Critical Legal Practice (LLM) - 2009/2010 entry

Aims

Have you ever wondered how lawyers cope with the emotional and psychological dimensions of legal practice? Are you interested in exploring how pre-modern and early modern societies addressed legal disputes? Would you like the opportunity to run a case free from constraints of conventional practice? If so, the Law School’s new LLM Critical Legal Practice will be just the course for you.

The programme, which is taught in the evenings and on occasional weekends, offers to practising lawyers, caseworkers, community workers, NGO staff engaged in the provision of legal services and individuals who have completed the vocational stage of legal training, a unique opportunity to reflect on legal practice and their role as practitioners, from theoretical and philosophical perspectives.  It also allows students to engage in practical experimentation with the processes in which legal problems and disputes are resolved.

Content

Core courses (one term each):

• Critical Theory and Legal Strategies
• Psychological Dimensions of Legal Practice.

Three live cases from Experimental Legal Practice Forum.

Dissertation.

Teaching

Seminars and supervised research.

Assessment

Final assessment for Critical Theory and Legal Strategies is a 4000-word legal strategy note. For each live case a 4000-word case file is required and students must present one of these cases before the Experimental Legal Practice Forum. Psychological Dimensions of Legal Practice is assessed by a 4000-word essay. Dissertation of 8000–10,000 words.

When to apply

• Applications open in January and you should apply as early as possible.

Study resources

The School of Law, rated 5 in the last Research Assessment Exercise for carrying out research of international importance, provides an exciting and innovative centre for a wide range of research with a strong theoretical and policy focus. The School publishes Law and Critique: The International Journal of Critical Legal Thought.

Birkbeck Library has an extensive collection of books, journals and electronic resources in law and related disciplines, such as economics, politics and sociology. For example, it provides access to over 17,000 electronic journals, most of which are available 24 hours a day via the Internet.

Students can also take advantage of the rich research collections nearby, including those of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Senate House Library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science (LSE Library) and the British Library.

Special features

The programme brings together academics researching on the experience of marginality, on resistance to positions of dominance in modernity, on psychoanalysis and law, on human rights and on alternative dispute resolution. These are combined to offer a unique and exciting approach to the study of legal practice.

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