Law is the hardest degree, obviously

Any LLB student will tell you that our degree is the hardest; even Med students struggle with it. We might not have as many contact hours as people doing a BSC, but that’s because we have to spend the rest of the day reading and trying to understand why you’re not allowed to set up a private purpose trust, even though your trustees are totally willing to carry out the purpose that you’ve left all your money to.

We definitely have more hours than a BA though, some of our lectures are so complicated that the lecturer will even admit they don’t fully understand what is happening with the law. No one understands land law for instance, we just try and memorise enough to pass the exam and don’t even attempt to understand equity and trusts.

Law balls may seem snobby, but they’re a rare chance for us all to actually relax

When you write a legal essay, you don’t just have to report what the case law says and analyse different judgements. You have to fully explore the different reasoning of each different judge, find journals that back up your argument and make sure everything you say is up-to-date. The latter is particularly frustrating; you might have only been sat in the relevant lecture just two weeks ago but the Supreme Court have probably created a new precedence since then which means your entire point is irrelevant.

We get called obnoxious all the time but honestly, we’ve earned the right to be obnoxious. Who else can say they spend as much time in the library as an architecture student? Most degrees have to do a dissertation just to prove they’ve learnt how to research properly. For us, it’s a choice and one that you regret as soon as you decide to write 10,000 words on voluntary manslaughter. Although, we’re not really obnoxious, we’re just tired.

Only Law makes you this tired

It’s even more obvious that Law is the hardest degree when you speak to anyone else. Business students struggle with contract law in their third years but that’s a first year module for us. We probably aren’t going to help you either because we have four essays due by the end of next week and a brief sheet for moot.

BAs may be considered similar to Law, but in reality they’re so much easier. When you’re analysing that quote from Shakespeare, anything goes. When you’re answering whether or not Jill has a claim in tort you have to apply all the case law and then explain why it’s relevant even if you don’t agree that she should be able to claim rights on the house she’s been squatting in.

Yes, as a BSC student, you have to go on field trips sometimes and that means independent research, but we have mooting which is a national competition: you have to prepare an argument for a client, or you argue against that client. If your partner messes up so do you. And that’s without all the pro bono work you find yourself doing just so the Magic Circle will consider employing you.

You try making sense of this

Law isn’t just about learning how to argue, we basically have to learn a whole new language too (who else can randomly drop prima facie into a sentence?). We aren’t just learning about the English legal system either, we have to study case law from Australia, Canada, the US, Nepal and beyond.

When you combine the essay writing from a BA and the problem solving of a BSC, that’s when you get an LLB. So you guys can fight it out between you in the never-ending argument to find the hardest degree. We’ll just sit here smugly knowing that not only do we have you beat, our degree definitely makes us more employable than any of yours.