Differences Between Studying Law at Undergraduate and Postgraduate Level
Introduction
Reading law is generally regarded as a prestigious, highly esteemed pursuit. This reputation is recognised globally, though there are local variations in the structure of legal education. One of the most obvious differences is that not all countries offer the option to study law as an undergraduate degree. The United Kingdom is far from the norm in this regard. Most other countries, like the United States, offer law exclusively as a postgraduate qualification. This raises the question; are the two approaches equally effective, or is one systematically better in preparing students for the legal profession?
Undergraduate Law
Law as an undergraduate degree is one of the cheapest, fastest ways of entering the field. This option is offered by a limited number of countries, such as the UK and Australia. Even in countries with select institutions that ‘technically’ offer a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) qualification, like Japan and South Korea, further study of one to three years is often required prior to sitting the bar exam. The option to forgo a postgraduate degree would be more cost-efficient, but is it effective? Undergraduate law appears to offer a more comprehensive, in-depth study of the field. Elizabeth Cope, head of trainee recruitment at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, claims that an undergraduate law degree is “far more intense” than a Graduate Diploma in Law, equipping students with a deeper, nuanced understanding of the field.
However, this path demands commitment at a young age. As most students tend to directly apply to university after Sixth Form, many LLB students are likely to change their minds. Even those who successfully start their career in law seem to drop out relatively quickly, with around 60% of all law graduates working in non-law fields. Eve Cornwell, a Youtuber who studied law at the University of Bristol, explained her career change from an associate lawyer to a product manager with the quote, “I’m not 19 anymore.” However, this is not exclusive to legal studies. Only 44% of all graduates end up in their degree-related professions, and law simply follows this trend. There is no evidence to suggest LLBs are less effective in retaining graduate interest or providing sufficient training. Moreover, the tendency to branch out from the law may not be a downside. Increased legal literacy in society is a net positive, and legal knowledge need not be exclusive to practising professionals.
Postgraduate Law
Law as an exclusively postgraduate degree, the most common option globally, is more costly in time and money. Offered by countries such as the US and Canada, it can take at least 7 years after high school to qualify for the bar exam. This raises questions about the legal field’s accessibility. Although increasingly more people from underrepresented backgrounds progress to university, barriers to postgraduate studies persist. Amongst those who sat their GCSEs in 2007, only 3.1% of the bottom quintile students proceeded to any postgraduate study, compared to the national average of 8.7%. Under these circumstances, law, even with funding, may be infeasible for those who need to work immediately after graduating.
Nonetheless, this postgraduate model invites people from diverse academic backgrounds to pursue law. A key advantage is that the field encourages different perspectives, cultivating non-orthodox approaches toward legal theory and practice. Beyond admissions, law schools maintain a characteristically American, liberal arts approach to education. In top US universities such as Harvard and Yale, one of their biggest selling points is their ‘breadth’ of modules that offer ‘cross-disciplinary training’ alongside traditional legal studies. These schools even expect their students to pursue ‘paths outside traditional lawyering,’ encouraging alternative careers. Therefore, the primary objective of US law schools is not to train future lawyers, but to produce ambitious global leaders. This goal is also reflected in UK institutions such as Warwick Law School, which emphasises an education ‘beyond the skills required to become a lawyer.’ Here, it is necessary to challenge the assumption that the efficacy of legal education equates to the output of lawyers. The value of studying law seems to extend to all sectors of society - legal or otherwise.
Conclusion
The legal education models of the US and the UK vary in cost efficiency and structure. Both appear as more or less effective approaches toward the same goal - to provide foundational training for students to step into the ‘real world,’ not limited to the legal world. The UK model achieves this by keeping options accessible to a wider socioeconomic background, while the US model does so by introducing legal studies once students have attained a level of maturity in education and experience. It is difficult to determine which is more systematically effective, as an individual’s suitability for a course will depend on their needs. Perhaps the effectiveness of legal studies is best sustained by the field’s diverse approaches to how law is taught.
By Isabella Jeong
