The pointlessness of a law degree
What is a law degree for? What is the point of the LLB? Well, if one wants to be a law academic, it is a useful way to start.
It is also as good a degree as any other for doing a range of occupations: a pass in a law degree shows you can study, retain information, and answer exam questions.
Indeed, there are people with law degrees in all walks of life, from social workers to sex workers.
But the one thing a law degree is not particularly useful for is the practice of law. In fact, it may well be the last degree one should do if the ambition is to be a practising lawyer. There is little or nothing in a standard law degree which equips the average lawyer with the knowledge or skills of everyday legal work. Most professional lawyers have had no need to look up a law report for years. It would be odd that anyone actually paid to provide legal advice would ever read a learned journal article.
If one wants to learn how to use documentary evidence, then do a history degree. If one enjoys words then study and enjoy literature or languages.
If one really wants to draft complex contractual documents then learn to write computer code, which is a very similar activity. And if one wants to know how to construct a compelling argument then do a degree in philosophy. But do not waste three years of your life on a LLB, for there is nothing in answering the clever questions of law academics that will get you very far in in a courtroom or with a client.
A law degree can even be worse than useless. For the budding civil litigator, it provides the misleading impression that for a case to get to court and be “reported” is anything other than an anti-commercial disaster for all involved. Almost all civil litigation can and should be closed down before a judge should be bothered for his or her decisions. For the wannabe criminal lawyer, a law degree hides the fact that almost all cases will depend on the evidence and points of procedure, and not on what is said in Clarkson and Keating.
However, it is the non-contentious lawyers who suffer the most from wasting years on a LLB. For example, hardly anything a commercial solicitor does draws on their academic studies. The average contract law course for example tells one absolutely nothing about how to draft a clause or a schedule. Those weeks of studious navel-gazing about the postal acceptance rule or whether consideration means the same as an intention to create legal relations provide no assistance in putting together a sales or distribution agreement. The only thing an LLB contract course and typical contract drafting and negotiation have in common is the word “contract”.
The best reason for doing a law degree in the current economic climate is that it cuts out an expensive year of having to do the conversion General Diploma in Law. One may also impress a law firm or chambers at an earlier stage so that they will offer you funding for the vocational course. But the academic study of law is like reading sheet music without an instrument: one can more or less make it out, but as with music, law only comes alive in its performance.
David Allen Green is media correspondent of The Lawyer and writer of the Jack of Kent blog
Readers' comments (89)
Anonymous | 21-Feb-2012 12:48 pm
Well done to the C of L for trying to make the law degree more relevant, more focused, and shorter!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Trainee at a US firm | 21-Feb-2012 12:50 pm
This is actually pretty offensive to people who have done a law degree and have gained a great deal from it, and it is a shame to put future students off. In my view there is no other degree which trains your mind to think about things in a legal way and from my experience people who have done certain other degrees or the GDL simply have not acquired those skills. The discussion of the postal acceptance rule etc. is just a means by which those skills are acquired. The law degree is not about learning law. I gained a huge amount from my LLB and whilst I would also love to do degrees in Economics, History, Spanish, English Literature and Politics, there isn't time. I can pick these up as hobbies and I wouldn't change what I have done.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Bristlawbod | 21-Feb-2012 2:46 pm
A half-arguable point stretched to destruction, in my view; and if "It would be odd that anyone actually paid to provide legal advice would ever read a learned journal article" is a genuinely-held belief I wouldn't like to be one of this guy's clients. There are often commercially practical nuggets in those sorts of pieces even if they can sometimes be a little academic.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 21-Feb-2012 3:44 pm
Some of my (trainee) colleagues genuinel believe an extrapolation of this article: that their GDL+LPC= LLB. I can only believe that this is because it has been so well marketed to them.
The debate over law v non- law will rage as long as it is an option (and it should remain an option: some of the brightest lawyers I know are non-law graduates, equally, some are law graduates). If someone has the requisite skills to be a good lawyer it doesn't matter what degree they do. However, to allow a 3 year specialist degree to be devalued (law is harder than most BA degrees) so that institutions like CoL and BPP can handle out additional qualifications is insulting to those who slaved away for 3 years to get an LLB.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Pjaay | 21-Feb-2012 4:50 pm
Law is not a pointless Degree.
If you must know, nearly 1/3rd of the world's legal system is based on the English Legal System.
A Law degree is a must if you want to practice law in most places except UK.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
A | 21-Feb-2012 6:39 pm
Trainee at a US firm
"In my view there is no other degree which trains your mind to think about things in a legal way and from my experience people who have done certain other degrees or the GDL simply have not acquired those skills."
You're right. Jonathan Sumption seems to be lacking the skills you set out. Perhaps a trainee at a US firm could give him some pointers.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Gary Manilow | 21-Feb-2012 6:42 pm
DAG is just trolling - he only wants your attention and some confirmation that someone has read his piece.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 22-Feb-2012 4:51 am
I fully concur with this article, and it represents what I have thought for a long time.
I studied both LLB and computer programming, and can confirm that preparing a contract is pretty much like preparing computer code (Code: Definitions, variables, procedures, logic gates, data. Contracts: Definitions, clauses, conditions, schedules).
The LLB gave me a solid grounding in common law, which is useful in my line of law (Projects), though not essential. I am 10-years qualified and cannot recall the last time I read a case or undertook thorough legal research. One of the areas we studied during the first year of LL.B was the historical property rights of North American native Indians. I have no idea how that could be applied in business.
I concur that law degrees, as with other "art" degrees, are very academic and theoretical in nature with limited application in modern business, though great if you want to be an academic. Science and economics degrees do however have practical application if you pursue a career in these fields.
Having said all of this, I would say that law degree would be of more use to a barrister than to a solicitor.
if I could turn back time, I would have studied for a language or a science.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 22-Feb-2012 7:43 am
But does it do any good to have lots of musicians who can't read music?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 22-Feb-2012 9:43 am
I agree with some of this article but don't think you could say that completing an LLB can be worse than useless.
A lot of modern contract law is based on centuries of case law and it is often important to know the historical basis in order to know why certain clauses are drafted like they are. I often see GDL lawyers modify contractual clauses without realising that they are worded that way for a very specific reason - trust or partnership law is a big one for this.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment