I am currently studying a masters degree in Law. My undergraduate degree is in Journalism but I

chose to study law at masters level as it interests me. However I am unsure of what career to pursue following this. My classmates all intend to become solicitors and take the LPC. This wont be possible for me unfortunately as I cant afford it.
I am interested in teaching law, possibly at college level. I will need to take the certficate in teaching further education, but does anyone know how often law teaching jobs come available? Ive looked through job vacancy sites but there do not appear to be that many. I would like a job that involves law, but unsure of what career that may be?

Go and ask for advice from your university careers service. That's what they're there for ...

You can't possibly do an LLM degree without having done an LLB beforehand. The masters degree you are likely to be doing is probably a specialist masters for non-law graduates, which means it has a specific focus on one area of the law. What area is it?

Teaching at the law faculty, as far as I know, is mostly taught by academics with law degrees (ie. LLB or JD) unless you have extensive experience in a particular area of the law already. If you want to teach law as a non-law graduate, alternative areas you could go into would be teaching business law to business students, or as a patent/trademarks attorney to future patent/trademarks attorneys, or perhaps you've spent some time working with a particular area of the law (eg. human rights) and can speak extensively from your practical experience. These are just a few examples of course.

chris - you could teach undergraduaters media law. you undergrad degree would put you in a better position than the conventional LLB graduate to teach that course. meanwhile - have you tried applying for a training contract with law firms? it doesn't matter that your first degree is not in law and they pay for it. this course takes 2 years for non-lawyer, the first of which you spend converting your degree to a law degree and the next you sit the same exam as a law graduate. in the meantime you could try a paralegal or college teaching (that does not require pgce) job while you do your applications.

RogueAcademic - why do you always discourage people who are trying to do something in law? a bit of encouragement in the right direction could go a long way for a lot of people and it doesn't cost much.

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 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.

In the UK, a lot of high-ranking universities admit students to the LLM without the Bachelor of Laws degree (LLB); Oxford, Cambridge, Durham to name a few. The LLB is also not a prerequisite to practicing law in the UK. Non-lawyers do the CPE to practice. All this info is on lawcareers.net. I think your previous replies would have made much more sense if you stated initially that you were talking about Australia. Here, it does not matter. A significant number of lecturers in UK law schools did not study law as their first degree. You only need to check the law school websites to see that. You will also find that this is also common in US law schools such as the Chicago law school and US leading law firms such as Shearman & Sterling.

As for finances, Chris - most law firms pay for your CPE. Most universities also have internal funding that you can apply for in addition to all the funding available from bodies such as the AHRC. You only need to do well in your masters to be eligible for this funding for your PhD.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

RogueAcademic - with all due respect, i think it is clear who is in England and who is not. It does not matter what you think the system is, what matters is what it is. All the best Chris.