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Posted Jan. 10, 2020

Reasons to study your LLM program at Oxbridge

University of CambridgeTo those familiar with the Oxbridge universities, you probably don't need to be told the many reasons to study at one of them. 

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If you're unfamiliar with Oxbridge or with the opportunities that these universities offer over other law schools in the UK, then here are a few reasons to study your LLM program at Oxbridge.

What is Oxbridge?

Oxbridge is a combination of Oxford and Cambridge. As in the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, two of the most famous and well-respected universities in the UK and in fact the world. They attract an international following of students and academics and are at the global forefront of research and learning in many fields. Cambridge offers a well-respected LLM program, and although Oxford doesn't offer a traditional LLM program, however it offers a selection of postgraduate law courses, including Magister Juris, a Bachelor of Civil Law, an MPhil in Law and MSc in Law and Finance.

Networking opportunities

Some of the world's best legal experts went to Oxbridge and if you plan on living in the UK after you complete your LLM, then you'll meet some brilliant UK-based legal professionals during your course to network with during your future career. While you're researching which LLM course to study, you can reach out to some alumni from the University of Oxford and both Oxford and Cambridge hold alumni events all over the world. Some law alumni of Oxford include Tony Blair (former UK Prime Minister), John Turner (former Prime Minister of Canada), plus a former Prime Minister of Thailand and several former Prime Ministers of Pakistan. Law alumni from Cambridge include Sir Louis Blom-Cooper (co-founder of Amnesty International, V K Rajah (Attorney-General of Singapore) and Wong Yan Lung (Secretary for Justice of Hong Kong).

Oxbridge law societies

Both law schools have an excellent selection of law societies to get some experience in and meet other like-minded students. Cambridge has the Cambridge University Law Society, Cambridge University Students' Pro Bono Society, Graduate Law Society, the Cambridge Pro Bono Project, Cambridge Societies at the Inns of Court, and the Cambridge University Society for Women Lawyers. Oxford has the Oxford Law https://www.oxfordlawsoc.com, known as LawSoc, and then many individual colleges have a student Law Society as well. 

Oxbridge law libraries

The University of Oxford has a few law libraries and of particular interest is the Bodleian Law Library which is one of the UK's most important legal research libraries containing 450,000 volumes of books. Most of these books are available directly for students and researchers to use. At the University of Cambridge, the Squire Law Library is the largest and was opened in 1904, although much of the collection was already part of law libraries established with the university many hundreds of years ago. 

Top legal education

Oxford and Cambridge offer an excellent legal education and are regularly ranked at the top or near the top of the world's best law schools. Both Oxford and Cambridge are usually ranked in the top two spots in UK law school rankings and are excellent places to study the law in the UK.

International rankings

This table illustrates how the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford preform in international rankings tables.

Oxbridge rankings
Sources: 1 & 2:

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