UoL, CA law study

hello:

i have a B.A. from the university of CO and am a successful businessperson not in need of a job or new career. for some strange reason, i have been fascinated with the study of law for eight years or so. i'm considering concord/ taft or UoL, primarily as intellectual/ creative stimulation. i have a fair amount of free time and do not have money concerns that would preclude concord's relatively high DL tuition. i love reading law and thinking creatively and analytically.

(as an aside, i have considered a MA/PhD via union institute in legal studies however for various reasons am not as interested in this route....)

a larger part of me seems to be attracted to UoL, not 100% sure why, versus the CA schools. perhaps the prestige, but there seems to be something else.

so my question for you all: any advice given my short commentary above? i believe it was nosbourne that cautioned, some time back, against taking the first law degree in the UK, as a US student. how much of an issue is this? noting my interest in (US) constitutional law, i wonder how this might play out at UofL, vs. one of the CA schools. while the attraction to UoL is there, i wonder if studying the english legal system may prove to be not as interesting or useful?

I realize that a few of you have attended UoL as well as concord/taft and would much appreciate any feedback on the differences between the two routes for someone in my position (not desiring to become an attorney, no need for a career/ job in the field). thanks much for your time and comments.

best,
matty

 

External Law Degrees

There are a number of law schools in England, Australia and South Africa that may be of interest to you. Here's a thread that I started elsewhere:

http://forums.degreeboard.com/showthread.php?t=4569

 

As an alternative there is the MS in Legal Studies from California University of Pennsylvania.


http://www.cup.edu/graduate/legal/index.jsp


I also believe that the University of West Virginia has a similar online program.

 

Oh...and by the way...you'd need an ABA-approved law degree in order to practice law in British Columbia (should you change your mind down the road).

http://www.flsc.ca/en/foreignLawyers/guidelines.asp

Look under "U.S. applicants."

 

steve/ worthingco/ tmartca: thanks much for your replies. i'll be sure to look into the other LLB programs in the UK and s. africa prior to moving forward.

worthingco: thanks for the heads up re: british columbia. i need to change my profile; no longer living in BC; am back in the states. was nice to be away for a while... will not bore anyone with any political commentary .

 

My pleasure.

There are some really oustanding external LLB programs in England, Australia & South Africa offering an international flavouring.

If your interest is in American constitutional law and you don't intend to practise then Concord or Taft (both as you know are nationally-accredited) will do you just fine. Whatever school you choose, make sure there is a lot of student support. Studying law, especially via DL, is not an easy undertaking.

 

Three years ago I was in very much the same position as you are now. I was relatively successful, financially secure and fascinated with the study of law. I started the UoL LLB in 2003 and in 2004 passed my first year exams. I chose not to go back to UoL because of the volume of work involved. In the meantime I have done a LLM and liked it so much that I went back to finish the LLB (albeit I have gone (distance learning) to Northumbria rather than University of London).

A few points.

A University of London LLB is a lot of work and while you will find it interesting I would imagine its applicability in the US is somewhat limited. Having said this you are picking up what basically amounts to an equivalent to RA and mostly equivalent to ABA (with a few caveats because of its distance learning nature). If you have no interest in studying law and are absolutely firm on that then getting a UoL LLB is probably overkill. And a distance learning JD probably falls into the same category.

I would suggest that if you are purely interested learning about law you might have a look at American Public University/American Military University (APU/AMU) whicfh offers a BA in legal studies. This is a nice program that offers a fairly wide range of courses and would probably be most suitable for someone interested in law from a personal interest standpoint. Neither UoL of the distance learning CA schools offers that much flexibility in terms of course load (in other words you have to devote a lot of time to your studies). With APU/AMU you can take a course at a time or even skip a semester if you get busy. As an aside Northumbria University, unlike UoL, does allow a student to take a minimum of 1 and maximum of 3 courses. At London you are stuck taking 3 and that's a heavy load.

There are also a wide range of English LLM programs (distance learning) available that will allow entry with a non law undergraduate degree, you might find one of those suitable. I believe Deakin University in Australia offers (via DL) a Master of Commercial Law designed for students with non law undergraduate degrees that from memory sounds like it might be very interesting for you (a program that I personally was very interested in).

You have to be aware that studying law by distance learning is a lot of work.

Good luck whatever you choose, I will look forward to hearing your final decision.

 

For what its worth here's a link to the brochure for the Master of Commercial Law at Deakin:

http://www.deakin.edu.au/buslaw/law/postgrad/law.pdf

And APUS - note they offer up to 90 credits of advanced standing towards a second undergraduate degree, so it's theoretically possible that you might be able to complete the degree in as few as 30 credits. I'm really note sure about the precise mechanics of how that might work. But here's the link:

http://www.apu.apus.edu/Academics/Degree-Programs/plan.htm?progid=3578&concid=-1

Northumbria and Huddersfield in the UK both offer "senior status" law degrees - basically they give advanced standing for your undergraduate degree. At Northumbria you have to complete 9 courses and at Huddersfield 8.

Northumbria: www.unn.ac.uk

Huddersfield:

http://www.flexible-learning.co.uk/pages/courses/huddLLB.html

 

worthingco: thanks again for your comments. advice duly noted.

novemberdude: thank you for the thoughtful reply. i appreciate your perspective and suggestions. in terms of course work, the eJD criminal track (concord) appears to have the most interesting course selection given my current interests. taking crim procedure and criminology instead of trusts and real property, for example, would be something i would enjoy. (yes, i have read thoroughly through the discussion on this board as to the non-bar JD... lol)

there does seem to be quite a bit of flexibility in the eJD program vs. the bar JD and london options. that being said, i will investigate APU/AMU and the LLM idea, which to date i've not yet explored.

 

Hi Matty,

Given your circumstances the UoL or another LLM / postgraduate laws programme might be more suitable.

The link for the UoL LLM is:
http://www.londonexternal.ac.uk/prospective_students/postgraduate/laws/index.shtml

I'd echo novemberdude - an LLB, especially the UoL one, is a lot of work, and like a JD it's got a specific purpose in mind - preparing people to to practice under English/EU/Commonwealth law (although yes I know it's not what gives you the status to practice) - so you'd cover a lot of stuff you'd never use or might not be that interested in.

The beauty of the LLM (especially the UoL version) is you can pick out what you're interested in and study it at a greater depth. Also it is a more flexible programme. If you're interested try and search out nosbourne's posts or PM him (as he's a current student on the LLM).

All the best,

Brendan