Hi there,

I am a practising barrister and am contemplating applying to LSE to study part-time for a PhD. I wondered if anyone could comment upon my prospect of being admitted with a Graduate Diploma in Law rather than LLB.

The research contemplated is multidisciplinary and is relevant to my non-law undergraduate degree and, to some extent, my non-law MA.

My academic background is good (first at undergrad, distinction MA, distinction GDL and outstanding on the BVC).

Is it unheard of for a candidate to be admitted with only the GDL and no LLM, or will the relevance of my undergraduate studies and the fact that I have already studied at MA level make up for the lack of academic legal study?

I think you should be fine, if you have a good proposal and find someone who would supervise you.

Have you contacted anyone at LSE yet?

Thanks for the reply. No, I haven't contacted anyone at LSE yet - is that generally the done thing to do? I've been out of academic study for a while now and am a little out of the loop as to the right way to go about things.

I need to give my proposal some serious thought. I don't have access to academic journals and resources at the moment - I think the Kings library admits barristers at the weekend so might spend some time in the library there. Is there a register of current/recent PhD theses maintained anywhere?

Hi Leontin, University libraries will often issue a one-day-pass to allow visitors to browse their collections (but without being able to borrow any books). That said, you can find photocopy machines at all these libraries. You'll also find a 'Print Journal' section where they will probably hold the latest issues of some Law journals - librarians can help guide you to the relevant section where these are kept and how to use the photocopying facilities. This will allow you to do some research and decide on a proposal topic. Here's a few website that will help you put together a research proposal:

http://www.education.leeds.ac.uk/prospective/researchproposal.php?programme=27

http://essaywritingblog.com/handbook-for-essay-writers/how-to-write-a-research-proposal-2

There are also some good proposal-writing guides sold on Amazon. Might be worth investing in a good/suitable one?

But before you start thinking of writing your proposal, it might be worth visting the the LSE's Law Department website:

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/law/index.htm

At their departmental website, under 'Research' it states the faculty's area of reseach interests, their current research projects and staff research strengths - this should help you with your research proposal. The closer your proposal topic to the research expertise of the department, the higher your chances of getting admitted (lots of prospective students' applications get turned down because the dept. doesn't have anyone suitable to supervise their subject or anyone interested in it. If your research topic is really interesting then you have better chances of getting in. But given that we don't all agree on what we consider to be 'interesting' it might be worth seeing what the Law faculty at LSE considers to be areas of interest. You'll also see that they are offering PhD scholarships. Also check out the 'Staff' section to see who's who and what each member of the faculty has done/is involved in.

Once you've decided on a topic and have a draft of your proposal ready you can email it to a member of faculty whose research interest and background fits with your chosen topic and ask them if they'd be interested in supervising you (include your CV as your experience as a barrister might put you well ahead of other applicants). If all goes well he/she will either email you and say 'yes' - after which you can go ahead and submit an application for a PhD - or he/she will suggest some changes to your proposal, and once an agreement has been reached, will ask you to put your application through. It's better to contact a member of faculty who you're interested in first, get them to say 'yes' to supervising you and then apply - once a faculty member has said 'yes' to supervising you then you're half-way towards being accepted already.

Finally, on their website there is a contact person for the PhD programme in the section 'MPhil/PhD Research Programmes'. She'll probably be the best person to let you know if your past qualifications are sufficient for their programme. Word of advice: apply as early as possible. The proposal-writing part, form-filling and application process - especially somewhere like LSE - will take some time.

Good luck. Let us kow how it goes (up)

I'm not sure where LSE keeps its recent PhD theses, but a good bet would be the uni library? If you don't have access to a uni library I would recommend the British Library, they have everything, registration is free and I always found it a great place to do work at.

I'm not sure how other people go about applying for a PhD, but I wrote a draft proposal, showed it to my MA supervisor (who couldn't supervise me for the PhD, as he is leaving my uni at the end of the year) and then he suggested I get in touch with another member of the department who would be suitable. So I emailed him, sent him the draft and he was really interested.

As you are not at uni at the moment, I think you should just check the staff website at LSE and see who would be a suitable sup, email them with your plans, short description of your background and the proposal and ask whether they would be interested, or whether they could recommend someone else.