I see.

Rosy - has your fiance completed a PhD sometime in the past as well or is he working in an entirely non-academic/university field?

haha

Have you considered doing a masters degree in a field other than the biosciences?

We built this city on rock and roll.

You could try looking at that.

Do you have previous professional experience under your belt?

Incidently, the Oxford website says:

"The Faculty also makes the following provision for graduates in other disciplines:

- BA in law with senior status: a super-intensive version of our undergraduate law degree completed in two years rather than three - for outstanding graduates only.

- Diploma in Legal Studies: a one-year extract from the undergraduate BA in law, designed for our exchange students.

- Graduates in psychology, sociology and similar disciplines are accepted alongside law graduates on the MSc in Criminal Justice."

So it seems that some kind of background in law is still necessary to be admitted into the postgrad law program there. Or as it says, the alternative for non-law people would be a non-law degree like the MSc in Criminal Justice.

You mentioned that: "A significant number of lecturers in UK law schools did not study law as their first degree.". Well of course they may or may not have a law degree as their first degree. But I bet many more of them did eventually complete a law degree before practicing law. Having a quick look at the Shearman & Sterling website it would appear to be so.

Then I went to the lawcareers.net website as recommended by you and it says:

"Graduates in a non-law degree subject can still qualify as a solicitor or barrister by taking the Common Professional Exam or Graduate Diploma in Law before embarking on the LPC/BVC, although this entails an extra year's study and more expense. These 'conversion courses' prepare non-law graduates for a legal career as they cover the foundations of law, namely contract, tort, criminal law, equity & trusts, EU law, property law and public law."

Which again seems to support my previous posts regarding admission into the legal profession for people with a non-law background.

Then I checked out the Oxford Law Faculty academic staff list, and although the background of some of their staff is a bit vague, it also looks like those who are teaching strict law & legal practice topics have a clear law degree background. While those teaching more philosophical topics (eg legal philosophy/jurisprudence etc) have a D.Phil degree (the vague part is it doesn't stipulate previous academic qualifications) which conforms with the first quoted paragraph I posted above.

jojo - I checked out Oxford's Law Faculty website as a first port of call and this is what they say:

"In general the Law Faculty's postgraduate programmes are open only to those with law degrees. Exceptionally those with outstanding degrees in other disciplines may be admitted to the BCL or MJur if they hold a professional legal qualification. Graduates in other relevant disciplines are sometimes admitted by the Law Faculty to read for research degrees in areas such as philosophy of law, criminology, and socio-legal studies."

http://denning.law.ox.ac.uk/postgraduate/nonlaw.shtml

Which seems to support exactly what I was saying in my posts above.

And the suggestions I provided for teaching law as a non-law grad are absolutely legitimate alternatives. In Australia, teaching in the law faculty of a university in 99.9% cases simply does not happen if you do not have a law degree. No ifs or buts, that's just how it is. As far as I am aware, that is also the case in the US (in the large mainstream universities anyway).

As for applying for training at law firms, I assume the equivalent is a year of articles? If so, that doesn't happen without a degree in law too. And I thought that that is also the case in the US.

jojo - what do you mean 'always'? I'm not trying to discourage at all. In fact I would absolutely encourage people to go into law if they can. But Chris said finances may be a problem.

I am speaking from an Australian perspective, and as far as I am aware, also largely applicable to the UK. The 'Master of Laws' (LLM) degree is ONLY available to a graduate of an undergrad law degree so I'm trying to figure out which degree he is actually doing since he doesn't have an undergrad degree because that will determine the area in which he will gain expertise.

And then don't forget to make 3 copies and bind them.

Well it depends on whether you can articulate that into 100,000 words of IRAC, discuss both sides of the argument, then reach your contemptuous conclusion.