University of London External Bachelor of Laws

This is my update on the UoL LLB.

One thing that I find useful is when other posters detail their experiences in a particular program, so I suppose the least I can do is talk about my first year LLB studies.

Granted, this is overdue, but the shock has finally worn off.

First and most important, it's a lot of work. If you think that studying law via distance is going to be in any way easy, forget about it. I probably worked on average about 20 hours a week from early November to around the end of April, and the 3 weeks or so leading to exams it was almost every available minute.

My results were not what I hoped for. I did alright, all passes and none of them borderline, but not as well as I wanted to do.

Since I've never attended law school, I can't say how it actually compares. The only thing I can say is that it was a lot more work than my undergraduate degree in business.

I would not suggest undertaking it using only the UoL study guide and textbooks. I studied with Law Tutors Online and found the service very useful. The notes that they provided were extremely helpful.

UoL was extremely slow in sending out study materials. I paid my fees in October and received my books at the end of January. Exams are in May.

If you do it you'll need time of work to take exams.

They explain pass rates and so on in the student handbook, but if memory serves for graduate entry route B first year success rate is something like 55% (those who passed all 3 exams).

Personally I found the studies interesting and challenging, but a lot of work if you don't actually plan on using it professionally.

Please feel free to ask any questions, I dashed this off pretty quick.

 

Just wanted to congratulate you on your first year ;-)

The important thing is that you've pased !

I don't know what your motive in taking this route, but obviously (if you take Grad B) not to be a lawyer or a legal scholar, so I am not so sure how important a shiney First Class LLB would be.

It sounds almost impossible to be First Class in the External. Being 2:2 is also good, not mentioning 2:1.

OK. As a matter of fact I also have a couple of questions:

- Do you live next to a legal library? If so, could you and did you use it?
- If you hand't passed one of them, would you have to do all three again, or only that one?

 

Thanks Floyd!

My motivation is interest in law. I am in Canada so the external LLB would be a very circuitous route to ever a actually being a lawyer. If I managed to get through with say a 2:2 I could expect to take another 1.5 to 2 years of Canadian legal education. As you say it is all but impossible to pull a first class honours degree in the UoL external LLB. About 3% of Grads get a 2:1.

As a point of clarification from what I understand grad route B does serve as a qualifying law degree in the UK.

To answer your questions:

I live relatively close to a law library (McGill University is about 30 minutes if there's no traffic). I don't know if they'd let me use it, I would guess that something could be worked out. I had so much work on my hands that going to the library to find more wasn't going to happen. There are no essays to write so no need for research beyond your text books.

The whole exam failure thing is a bit complicated and I'm not sure that I have a complete grasp, so this might be wrong. But as I understand it if one fails an exam you may or may not be permitted to resit. Exams are in May/June, resits are in October (I think). As I understand it, if you are a close fail they permit you to resit the exam that you failed, although at their option they can require you to resit all three. Under Grad Route B if you fail the resit then I believe that you must repeat the entire year, you do not receive credit for passed courses. If you are in Scheme A then I think they let you take your three passes and switch to Scheme B if you want. This is convoluted; my results came with a nifty form that explained a lot of this and I had no reason to look really closely at the failure stuff. I will find it and have a peek just to see if I can make more sense of it.

Having read Delphi forums where there is a lot of LLB chit chat I can say that the whole question of what happens if you fail seems to be one of the great confusing things about the UoL LLB!

 

Congratulations! The first year of law school is ugly for most, I can't imagine how difficult it must be via distance! Don't hammer yourself that you didn't do as well as you'd have liked. For there to be only a 55% pass rate the first year, I think it's impressive for you to be among those--it's not exactly like those with enough motivation to do what you are setting out to do are ignoramuses. You're thrown in with some bright, motivated people, be proud and thankful for your accomplishment. And by the way, I finished marginally in the top half of my law school class, but I stunk it up the first year--it was humiliating! hang in there, it gets better.