Law

Our Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) enables you to gain the legal skills necessary for the best possible preparation in beginning vocational training for a career in legal practice. The GDL teaches you the seven foundations of law as required by the Bar Standards Board for the vocational training for barristers. It also equips you to embark on the necessary preparation for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination. You will develop the ability to:

• critically engage with sources of law, including cases, and scholarship from law and related fields
• apply principles of law
• engage in basic legal research using specific legal resources.

If you already have an undergraduate degree and want to gain the skills to help you qualify, but are not yet ready to commit to a full Master's degree, this GDL is for you. Birkbeck’s GDL is unique in teaching you to understand and apply the law, as well as teaching you about the law in its political, social and economic context. We want our graduates to not only go on to be successful lawyers, but also to be able to participate in important contemporary debates at the junction of law and public life.

• Our Graduate Diploma in Law offers a fast-track route to retrain as a lawyer, with numerous opportunities to network with law practitioners and legal scholars.
• The course will give you plenty of opportunities for professional development and networking, and you will benefit from our vibrant annual cycle of inspiring expert-led public lectures and conferences, in which our research centres and institutes play a key role.
• Birkbeck is a hub of expertise on creative, innovative and critical thinking, and we have a strong tradition of research in the areas of law and criminology. Our academic staff are international authorities in their respective fields.
• Our city centre campus is in Bloomsbury WC1, a lively student-centred place that is home to a number of universities and other colleges of the University of London. You will be able to take advantage of the rich research collections of University of London libraries as well as Birkbeck Library, which has a strong collection in critical, theoretical and interdisciplinary legal studies, including access to key specialist journals and an extensive range of online materials.