How to study law at a UK university: cases and the SQE

Short answer first: a law degree is mostly reading. Bristol Law promises at least 8 hours of in-person teaching a week in first year and expects 35 to 40 hours of study, so most of your week is cases and chapters. You read each case for its ratio, answer problem questions issue by issue with the IRAC structure the Open University Law School teaches, and footnote in OSCOLA. After the degree, England and Wales qualify solicitors through SQE1, SQE2 and two years of work experience, while Scotland runs a separate route through the Law Society of Scotland.

This article is about the study side of an LLB: the reading, the case note, the problem answer, referencing, exams and what follows the degree. It is not careers advice and it does not cover the Bar. The rules below come from named law schools and regulators, and your module handbook wins wherever it says something different.

What does an LLB week look like?

Law timetables look light, which catches out first years. The shape is a lecture that lays out an area, then a small-group seminar or tutorial where you are expected to have done the reading and to argue with it. How to take notes when you are being assessed on what you say in those small groups is covered in notes in seminars, labs and placements.

• Bristol: 8 hours in the room, 35 to 40 in total. Bristol Law School's FAQ says that in first year you can usually expect at least 8 hours of in-person contact time per teaching week, and that students are expected to spend at least 35 to 40 hours a week on their studies. It describes law as a subject with a lot of independent study and a large amount of reading, with directed reading provided in advance of group sessions.
• Manchester: 10 hours and about 40. Manchester's LLB page puts contact time for lectures, seminars and workshops at a minimum of 10 hours a week and total study at about 40 hours, and lists assessment by exams, coursework, case reports, reflective diaries, problem-based multiple choice questions, presentations and portfolios.
• Lectures are usually recorded. Bristol says large group lectures or their equivalent are recorded and made available on its virtual learning environment, alongside other resources.

Do the subtraction and the degree becomes clearer. Around 30 hours a week are yours to fill, and nearly all of that is reading and preparing. So the skill that decides first year is reading faster without reading worse, and that starts with knowing what you are looking for before you open the law report.

How do you read a case without drowning?

A reported case can run to dozens of pages across several judgments, and a seminar list can hold six of them. You do not need every page. You need the facts, the question the court had to answer, the answer, the reasoning that produced it, and which parts of that reasoning bind courts later.

Start with the headnote, which summarises the facts and the holding, then go to the judgments themselves rather than stopping there. Read the facts once. Find the question the court had to decide, usually stated early in the leading judgment. Then read for the reasoning that answers it, marking where the judges agree and where they differ.

Where an appeal court agrees on the result for different reasons, the ratio is harder to state. Saying so in an essay, and explaining which reasoning you think binds, is a mark of a careful reader rather than a hedge.

The five-heading case note

Facts, issue, decision, ratio, obiter. One or two sentences each, written the day you read the case, because rewriting it in May from a photocopy costs three times as long. The ratio line is the one to labour over: write the legal reason that was necessary to the decision, tied to the facts that mattered, in a single sentence you could say out loud.

What does a case note look like on a real case?

Here is the method applied to a case almost every English law student meets in first term, in the form you would keep it.

Notice what the ratio is not. It is not that advertisements are offers, because many are not, and this one turned on its wording and on the bank deposit. Writing the ratio narrowly, tied to the facts that carried it, is what lets you argue in a problem question that a different advertisement falls outside it.

How do you answer a problem question?

A problem question gives you a set of facts and asks you to advise someone. It tests whether you can find the legal issues inside facts and apply law to them, not whether you can write down everything you know about a topic. The Open University Law School's guidance sets out the IRAC method: identify the issue, explain the legal rule, set out its application and reach a conclusion based on it.

• Map the facts before you write. The OU suggests highlighting or underlining, and better still making a flow chart, a chronology of events or a diagram of who is involved.
• Put the rule in your own words. Referencing legislation and cases is expected, but setting out their meaning in your own words is what demonstrates understanding.
• Spend the words on application. The OU warns against the temptation to jump from the legal rule to a conclusion, and asks you to take the reader through your thinking step by step.
• Run the cycle more than once. Depending on the scenario you may work through the process several times, once for each party involved or each potential cause of action.
• Conclude, or explain why you cannot. Where the facts are ambiguous it is fine to say you cannot reach a final conclusion, as long as you explain why not.

A problem answer, paragraph by paragraph

1. One sentence naming the parties and what each of them wants.
2. A list of the issues in the order you will take them.
3. For each issue: the rule with its authority, then the facts that engage it, then the likely outcome.
4. Where a fact is ambiguous, both readings and what follows from each.
5. A short conclusion that answers the question asked, which is normally to advise a named party.

How does OSCOLA work in practice?

Most UK law schools ask for OSCOLA, the Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities. Manchester's library guide describes it as widely used in UK law schools and by publishers, notes that it is a footnote style, and bases its examples on the fourth edition. The rules that catch students out are the small ones.

• Footnotes, numbered continuously. Put the marker after the full stop at the end of the sentence, or after the word or phrase it relates to, and end the footnote with a full stop.
• Cases: parties, neutral citation, report. Give the party names, then the neutral citation, then the Law Reports citation, as in Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd [2008] UKHL 13, [2008] 1 AC 884. Where there is no neutral citation, give the report followed by the court in brackets, as in Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1 QB 256 (CA).
• Legislation by name, year and section. Human Rights Act 1998, s 15(1)(b), with no full stops in the abbreviation.
• Pinpoints without labels. A page is the number on its own, with no "p" in front of it, and a paragraph goes in square brackets at the end of the citation.
• A bibliography in sections. Books, articles and cases go in separate lists, with cases in alphabetical order by the first named party.

Build the citation when you write the case note, in the exact form you will footnote it. Marks for referencing are cheap to lose and expensive to recover at midnight before a deadline, and a case note that already carries its citation saves you the trip back to the report.

What are law exams actually like?

Formats range from closed book papers to exams where you carry in a statute book or your own notes. The general vocabulary of open, closed and limited book exams, along with pass marks and capped resits, is in how UK university exams work. Law adds its own variations, and they change how you revise.

• Exeter: statute books or full notes. Exeter's LLB page says exams are not simply tests of memory but are designed to test your ability to argue persuasively and apply the law correctly, and that in some modules you may bring unannotated statute books into the exam while in others your full notes are permitted.
• University of London: typed exams and statute e-books. The University of London LLB assesses all modules except the dissertation entirely by typed examination, normally held in May and October, and provides statute e-books for all modules where they are permitted in the examination.
• Manchester: problem-based multiple choice among the rest. Manchester lists problem-based multiple choice questions alongside exams, coursework, case reports and presentations.
• Bristol: timed assessments and a research project. Bristol lists timed assessments, group work, coursework, journals and blogs, and requires every final-year LLB student to complete an Independent Research Project.

An unannotated statute book saves you memorising section numbers. It does not save you understanding them, and it gives you nothing at all if you have to hunt for the provision while the clock runs. Practise under the conditions of the real paper, with the same clean book and the same time limit, and use the book for wording rather than for finding out what the law is.

How do you qualify as a solicitor in England and Wales?

The route no longer runs through a law degree. The SRA's SQE page sets out four requirements: a degree in any subject or an equivalent level 6 qualification, passes in both parts of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination, two years of full-time qualifying work experience or the equivalent, and the SRA's character and suitability checks.

The structure of SQE1 comes from the SRA's own sample question papers, which also work out the pace: about 1.7 minutes per question. The SQE2 station counts and marking come from the SRA's SQE2 assessment specification, which notes that the interviewing station is marked by the assessor playing the client, on skills only.

Two further details from the SRA's questions and answers matter while you are still an undergraduate. There is no fixed pass mark, because the SRA sets it for each sitting to hold the standard steady. And qualifying work experience has to be done in no more than four organisations, each confirmed by a solicitor or the compliance officer for legal practice, which is worth knowing before you collect vacation placements at six different firms.

Is the route different in Scotland?

Yes, and it always has been. The SQE qualifies solicitors of England and Wales. Scotland has a separate legal system and its own regulator, and the Law Society of Scotland sets out three routes, of which the standard one is taken by the large majority.

• An accredited LLB in Scots law. Studied at one of 10 accredited providers in Scotland, with honours, ordinary, part-time and online options, plus an accelerated LLB for people who already hold a degree in another discipline or a law degree from another jurisdiction.
• The Diploma. A mandatory one-year Diploma in Professional Legal Practice, currently offered at six universities in Scotland, which you need before you can work as a trainee.
• The traineeship. Two years working as a trainee under the supervision of a qualified Scottish solicitor, after which you can apply for a practising certificate.
• The alternative to university. A pre-PEAT training contract combined with the Law Society's own exams, taken by a relatively small number of trainees each year.
• Fitness and properness. Nobody is admitted unless they are considered a fit and proper person to be a solicitor, tested at the entrance certificate stage, on admission and later.

If you are studying in England and want to practise in Scotland, or the reverse, check this before final year rather than after it. An English LLB is not the accredited Scots law degree the standard route asks for, and the accelerated LLB exists precisely for that situation.

How do you turn a term of cases into flashcards?

A single module can set dozens of cases, and the exam rewards recalling the right one from a set of facts rather than recognising the name on a list. Case notes already contain the questions, so the cards almost write themselves. The general method is in making flashcards from your notes, and law needs a few specific card types.

• Facts to name. Front: a company promises a reward to anyone who uses its product and still falls ill, and backs the promise with a bank deposit. Back: Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co.
• Name to ratio. The case on the front, your one-sentence ratio on the back, in the wording you would use in an exam.
• Rule to authority. Front: when is notice of acceptance not required? Back: where the offer shows it is not expected, with the case name.
• Trigger to issue. Front: a fact pattern such as a reward advertisement. Back: the issues it raises and the order to take them in.
• Statute sections. The section number and its elements, for any paper where the statute book is unannotated or not allowed at all.

Answering from memory before you look is active recall, which is what the exam asks of you anyway. Keep the ratio cards and the trigger cards in one deck, because a problem question starts from facts rather than from names, and the two directions of recall are not the same skill.

The weekly case deck

1. Write the five-heading note for every case on the seminar list, the day you read it.
2. Make a facts card and a ratio card for each one, and a trigger card for the leading cases.
3. Review for ten minutes a day and let the schedule widen the gaps.
4. At the end of each topic, answer one past problem question closed book, then check which cases you could not recall.
5. Before exams, add statute section cards for the papers where you cannot take the book in.

Where Notibo fits

Notibo is useful at the lecture and reading end of a law degree. It records a lecture, or takes an audio file you upload, and returns a transcript, structured notes and flashcards with spaced repetition, and it turns PDF, PPTX and DOCX files into notes and flashcards, so a slide deck or a reading handout can become the first draft of the deck above. It transcribes 89 languages and keeps the transcript in the language spoken. Check every card against the case itself before you revise from it, because a ratio has to be exact and a generated card is only as good as its source.

You can try Pro free for 14 days, with 240 minutes of recording and no card. After that the free plan covers 30 minutes of recording a month. Pro is 9.99 euro a month or 88.99 euro a year, charged in euro with the local amount shown at checkout. Uploads are capped at 50 MB, and long recordings are saved in smaller parts as they run and joined back into one transcript. Files are stored in the EU on Supabase in Frankfurt, while transcription and the AI notes run on US processors under standard contractual clauses. Ask the lecturer before you record, and see how the flashcards work if you want to know what comes out.