form of reflective essays or timed exam-practice essays. Students benefit from direct feedback on their work and so hone their written skills.

Seminars courses and other opportunities for individual research

For those who would like to do more independent research, the Faculty offers two options. It is possible to follow a seminar course where students present their own research and write it as a seminar paper. Alternatively, it is possible to write a thesis in lieu of an exam in one paper. This is a popular option with students who enjoy the one-to-one attention from a member of staff and the excitement of conducting independent research.

Other opportunities

i. Mooting

The Faculty’s Law Society also offers an extensive mooting programme in which students can participate, together with the possibility of becoming involved in international mooting competitions.

ii. Institutions trip

The Centre for European Legal Studies organises an annual trip to the EU institutions in Brussels and Luxembourg. Law students, including those on the LL.M., join students from the Faculty of Politics to visit various institutions together with, for example, NATO and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

iii. Student Law Review

LL.M. students can participate in writing and editing the Student Law Review (http://www.cslr.org.uk/).

iv. Pro Bono

Students can also get involved with the Pro Bono Society (http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/probono/).

Contacts with the profession

The Law Faculty enjoys very good relations with all branches of the legal profession. Practitioners often come to give seminars. Law firms and barristers’ chambers regularly come to Cambridge for the purposes of recruitment. The Careers Service organises a number of law careers fairs and the University’s Law Society offers opportunities to meet members of the profession.

Life in Cambridge

Beyond the world of the Law Faculty lies the rich cultural and sporting life of the University. Whether it is writing for one of the student newspapers, powering down the Cam in a rowing boat, strutting the boards, or watching the latest art house film, all tastes are catered for. There are also the University’s museums, including the wonderful Fitzwilliam, the Cambridge Union debating society, May balls, formal halls, punting down the Cam, and taking tea at the Orchard where the ‘Granchester group’ (Rupert Brooke, Russell and Wittgenstein, Forster and Virginia Woolf, and Keynes) used to meet. Students usually find that a year in Cambridge is not enough.