The LLM in Legal Research is an innovative programme preparing students to undertake high quality doctoral research in the UK's leading law schools. It aims to provide the bridge between undergraduate studies in law and related subjects and doctoral work. Students graduating from UK universities and from universities throughout the world are welcomed onto the programme.

The programme is designed to offer students simultaneously the opportunity to undertake more in depth guided study in an area in which they may wish to specialise in the future, to understand the basics of legal research, legal scholarship and research methods, and to undertake a piece of supervised independent research involving practice in using research methods skills leading to a dissertation. This LLM is suitable for students wanting to specialise in any field of legal studies, in which the Law School has supervisory expertise.

 The programme has four principal aims:

• to introduce students to the ideas and practices of legal research (courses on Theories and Philosophies of Legal Research and Legal Research Methods);
• to consolidate, supplement and deepen undergraduate knowledge through in-depth substantive study (one full-year or two one-semester course(s) from the taught LLM programmes);
• to give students experience of conducting independent research by completing an extended dissertation;
• to give students an ideal context within which to work on framing a doctoral research project.

For students taking the LLM in Legal Research, the dissertation length is 15 000 words.

The programme is intended to stand independently as a postgraduate legal qualification; but it has been developed especially to deliver skills to prepare students who wish to pursue doctoral research in law.

The LLM in Legal Research may be taken over one year (full-time) or two years (part-time; substantive course in Year 1, research courses plus dissertation in Year 2).

As a student on the LLM in Legal Research, you are required to complete 180 credits of study. This is broken down as follows:

Semester 1
Theories and Philosophies of Legal Research (20 credits)

Semester 2
Legal Research Methods (20 credits)

You will also take either one 40 credit course, or two 20 credit courses, from the Law School’s LLM or MSc programmes more generally.

Read more about the course options available.

With approval, students may also be able to take courses from the postgraduate programmes of other Schools such as the School of Social and Political Studies.

Dissertation
An extended dissertation of 15,000 words to be submitted at the end of your studies (100 credits).

Applications for admission to the 2010-2011 LLM in Legal Research are now welcome.  Should you wish to discuss any aspects of the LLM degree or your application, please do not hesitate to contact Aimie Little in the School of Law Postgraduate Office.

Contact Aimie Little

Click here to apply for the LLM in Legal Research

Please note that due to recent changes in legislation by the UK Border Agency, overseas students are only eligible to apply for full-time study.