Cardiff School of Law and Politics (), also known as Cardiff Law School () is part of

Cardiff University Cardiff University () is a public research university in Cardiff, Wales. It was established in 1883 as the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and became a founding college of the University of Wales in 1893. It was renamed Unive ...

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

, Wales. It confers

LLB A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

and

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

degrees for British and international students.

Background

In 1963, the Law Building (previously known as the Arts Building) opened, facing onto Museum Avenue and Park Place in Cardiff. The law school is attended by students from various countries. It provides a range of

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

law courses, all of which train students to complete the foundation modules that constitute the academic stage of training necessary to become a

solicitor A solicitor is a lawyer who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to p ...

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

. It also offers

postgraduate Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor' ...

LLM courses,

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and Well-being, welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal l ...

courses and research degrees for those who want to study an aspect of law at a more in-depth level. Academically, Cardiff Law School offers Bar Professional Training Course and legal practice courses. Both of these courses have received the Bar Standard Board's highest ratings. The law school offers courses for full-time, part-time and distance learning students. Cardiff Law School also provides many

extra-curricular An extracurricular activity (ECA) or extra academic activity (EAA) or cultural activity is an activity, performed by students, that falls outside the realm of the normal curriculum of school, college or university education. Although approved a ...

opportunities by having a close partnership with lawyers and other law-related organisations. The school also has law career advisers that organise programs, presentations and advisory sessions for students needing employment or career help.

Academics

Cardiff Law School offers a legal training package. These packages are offered to students who are starting their career in legal studies and qualified practitioners who are seeking a career in law. Cardiff is the only university that offers all professional law courses such as: Graduate diploma in law (GDL), Legal practice course (LPC), and Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC). The school offers many undergraduate programs such as LLB law with criminology, political science, sociology, French, German and Welsh. For postgraduate students from UK and overseas, the school offers courses in human rights, international law, social care, commercial law and many other courses related to the field of law. Professional courses in law are also offered that can lead to

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in law and legal studies. Cardiff Law School also provides a CPD (

Continuing Professional Development Professional development, also known as professional education, is learning that leads to or emphasizes education in a specific professional career field or builds practical job applicable skills emphasizing praxis in addition to the transferab ...

) programme for professionals who have already completed their careers and wish to go further in their education that is not specifically related to law. These students can choose to receive one LLM unit or obtain full LLM units and earn a full LLM degree. The school's CDP modules are accredited by the Bar Standards Council and the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Alumni

* Gawain Briars * David Campbell (legal academic) * Alex Davies-Jones * Edward Enoch Jenkins * Amira Elmissiry *

Raymond Gower Sir Herbert Raymond Gower, FInstD (15 August 1916 – 22 February 1989) was a British Conservative Party Member of Parliament for over 37 years, representing seats in Glamorgan from 1951 to his death in 1989. He was also a journalist and ...

John Warwick Montgomery John Warwick Montgomery (October 18, 1931 – September 25, 2024) was an American-born lawyer, academic, Lutheran theologian, and author. From 2014 to 2017, he was Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University, Wisconsin ...

Jonathan Morgan (politician) Jonathan Morgan, (born 12 November 1974) is a Welsh Conservative politician, who served as a Conservative Assembly Member (AM) for South Wales Central from 1999 to 2007 and AM for Cardiff North from 2007 to 2011. In the National Assembly elect ...

Kate Muir Kate Muir is a Scottish writer, women's health campaigner and documentary maker. Her book, ''How to Have a Magnificent Midlife Crisis'' was published in 2025, following ''Everything You Need to Know About the Menopause (But Were Too Afraid to ...

* Megan Pullum *

M Ravi Ravi Madasamy (), better known as M Ravi, is a Singaporean international human rights lawyer and activist. Known for his work as a cause lawyer, he has acted in multiple leading cases in Singaporean constitutional law and human rights. After g ...

* Michael Shrimpton * Zheng Zeguang *

Vaughan Gething Humphrey Vaughan ap David Gething (born 15 March 1974) is a Welsh Labour Co-op politician who served as First Minister of Wales from March to August 2024, and served as leader of Welsh Labour from March to July 2024, making him the first blac ...

Facilities and services

There are various facilities and services available to students to support and guide them through their school life. The school offers a large

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

with over 3,000 study spaces, free

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

access and over 1.3 million books. The library is open throughout the week for students to use. They also provide 60 different sport clubs, including

water sports Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms ...

for students to participate in. They provide computing services across campuses so students can use a computer anytime they feel the need to. Religious provision and student support are also arranged.

Research

The law school has been recognised as a leading centre of research. In the 200
Research Assessment Exercise
the school was recognised as a leading legal research institution and was ranked seventh out of 100 schools in the United Kingdom for their outstanding legal research institute. They have also received topgrading in 1996, where they were known for their vibrant research culture. The school's research is broken down into four different groups:

Procedural Justice Procedural justice is the idea of fairness in the processes that resolve disputes and allocate resources. One aspect of procedural justice is related to discussions of the administration of justice and legal proceedings. This sense of procedura ...

, Regulation of Commercial Activity,

Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

Health care Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

and Society and Governance & Constitutionalism.

References

{{coord, 51.48915, -3.1817, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title 1893 establishments in Wales Universities and colleges established in 1893 Law schools in Wales Law and Politics