The LLM Legal Practice (SQE Pathway) programme aims to provide you the opportunity to qualify as a solicitor of England and Wales, enabling you to prepare for the mandatory Solicitors’ Qualifying Examinations (SQE).
You will obtain a Master’s degree while simultaneously preparing for the SQE and equip yourself with attributes only taught at postgraduate level, including addressing complex issues both systematically and creatively, showing originality in tackling and solving legal problems.
This programme is delivered in collaboration with The College of Legal Practice, a fully accredited higher education provider, and wholly owned UK subsidiary of The College of Law in Australia.
Combining global academic practice and online learning, on this programme you will benefit from studying under world leading faculty, whilst preparing to qualify as a solicitor in England and Wales. This unique programme will provide you with an international perspective on the field of law.
This programme is best suited to you if you are one of the following:
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SQE preparation with an internationally recognised study partner
The LLM Legal Practice (SQE Pathway) has been specifically designed to ensure that you are equipped with outstanding knowledge and skills both in line with a postgraduate degree in law, as well as what is required in legal practice.
Specifically, as one of the objectives of this programme is to prepare you to sit the Solicitors Qualifying Examinations in order to qualify as England and Wales solicitors, Middlesex University has partnered with The College of Legal Practice, who have expertise in guiding you through the specific modules preparing you for this examination.
Advanced academic expertise and research skills development in law
You will study a blend of compulsory academic modules covering essential legal expertise and skills, such as dispute resolution; business, property and criminal law; and wills and administration of estates.
You will also undertake modules that will boost your legal research skills in preparation for the SQE, as well as modules focused on applying your academic knowledge to a professional legal environment.
This module aims to develop your competency in the skills required for the second Solicitors Qualification Examination (SQE2). The module focuses specifically on the skills of advocacy, interviewing, attendance note taking, case and matter analysis, drafting, research and writing, in the specific areas of criminal litigation, dispute resolution, property practice, wills and intestacy, probate administration and practice, business law and practice.
The module focuses on developing technical and practical proficiency in the skills, in the context of specified practice areas, through innovative learning methods.
This module equips you with the essential research skills necessary to complete modules successfully, including the technical and conventional systems governing academic writing and the principles and practice followed in legal reasoning.
This module is assessed through three elements: a citation assignment; a written case note/discussion; and a literature review.
This module aims to develop your Functioning Legal Knowledge in the context of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE1).
The module specifically aims to develop your competency in the law and rules of ethics across the areas of Business Law & Practice, Dispute Resolution (with contract and tort), Public & EU Law, Legal Services & Legal Systems, Property Practice (with land law), Criminal Law & Practice, and Wills and Administration of Estates (with trusts and solicitors accounts).
This module aims to develop your Functioning Legal Knowledge in the context of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE1).
The module specifically aims to develop your competency in the law and rules of ethics across the areas of Business Law & Practice, Dispute Resolution (with contract and tort), Public & EU Law, Legal Services & Legal Systems, Property Practice (with land law), Criminal Law & Practice, and Wills and Administration of Estates (with trusts and solicitors accounts).
Gain the knowledge necessary to deal with contemporary and emerging challenges in the practise and management of transnational commercial disputes with a focus on the increasing use of arbitration for expediency and cost savings by medium and large-scale enterprises operating in multiple jurisdictions.
This module equips you with critical understanding of the major theories concerning the nature of corporations, their role and function in society, the concerns surrounding corporate governance and corporate responsibility, and the laws and practices governing directorial conduct and company operation in selected countries.
See the course specification for more information about typical course content outside of the coronavirus outbreak:
We are regularly reviewing and updating our programmes to ensure you have the best learning experience. We are taking what we have learnt during the pandemic and enhancing our teaching methods with new and innovative ways of learning.
We aim to model a wide range of teaching strategies and approaches on the course which you can adapt to your own setting.
For you to get the most out of the programme and the varied methods of teaching and learning that enhance active learning, the teaching on your programme will be blended, with some of the modules delivered on campus, face-to-face, and others online through the College of Legal Practice’s virtual learning platform, CANVAS.
The following modules will be delivered on campus:
This is to ensure you get the most out of face-to-face learning, access to campus facilities and support to strengthen the sense of belonging and community at the heart of learning.
The following modules will be delivered online:
Online learning for LEX4730 and LEX4731 will be delivered through the online learning platform, Canvas. Canvas is one of the most highly regarded and widely used learning management system in the world, which provides a high quality, interactive learning experience. Canvas also facilitates frequent personal interaction between you and your supervisors. Specifically, Canvas allows you access, in relation to the two modules, to:
Resources and recordings at any time to suit your own study pattern.
The programme will be assessed through a combination of exams and coursework, including either a Legal Practice Research Project or a Work Integrated Learning Project.
The LLM Legal Practice (SQE Pathway) has been specifically developed to support you in employability and career progression. The specific SQE focused modules are tailored to support you to be ready to undertake the SQE exams, required for anyone to be employed in law firms and work as a solicitor of England and Wales.
Both the knowledge and skills developed through these two modules prepare you for practice and make you more attractive to employers.
This LLM also supports career progression for those already in legal practice, as there is great demand by international law firms for England and Wales qualified solicitors and great interest from such lawyers to move to such firms. The ‘dual’ degree in terms of SQE preparation and a postgraduate level degree will make you more employable, considering the established benefits of an LLM degree.
By entering this programme you will have the opportunity to arrange to sit the external SQE1 exam in January (whilst the degree is still ongoing), to place yourself in a position of strength to approach law firms to secure Qualifying Work Experience, an additional requirement to the SQE examinations to qualify.
Bethany is a senior lecture in law at Middlesex University and a qualified non-practising solicitor-advocate who before joining Middlesex was a judicial review lawyer at Public Interest Lawyers. She is completing her PhD at the University of Oxford on the right to freedom of thought under Article 9 ECHR.
Lughaidh Kerin join us from the National University of Ireland Galway, where he had held the position of Lecturer in Law since 2009. He graduated with an honours Bachelor of Arts degree in 1997 and an honours Bachelor of Laws degree in 1999 from the National University of Ireland, Galway. He spent the academic year 1997/1998 as an Erasmus student studying at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He then went on to successfully complete his Masters in Law at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in 2000, where he read Commercial Law, European Union Law and Arbitration Law.
Mariette Jones joined Middlesex University in August 2008 as a senior lecturer in law, after having headed the Department of Practical Business Law at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Mariette holds the following qualifications from the University of Johannesburg (formerly the Rand Afrikaans University): BA (Law); BA Honours (Political Studies) (cum laude); and the LLB. She holds a Certificate in Legal Practice obtained from the University of Cape Town in 1999 as well as an LLM in International Economic Law from the University of South Africa. In May 2020 she obtained a PhD from Middlesex University.
Dr Sara Hourani is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University London. She also holds a Visiting Lectureship at the School of Law, Aix-Marseille University (France). Sara teaches International Commercial Arbitration and Litigation, and Commercial Law.
Her research focuses on the interface between international commercial arbitration and new technologies, which spans digital dispute resolution and ODR.
We’ll carefully manage any future changes to courses, or the support and other services available to you, if these are necessary because of things like changes to government health and safety advice, or any changes to the law.
Any decisions will be taken in line with both external advice and the University’s Regulations which include information on this.
Our priority will always be to maintain academic standards and quality so that your learning outcomes are not affected by any adjustments that we may have to make.
At all times we’ll aim to keep you well informed of how we may need to respond to changing circumstances, and about support that we’ll provide to you.
Start: September 2024
Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time
Code: PGM302
