**Course summary**
• Get real legal work experience in every year of your degree.
• Take work placements in legal settings across the UK and overseas.
• Gain a degree accredited by the Bar Standards Board and Solicitors Regulation Authority.
• Study modules designed around the Solicitors Qualifying Examination.
• Work in our on-campus law firm alongside practising lawyers and specialist academics.
• Have the opportunity to work abroad — Erasmus funding is available for European placements.

On this course, you’ll gain the skills, experience, contacts and credentials you need to kick-start your legal career. You’ll do real legal work through our on-campus law firm while gaining a detailed legal education, designed around the Solicitors Qualifying Examination. When you graduate, you won’t only have an accredited law degree — you’ll have extensive legal work experience to support your qualification as a solicitor.
This course provides you with a solid base for a wide range of legal careers.

From your first year, you’ll gain a detailed induction into law, and begin working on real cases and projects in our on-campus law firm, SHU Law.
In your second year, you’ll begin to specialise — choosing an area such as criminal appeals, prisoners' rights, commercial litigation, personal injury or employment law to experience as part of SHU Law.
Your final year allows you to build on your experience, taking on more responsibility for your cases and working more closely with your clients. You will also have opportunities to branch out into placement settings across the UK and overseas, while cementing your knowledge not just as a student, but as a trainee lawyer.
Other final year opportunities include working within our Human Rights Clinic and working with children and young people through our Street Law module.

You learn through
• lectures, seminars and workshops
• practical module
• work placements in SHU Law and elsewhere
There are opportunities to study abroad at one of our partner universities with the possibility of funding through the Erasmus programme. (subject to the UK’s continued participation in the Erasmus programme following the Brexit transition period).

**Applied learning**
SHU Law
Our regulated and supervised on-campus law firm, SHU Law, offers law students a unique chance to get ahead with their solicitor qualifications. You’ll gain vital industry experience, working alongside solicitors on real cases.
Uniquely, your work with SHU Law is fully integrated into your course from your first year, and will continue throughout your studies.

**Work placements**
In your final year, you can choose to opt out of SHU Law work placements and enter an external legal setting.
Placements have been taken at major national and international law firms such as Irwin Mitchell and DLA Piper, and often involve sitting in on real hearings and court cases with solicitors. You may also choose to do a placement in areas such as local government, coroners’ offices or local law firms.
There are also international work placements available in the USA, including at the Public Defenders’ Office in Savannah, and Innocence Project in San Diego.
Your placement supervisor will help you find the right fit for your career, and will provide support throughout your experience.

**Social justice**
Throughout the course, you’ll help and advocate for those who don’t have or can’t afford representation. You’ll also work on our court helpdesks which provide vital legal advice, free of charge, to members of the public.

In your third year, you will have the opportunity to work in our Human Rights Clinic, which is part of the award-winning Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice. You’ll also have the chance to work with the charity Urban Lawyers through the Street Law module — where you will teach school children from disadvantaged areas about their rights, and how they can enter the legal profession.