University College London Law Faculty

UCL Faculty of Laws
Established	1836
Type	Private
Endowment	Unknown
Dean	Dame Hazel Genn DBE QC FBA
Staff	150
Students	1096
Location	Bloomsbury, Central London, England, UK
Campus	Urban
Affiliations	Columbia Law School
Website	www.ucl.ac.uk/laws

The University College London Faculty of Laws (UCL Laws) is a super elite law school situated in Bloomsbury, Central London and is one of the most eminent^[1] faculties of the University College London (UCL), a constitutent college of the University of London. The faculty has a reputation for being one of the top law schools in the world and is currently ranked 1st in the UK by The Complete University Guide.^[2]

It is well known for embracing modern legal methods and forms of education more readily than many other law faculties. UCL Laws is heavily involved in cutting edge legal research and has an exceptional reputation for jurisprudence and legal theory.

The faculty is one of the founding members of the National Admissions Test For Law (LNAT)^[3] consortium of elite law schools and requires all applicants to undergraduate law programmes to take the LNAT.

Yearly publications by the faculty include the renowned UCL Jurisprudence Review and the student-edited UCL Human Rights Review, the former being the first academic student law journal in the United Kingdom, among others.

Contents 1 History 2 Present Day 3 Academic Reputation 3.1 Specialisms 4 Admissions 4.1 Undergraduate Admissions 4.2 Graduate Admissions 5 Curriculum 5.1 Undergraduate (LLB) Curriculum 5.1.1 First year 5.1.2 Second year 5.1.3 Final year 5.2 Graduate (1-year LLM) Curriculum 5.2.1 Terms one and two 5.2.2 Term three 6 Location 7 UCL Law Society 8 Research Centres 9 Professors 10 Alumni 10.1 Judiciary 10.2 Other 11 References 12 External links

History

The Faculty of Laws was founded in 1826 and was a founding faculty of UCL. It was the first Law Faculty to offer a systematic University education in common law in England. John Austin, a pupil of Jeremy Bentham, became the first Professor of Jurisprudence and Andrew Amos, a successful barrister and respected Recorder, became the first Professor of English Law and later Professor of Medical Jurisprudence.

Present Day

The Faculty of Laws has a student body comprising over 450 undergraduate, 350 taught graduate and some 40 research students.^[4] The faculty currently offers the following undergraduate programs:

• 3-year Law LLB (Hons)
• 4-year Law with Advanced Studies
• 4-year Joint LLB/JD (Double Degree in British and American Law) - third and fourth year at Columbia Law School
• 4-year LLB/Baccalaureus Legum (Double Degree in British and German Law) - third and fourth year at the University of Cologne
• 4-year Law with Another Legal System (Australia) - third year spent at the University of New South Wales
• 4-year Law with Another Legal System (Hong Kong) - third year spent at Hong Kong University
• 4-year Law with Another Legal System (Singapore) - third year spent at the National University of Singapore
• 4-year Law with French Law
• 4-year Law with German Law
• 4-year Law with Hispanic Law
• 4-year Law with Italian Law

Academic Reputation

The UCL Faculty of Laws has been "tipped by insiders as the best law faculty in the United Kingdom",^[5] and has consistently ranked as one of the top law faculties in the world.

In 2009, the faculty enjoyed a 100% graduate employment rate,^[6] compared to 99.7% at Oxford, 98% at Cambridge and 97% at LSE. Many graduates who go on to pursue a legal career find work in Magic Circle^[6] firms or within some of London's most elite Barristers' chambers.

The faculty was placed joint 1st in the UK for the proportion of its research activity in the top two star categories (75% 4*/3*) in the latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).^[4] The quality of teaching at UCL Laws is rated top-notch, with The Independent University Guide ranking it joint first ,^[6] along with Oxford University in 2009.

The faculty has one of the lowest student-to-staff ratios at UCL, which itself is ranked first in the UK by The Times Good University Guide, The Sunday Times University Guide and The Guardian University Guide.^[7]

On a recent peer-review assessment conducted by the Sunday Times, the faculty recorded perfect scores for teaching and reasearch quality, confirming its reputation as UCL's most outstanding department and the UK's most respected law faculty.^[1]

UCL solidified its place as one of the the world's most outstanding law schools when it came runners-up at the 50th Anniversary Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition in 2009^[8], the world’s largest and most prestigious mooting. UCL previously reached the quarter finals in 2007, and were in the semi-finals in 2008.^[9]

In 2008 and 2009, UCL Laws was the winner of the inaugural London Universities Mooting Shield (LUMS).

Faculty Rankings

	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005
The Complete University Guide	1st[2]	5th[10]	3rd	2nd	1st	1st
The Guardian University Guide	3th[11]	4th[12]	4th[13]	1st	3rd	2nd
The Good University Guide	5th	5th[14]	2nd[15]	1st	4th	3th[10]

Specialisms

• Antitrust, Regulation & Competition Law
• Commercial and Corporate
• Comparative and Foreign (European, Russian and CIS, and Japanese Law)
• English Private and Criminal Law
• Environmental Law
• European Law
• International Business and Trade Law
• Jurisprudence and Legal Theory
• Public International Law
• Public Law
• Socio-Legal Studies
• Maritime Law

Admissions

Undergraduate Admissions

With an average annual acceptance rate of less than 1 in 20, undergraduate admissions is one of, if not the most selective in the UK, with the Faculty admitting 195 students from over 3,000 applications in 2008, up from 146 in 2007.

With an international reputation rivaled only by Oxbridge^[16], competition for places is fierce, with the entry standard currently a mimimum of three A grades at A level^[17]. Successful applicants will also have a high LNAT score and are likely to have excellent extra-curricular activities and work experience.

Mininmum entry standard for undergraduates will rise to require at least one A* at A level for 2010 entry. There are no places available through the UCAS clearing process^[18].

Graduate Admissions

UCL Law Faculty enrolls around 350 students to its Graduate LLM program every year.^[19] The 1-year LLM attracts students from over 100 countries and admission to the program is extremely competitive.

Curriculum

Undergraduate (LLB) Curriculum

All undergraduates must study the following:

First year

• Contract Law
• Property Law I
• Public Law I
• World Legal Orders

Students studying for a degree involving a year in a European country must also study the relevant language.

Second year

• Jurisprudence
• Property Law II
• Public Law II
• Tort Law
• One choice subject

Students studying for a degree involving a year in a European country must study European Legal Systems in place of the optional subject.

Final year

Students must complete four optional subjects and an extended essay.

Graduate (1-year LLM) Curriculum

Terms one and two

• Students take four full taught courses or equivalent to a total number of 180 credits: range of choice depends on the programme Students decide to follow.

Part-time students take the equivalent of two full courses each year.

• Students research and write a 12,000-word dissertation on a selected topic of law from one of the full-courses taken. This will be submitted in the September following the student's entry to the course.

Term three

• Examinations and continuing work on dissertation

Location

UCL Faculty of Laws is based in Bentham House on Endsleigh Gardens, next to the UCL Main Building and campus.

The facilities at Bentham House include many teaching rooms, a mock courtroom, a student lounge, a coffee bar and two computer rooms.

For resources and information, the law faculty relies mostly on the UCL Main Library which is in the UCL Main Building.^[20]

The area around Bentham House is occupied by a number of other renowned institutions, including the British Library, the British Museum, the Royal Academy of Art, the British Medical Association, and the Wellcome Trust. Many University of London schools and institutes are close by, and these include the SOAS, Birkbeck, University of London, the Institute of Education, the School of Advanced Study and the Senate House Library, which houses the University of London's world-class research collections; these focus on the arts, humanities and social sciences (All UCL law students and staff have full access to this library and its electronic resources).

Also within close walking distance of Bentham House are Regents Park, Soho, Covent Garden, St Pancras International Station, Oxford Street, Leicester Square, Warren Street, Russell Square, Goodge Street, and London’s ‘Theatre Land’.

UCL Law Society

The vast majority of undergraduates become members of the UCL Law Society upon matriculation. The Law Society is led by the President and 15 other officers who are (apart from the First Year Representative) elected in March towards the end of the academic year.

The UCL Law Society organises a wide range of events for members including competitions in mooting, debating, negotiation and client interviewing. The Law Society also competes in inter-University competitions such as the London Universities Mooting Shield (LUMS) winning the inaugural competition in 2008 and again in 2009. The Law Society has a strong rivalry with King’s College Law Society and the two compete in the annual Addleshaw Goddard Cup (football, rugby and netball) along with mooting and debating competitions.

The Law Society also focuses on careers events with the Careers Secretary and Bar Vocational Officer organising weekly careers events which include Clifford Chance, Slaughter and May, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Allen & Overy and Linklaters. The Bar Vocational Officer organises events for students who are interested in pursuing a career at the Bar with the main event of the year being the UCL Barristers' Cocktail Party.

The Social Secretary organises a host of events for students throughout the year. The Law Society hosts Freshers Fortnight for first-year undergraduates in late September each year which includes a wide-range of activities including a trip to France. Other events organised during the year are the Halloween Ball, Christmas Ball, a foreign trip and the most prestigious event, the Easter Ball where tickets rival Oxbridge Ball prices.

The two mooting officers organise the Society's internal and external mooting competitions. The Junior Mooting Competition is for first-years whilst the Senior Mooting Competition is open to all other undergraduates.

Research Centres

• Institute of Global Law
• The Jevons Institute for Competition Law & Economics
• Centre for Commercial Law
• Centre for Empirical Legal Studies
• Centre for Law & the Environment
• Centre for Law & Governance in Europe
• Centre for International Courts & Tribunals
• The London Shipping Law Centre

Professors

• Eric Barendt - Professor of Media Law
• Robert Chambers - Professor of Property Law
• Ian Dennis - Professor of English Law
• Alison Diduck - Professor of Law
• Ronald Dworkin - Bentham Professor of Jurisprudence
• Joerg Fedtke - Professor of Comparative Law
• Ian Fletcher - Professor of International Commercial Law
• Michael Freeman - Professor of English Law
• Dame Hazel Genn DBE QC - Professor of Empirical Legal Studies
• Stephen Guest - Professor of Legal Philosophy
• Jeffrey Jowell QC - Research Professor of Public Law
• Valentine Korah - Emeritus Professor of Competition Law
• Sir Hugh Laddie QC - late Professor of Intellectual Property Law
• Maria Lee - Professor of Law
• Andrew Lewis - Professor of Comparative Legal History
• John Lowry - Professor of Law
• Richard Macrory CBE - Professor of Environmental Law
• Riz Mokal - Professor of Law and Legal Theory
• Hiroshi Oda - Professor of Japanese Law
• Dawn Oliver - Professor of Constitutional Law
• James Penner - Professor of Property Law
• Pascoe Pleasence - Professor of Empirical Legal Studies
• Philip Rawlings - Professor of Law
• Rick Rawlings - Professor of Public Law
• Catherine Redgwell - Professor of International Law
• Philippe Sands QC - Professor of Law
• Philip Schofield - Professor of History of Legal and Political Thought
• Joanne Scott - Professor of European Law
• Robert Stevens - Professor of Commercial Law
• Robert Sullivan - Professor of Law
• Tim Swanson - Professor of Law and Economics
• William Twining - Emeritus Quain Professor of Jurisprudence
• Lord Woolf - former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales

Visiting Professors

• Daniel Alexander QC
• Anthony Aust
• Antonio Bavasso - Antitrust Group, Allen & Overy
• Tom Burke
• Richard Calnan - Partner, Norton Rose
• Winston Chu
• Michael Crystall QC
• Frederique Dahan
• Eileen Denza
• Alejandro Escobar - Partner, Latham & Watkins
• David S. Evans - Vice Chairman, LECG Europe
• Håkan Friman
• Cyril Glasser - Consultant Sheridans
• Vera Gowlland-Debbas
• Ron Harmer
• Judge Frederic Jenny
• John Kallaugher - Head of Competition Law, Latham & Watkins
• Antonio Parra
• Graham Penn - Partner, Sidley Austin
• Ned Swan
• Robert Volterra - Partner, Latham & Watkins
• Edward Walker-Arnott - former Senior Partner, now consultant, Herbert Smith
• Elizabeth Wilmshurst

Alumni

Judiciary

• A.S. Anand — Chief Justice of India (1998-2001)
• Dame Margaret Booth — High Court Judge
• Herbert Cozens-Hardy, 1st Baron Cozens-Hardy — Master of the Rolls (1907-1918)
• Samuel Azu Crabbe — Chief Justice of Ghana (1973-1977)
• Sudhi Ranjan Das — Chief Justice of India (1955-1959)
• Taslim Elias — Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria (1972-1975); Judge of the International Court of Justice (1976-1991); President of the International Court of Justice (1982-1985)
• Lord Goldsmith QC — Attorney General for England and Wales (2001-2007)
• Hassan Bubacar Jallow — current Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (2003-present);former Attorney-General, Minister of Justice and Judge of the Supreme Court of Gambia
• Sir George Jessel — first Jewish Solicitor General for England and Wales (1871-1873); first Jewish regular member of the Privy Council; first Jewish judge in UK; Master of the Rolls( 1873-1883)
• Simon Li — former Vice-President of Court of Appeals (Hong Kong) and first ethnic Chinese High Court Judge (Hong Kong)
• Sir Gavin Lightman QC — High Court Judge (Chancery Division), England
• Baroness Scotland PC QC — Attorney General for England and Wales (2007-present); first black woman to be appointed Queen's Counsel
• Sir Thomas Scrutton — Lord Justice of Appeal (1916–34)
• Thirugnana Sampanthar Sinnathuray — Judge of the High Court of Singapore
• Chao Hick Tin — Vice-President of the Court of Appeal of Singapore; Attorney-General of Singapore (2006-2008)
• Sir Alfred Wills (1828-1912) — High Court Judge); presided over the trial of Oscar Wilde
• Lord Woolf — Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
• Sir Ti-Liang Yang GBM — Chief Justice of Hong Kong

Other

• Ghazi Abdul Rahman Algosaibi — Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Bahrain (1984 to 1992); Saudi Arabian Ambassador to United Kingdom and Ireland (1992-2002)
• Justice Gabriel Bach — Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel
• Sir John Baker QC FBA — legal historian; Downing Professor of the Laws of England, University of Cambridge
• Peter Birks QC FBA — Regius Professor of Civil Law, University of Oxford
• Sir Ellis Clarke — Governor-General of Trinidad and Tobago (1973-1976); President of Trinidad and Tobago (1976-1986)
• Terry Davis — Secretary General of the Council of Europe
• Lord Dear — Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary (1990-1997)
• Baroness Flather — first Asian woman to receive a peerage
• Daniel Fung SC — Solicitor-General of Hong Kong
• Mahatma Gandhi — Indian Nationalist and Spiritual Leader
• Edwin Glasgow CBE QC — Counsel in the Bloody Sunday Inquiry
• Lord Hart — former Special Adviser to the Lord Chancellor (1998-2007)
• Chaim Herzog — President of Israel (1983-1993)
• Joshua Jeyaretnam — Singapore politician and former leader of the Workers' Party of Singapore
• Lord Jones — British politician and businessman; Minister of State for Trade
• Julie Maxton - Registrar of the University of Oxford (first woman in 550 years)
• Leonard Sainer — Solicitor and retailer
• Rabindranath Tagore (did not graduate) — Bengali poet; Nobel Prize in Literature (1913); first Asian Nobel Laureate
• Tan Boon Teik — former Attorney-General of Singapore (1969-1992)
• Lord Young — Secretary of State for Employment (1985-1987); Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1987-1989)
• Wu Ting Fang (1842 - 1923) — the first ethnic Chinese person to be called to the Bar in England

References

External links

• Official website
• UCL website

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