Law (JH)

Overview

What is Law?

Law governs every aspect of our lives, from food labelling and football transfers to elections and crime. It regulates our social life from the contracts that we make when we buy products to the laws that determine when people can be jailed for committing criminal offences, and through to significant political decisions, such as constitutional reforms on marriage or abortion. As a law student, you will learn what laws are, how they work and how they change.

Do you enjoy…

• Solving problems using critical thinking?
• Debating important social issues?
• Expressing an argument clearly and articulately?

Law: The course for you?

The law degree will appeal to you if you are interested in society and how it works, how we regulate the relationships between people. Given the wide range of legal modules, the degree attracts students with a broad range of interests. Those interested in politics are attracted to subjects such as constitutional law. Those interested in business are attracted to subjects as company law and commercial law. Those concerned about injustice, whether at an international or national level, will be attracted to subjects such as international human rights, environmental law, and public interest law. In truth, most students have overlapping interests.

Law at Trinity

Trinity’s School of Law is Ireland’s oldest and most internationally renowned law school, and the highest ranked in Ireland. We have a long-established history for producing some of Ireland's most prolific lawyers. Our strong network of alumni in Ireland and abroad comprises leading lawyers, judges, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Chief Justices, Presidents of Ireland, policy-makers and public representatives. We have a tradition for innovative teaching and curricula which is the lynchpin in ensuring our graduates are self- motivated, ethically aware and critically reflective citizens.

Graduate skills and career opportunities

Trinity’s LL.B. degrees prepare students not only for life as lawyers, but also enables them to enter many career fields such as business, journalism, accountancy, banking, insurance, politics, foreign affairs and public policy, both in Ireland and abroad. The skills learned through studying law are useful in all walks of life. A law degree teaches students to think logically and analytically. It also equips students with the ability to carry out research, to apply relevant information to problems, to use language precisely, carefully, and objectively.

Further professional qualifications

No law degree entitles a person to practise law as a solicitor or barrister. If you wish to go on to obtain a professional qualification, the governing bodies for the profession require that you study certain modules in your primary law degree. Our Single and Joint Honours Law degree programmes are designed to ensure you have the opportunity to take these required modules. Students reading for a Joint Honours Law programme, who would like to go into professional legal practice after their degree, will need to ensure they pursue the professional pathway (taking Law as a Major subject) from the second year of onwards. Our programmes also offer additional modules currently required for entry into the UK professional bodies.

All students considering a career as a lawyer should consult the relevant professional body of their preferred jurisdiction to ensure they satisfy all entry requirements.

Your degree and what you’ll study

Law at Trinity College Dublin is a four-year Honours programme. In the first two years, you will take foundational and professional modules, ensuring there is an appropriate balance between the academic and practical aspects of law. The Single Honours degree in law offers students the opportunity to study law in depth and breadth – with a wide offering of modules available to choose from in your final years of studies. This allows you to tailor your studies to develop specialised areas of interest—in, for example, media law and Intellectual property law, corporate law or human rights law—or to continue down a general route. You will apply and enhance the research skills that you have developed in the previous three years of the programme by completing a Capstone Project. Working as part of a research group, you will work both independently and collaboratively to explore in-depth a topical issue. You will learn the skills of a lawyer: how to research the law, how to make legal arguments, how to use the law to protect and serve your clients.

A distinctive feature of the Single Honours law degree is that you will also complete some modules outside of the School of Law. This will give you the opportunity to choose to study modules in a related discipline, or an unrelated discipline that is of interest to you. This is relevant both if you choose to pursue a career in the legal profession or if you follow an alternative career path.

Clinical legal education module

The Law School has long recognised the value of practical, skills-based training. Clinical legal education offers students a valuable opportunity to learn more deeply about the law by gaining practical legal experience. Offered in the final year, 35-40 students undertake a placement in a legal practice setting in a partner organisation in the private, public or not-for-profit sectors. Students also attend a lawyering class in which they develop their understanding of professional legal skills and legal ethics. We are privileged to have many of the leading legal practice settings in the State, in each of the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, among our partner organisations which offer placements. The lawyering class complements the placement by enabling students to identify and develop the skills, values and knowledge which is necessary for making the transition from the academic study of law to its application in a real world setting.

Assessment in law degrees is by a combination of coursework and semester examinations. As a reflection of the different teaching practices, a diverse range of assessment methods is used, including case notes, essays, mock trials, reflective journals, mock parliaments, contribution to web-discussion boards, response papers and research dissertations. Students are advised at the beginning of the teaching semester about the assessment methods in each module.

There are QQI/FET routes available for this course. Please see www.cao.ie for details.

Click here for further information on modules/subjects.

Study abroad and internship opportunities

Third year students may apply to study abroad in a prestigious European university with the EU funded Erasmus programme. We also have links with leading universities in North America, Australia, Hong Kong and China which you may choose to apply to spend a semester or year in. These programmes are highly successful and are an extremely popular amongst our students each year.

Further information on the year abroad programme,and a list of partner universities, can be found at: www.tcd.ie/law/programmes/undergraduate/study-abroad