Law
Fact File
Law is at the heart of the functioning of human societies.
All aspects of life are permeated with legal questions, whether at the level of interactions between states, between government and citizens, or between private individuals and commercial organisations.
While many of our graduates go on to legal careers, the Cambridge law course aims not to be merely a pre-professional training: the mastery of the detail of the law is important, but it is important as a foundation upon which to build a firm understanding of the principles and concepts which are at the root of legal systems, to examine the policy behind rules of law, and to consider the effects of those rules in practice.
This course allows you to explore the law beyond the fundamental subjects to consider its interdisciplinary relationship with philosophy, economics, ethics, criminology, social policy, and history.
In your first year you’ll study a range of topics such as Criminal Law and Constitutional Law.
You will then be able to specialise and explore your interests from your second and third year.
The Faculty and University Law Society organise numerous activities, including:
- public lectures
- careers events with leading barristers’ and solicitors’ firms
- social events
- mooting competitions (debates about hypothetical legal cases)
Teaching and facilities
Teaching
You’ll be taught by experts in the field at the Faculty of Law.
Facilities
The Faculty of Law facilities include the David Williams Building, which has:
- lecture theatres
- seminar rooms
- a moot court, where you can take part in mock trials
- the Squire Law Library, one of the finest academic law collections in the UK. The Library offers an extensive collection of printed and electronic resources and excellent computing facilities.
Along with all other students at Cambridge, you'll also have access to:
- our impressive Cambridge University Library, one of the world’s oldest university libraries
Student exchange schemes
You may have the opportunity to spend a year studying abroad at one of our partner institutions in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, New Zealand, South Africa and Singapore. The year abroad takes place after you complete the first two years of the course.
You would then return to Cambridge to complete Part II of the course as a fourth year.
You may be given financial support for your Year Abroad, if needed, through a Turing Scheme grant. This is subject to funding being awarded to the University by the Department for Education. Funding is awarded on an annual basis. Eligibility may change depending on the level of funding awarded each year.
Find out more about the student exchange schemes.
Becoming a solicitor
If you want to qualify as a solicitor in England and Wales you will need to sit two Solicitors Qualifying Examinations (SQE1 & SQE2) after you complete this course. For more information visit the Solicitors Regulation Authority website.
Becoming a barrister
If you want to qualify as a barrister in England and Wales, your undergraduate degree will satisfy the academic component of training for this if you study the following papers throughout the course:
- Criminal Law
- Law of Tort
- Constitutional Law
- Land Law
- Contract Law
- Equity
- European Union Law
You can then study vocational courses that lead to professional accreditation. For more information about qualifying as a barrister visit the Bar Standards Board website.
More details on the Cambridge law course are available on the Undergrdaduate Study Law, BA (Hons) page.
Magdalene has a large, friendly, and active legal community, with three Fellows in Law. Since 2002 Magdalene law students have won over 20 University prizes in the Law Tripos (including six for coming top of a Part of the Tripos across the University), and a number in the LLM. Examination, together with success in University, national, and international mooting competitions. The Wigglesworth Law Library has a strong core collection of legal materials, and the College Law Society runs an active programme of social and academic events.
The Archie Leslie Travel Scholarship is available to undergraduates reading law at Magdalene. College scholarships are awarded on the basis of university examination results and there are several named College prizes.
The College Law Society plays an important role in Magdalene's legal life. The officers of the society are undergraduates, and they play a major part in organising the society’s activities. The society organises social events each term, together with a careers evening, a second-hand book sale, and a range of mooting.
A moot is a mock hearing in an appeal court (usually the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court), in which two pairs of students take the role of barristers arguing each side of points of law before a judge or judges (either a law fellow, or other students). There is a workshop on mooting each year, and an 'exhibition' moot against Jesus College in the first term of each year in which experienced mooters demonstrate the art to new students. In the second term of each year the College Law Society organises a college mooting competition for first years, the winners of which usually moot against Downing College before a senior external judge. The highlight of the Law Society's year is the annual Lawyers' dinner, held in college not long before the exams begin, an occasion for forgetting the pressures of revision for a few hours of fun and companionship.
Many Magdalene graduates have reached the highest levels of the legal profession, examples include Sir Christopher Greenwood (former Judge of the International Court of Justice and Master of Magdalene from October 2020), Sir Andrew Morritt (former Chancellor of the High Court), Sir James Eadie KC, First Treasury Counsel, Wong Yan-lung GMB, SC (former Secretary for Justice, Hong Kong), and the late Lord Judge (former Lord Chief Justice); and while not a graduate of the College, Baroness Hale of Richmond, former President of the Supreme Court, is an honorary fellow of Magdalene.
Law is and always has been close to the heart of human civilisation, providing structures for societies, structures for the interaction of groups and individuals within those societies, and, at the international level, structures for interactions between societies. National constitutions, family relationships, personal safety, commercial dealings, rights of privacy or free speech, rights to land, to bank accounts, or to intellectual ideas, treaties between states, are all founded upon laws. So if you are interested in human relationships, and the ways in which those relationships may best be mediated through legal structures, law may be right for you. You may also, of course, be interested in making a career as a lawyer, and a law degree is a good preparation for doing so, but there are very good intellectual reasons for studying law quite apart from the possibility of practising it.
We have no preference as to whether you have previously focused on arts or science subjects. We have no particular subject requirements for A-level or equivalent, although ideally the subjects studied might include at least one logic-based subject (e.g. Maths) and one essay-based subject. We are looking for an interest in law which is analytical, evaluative, and critical, and for self-motivated, enthusiastic, people whose interest has already prompted them to begin to think about the law, and to take what opportunities are available to them to engage with it, from visiting a court to listen from the public gallery, to discussing the legal stories which abound in the media with friends. We are looking for an interest in how ideas can be expressed unambiguously in words, a capacity to move from particular instances of the law embodied in cases towards statements of general principle, and to apply those principles to new situations, and an ability to move beyond the rules themselves to consider them in their wider context, whether historical, economic, sociological, philosophical or political.
We have no particular subject requirements for applicants for Law, although, ideally, your AS or A-level choices might include at least one logic-based subject (e.g. Maths) and one essay-based subject.
Minimum offer level conditions for Law are A*AA, or 41-42 in the IB with 7,7,6 at Higher Level.
Interviews and Written Assessment
Candidates are required to take the National Admissions Test for Law (LNAT). The LNAT is a pre-registration required admissions assessment. This means that you will have to register to sit the assessment at an assessment centre near to you. Registration for the pre-registration required assessment is separate from your UCAS application and the registration deadline is earlier than the UCAS deadline.
For further details see the Faculty of Law website and the LNAT website.
Please note that your performance in the written assessment will not be considered in isolation, but will be taken into account alongside all the other elements of your application.
Candidates will normally have two interviews, and may be asked to read short passages during the interviews, which will be discussed in the interviews.
