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So you have survived your first year as a law student and hopefully spent your summer having fun, going on holiday and/or doing some valuable work experience. Either way, you are prepared to enter your second year with more knowledge and skills to help you through this year.

The second year will see you continuing to study the remainder of the core academic subjects of the qualifying part of the LLB (Hons).  The core modules are:

  • Land Law
  • Equity and Trusts
  • EU Law
  • Law of Tort

This year can be tough but enjoyable as you become more of an expert on a variety of areas of the law, possibly even relishing the fact that you can exercise your legal knowledge with family and friends.

At The City Law School, we make these opportunities even more available through our Pro Bono service, and Start Ed programme – the latter is a free walk-in centre offering assistance for small businesses and technology start-ups. The service is run by law students and supervised by local professionals and experienced start-up owners. It provides advice on a range of business and legal matters and is a unique way for you to put your legal skills and knowledge directly into practice.

Take advantage of these opportunities as they will help to give you a good grounding into working with clients and potentially real-life cases.

You will also start to think more about the route you want to take in your career – whether you want to train to be a solicitor or barrister. If you are thinking about continuing to pursue a career in the legal profession, it may be a good idea to start thinking about training contracts (if you want to be a solicitor) or pupillage (if you are thinking about a career at the Bar.) It’s not too early to secure a training contract with a law firm or pupillage with one of the Inns. There may also be opportunities to do mini pupillages, providing you with more work experience, and to help you make that decision about your career path.

Study Abroad

The School has established student exchange programmes, for example with universities in Australia, France, Poland, Russia and Spain. The programmes provide the opportunity to spend half of your third year studying at one of these universities. This would be a good time to get more information about this option, and make the necessary arrangements.

Of course, all the tips we pointed out for the first year still apply – reading, being organised, attending events, etc. You may also want to start thinking about areas of the law that interest you. Are you interested in commercial or public law? Do you have an interest in Human Rights, media law, family law, finance? Start exploring the areas you are interested in, so that you are ready to make a more informed decision about the electives you choose in your third year