UCL Faculty of Laws

The UCL Faculty of Laws is the law school of University College London (UCL), a member institution of the federal University of London. It is one of UCL's 11 constituent faculties and is based in London, United Kingdom.

UCL Faculty of Laws

Established	1827
Parent institution	University College London
Dean	Professor Eloise Scotford
Academic staff	90
Undergraduates	650
Postgraduates	390
Location	Bentham House, London, United Kingdom
Website	www.ucl.ac.uk/laws

With a history dating back to 1827, the faculty was the first law school in England to admit students regardless of their religion, the first to admit women on equal terms with men, the first to award a law degree to a woman, Eliza Orme, and appointed one of the first three female law professors in the UK, Valentine Korah, who pioneered the study of competition law in Europe.

The faculty currently has a student body comprising around 650 undergraduates, 350 taught graduates and around 40 research (MPhil/PhD) students and offers a variety of undergraduate and graduate degrees. It publishes a number of journals, including Current Legal Problems and the UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudence. It is the only university in the UK to hold a legal aid contract, which forms part of its Integrated Legal Advice Clinic (iLAC).

History

Bentham House, the main building of the UCL Faculty of Laws. The Gideon Schreier Wing can be seen to the right.

The faculty traces its roots to the appointment of the noted legal philosopher, John Austin, as Professor of Jurisprudence in 1827. Andrew Amos, a successful barrister, became the first Professor of English Law (and later Professor of Medical Jurisprudence). However, numbers fell off after the Law Society and the Inner Temple began offering lectures in law in 1833, leading both professors (who were paid by the number of student taught) to resign. Alexander Murison was professor of Roman Law from 1884 to 1925, still paid "five shillings in the guinea" from the student fees; his successor, Herbert Felix Jolowicz, was guaranteed an income of £800 a year. The royal commission of 1898 that led to the reformation of the University of London as a federal institution found that the law classes at UCL were not well attended and, with the Inns of Court having declined to join the federal university, concluded that the teaching in UCL and King's College was insufficient to allow a faculty of laws to be formed. However, an intercollegiate faculty of laws was established in 1906, bringing together UCL, King's and the LSE.

The UCL Faculty of Laws expanded rapidly in the 1960s and soon outgrew its office space. The Faculty of Laws building, later named Bentham House, was bought by the college in 1965. Expanding beyond its traditional strengths of Roman law and jurisprudence, the faculty appointed the UK's first Professor of Air and Space Law in 1967 and offered courses in Russian and Soviet Law. In the mid-2000s, the faculty expanded into the adjacent 1970s building in Endsleigh Street, now the Gideon Schreier Wing.

Previous deans of the faculty include Bin Cheng, Ian Dennis, Jeffrey Jowell, Dawn Oliver and Dame Hazel Genn. Eloise Scotford has been dean since 2022.

Building

The faculty is based at Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens, a Grade II listed building a few minutes walk from the main UCL campus. The building is named after philosopher, jurist and reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), who is closely associated with UCL, and whose collected works are published by the faculty as part of the Bentham Project. The main building was originally constructed in 1954–8 as a headquarters for the National Union of General and Municipal Workers: the exterior decoration includes at fifth-floor level five relief sculptures of industrial workers by Esmond Burton.

Facilities at Bentham House include teaching rooms, lecture halls, a courtroom for moots, a student lounge, a coffee bar and two computer cluster rooms.

In the mid-2010s, Bentham House was redeveloped for £18.5m by architects Levitt Bernstein, a project which was completed in 2018.

Academics

Research

The main portico of University College London

The faculty was placed first in the UK for the quality of its research in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF). The faculty's Judicial Institute, launched in 2010, was the first specialist academic centre for research and teaching about the judiciary to be established in the UK. UCL Laws is home to a number of associated research centres, groups and institutes:

• Bentham Project
• Centre for Access to Justice
• Centre for Commercial Law
• Centre for Criminal Law
• Centre for Empirical Legal Studies
• Centre for Ethics & Law
• Centre for International Courts & Tribunals
• Centre for Law, Economics and Society
• Centre for Law and the Environment
• Centre for Law and Governance in Europe
• Institute of Brand and Innovation Law
• Institute of Global Law
• Institute of Human Rights
• Jevons Institute for Competition Law and Economics
• Judicial Institute
• Labour Rights Institute
• UCL Jurisprudence Group
• UCL Private Law Group
• Human Rights Beyond Borders

Teaching

Undergraduate

The faculty reported in 2010 that it receives around 2,500 applications for approximately 140 undergraduate places each year. The minimum entry requirements are A*AA grades at A-level, and a high LNAT score. All candidates to whom an offer is contemplated being made who are identified as requiring particular consideration are interviewed. There are no places available through the UCAS clearing process.

Graduate

The faculty admits approximately 350 students to its on campus LLM course each year, receiving an average of 2,500 applicants for admission. Further, along with Queen Mary University of London's respective law faculty it is also responsible for a joint LLM by examination awarded by the University of London at large.

The minimum entry requirements for the MPhil and PhD research degrees are a bachelor's degree with first or high upper second honours together with an LLM with an average grade of 65% (ideally with evidence of first class ability).

Publications

The faculty publishes a number of journals, including Current Legal Problems and the UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudence.

Public lectures

The faculty hosts a number of free public lectures each week (including the Current Legal Problems series) on a wide range of legal topics. These lectures are delivered by eminent academics from major universities around the world, senior members of the judiciary and leading legal practitioners.

Reputation and rankings

The faculty was ranked second in the UK for law in The Guardian University Guide 2025, first in the Times Good University Guide 2025, second in the Complete University Guide 2025, 12th globally in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 by subject: law, and 14th globally in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2024: Law & Legal Studies. In analysis of the 2021 Research Excellence Framework results by Times Higher Education, the Faculty of Laws was ranked first in the United Kingdom for the quality of its research.

UCL Law Society

The UCL Law Society has existed for more than 70 years and is regarded as one of the most prestigious student law societies in the UK. In 2017, the UCL Law Society was recognised as one of the top 10 university societies in the UK, and shortlisted for the 'Best Law Society' and 'Best Society for Aspiring Barristers' in the UK.

The vast majority of LLB students become members of the Law Society upon matriculation. LLM and non-law students are able to join as affiliate members.

The Law Society is led by the President and 17 other officers who are (apart from the First Year Representative) elected in March towards the end of the academic year. Election into the UCL Law Society is highly competitive and only LLB students are allowed to be nominated for positions. LLM and non-law students are not allowed to run for elections or vote. The campaigning period lasts for five days, and the voting period lasts for three days. Following a year of service, the President's name is engraved on a board in the law faculty.

The Law Society holds around one activity per day during the academic year and regularly hosts top judges, academics and lawyers around the world. The Law Society organises a wide range of competitions in mooting, debating, negotiation and client interviewing, and has multiple legal publications including Silk v Brief. The Law Society also provides the most comprehensive legal careers programme at UCL and is supported by a range of barristers' chambers, City and national law firms, and overseas law firms.

There is a separate LLM Society which caters solely to LLM students. The UCL Law Society and the LLM Society are independent of each other.

Notable academic staff

The Faculty has a large number of academic staff active in research across legal domains. These include:

Current academic staff

• Dame Hazel Genn KC - Professor of Socio-Legal Studies
• Sir Robin Jacob - Sir Hugh Laddie Professor of Intellectual Property
• Sir Jonathan Montgomery - Professor of Health Care Law
• Eloise Scotford - Professor of Environmental Law
• Philippe Sands KC - Professor of the Public Understanding of Law
• Anthony Julius - Chair of Law and the Arts
• Lawrence Collins, Baron Collins of Mapesbury - Professor of Law
• George Letsas - Professor of the Philosophy of Law
• Charles Mitchell - Professor of Laws
• Paul S. Davies - Professor of Commercial Law
• David Ormerod KC (Hon) - Professor of Criminal Law
• Michael Veale
• Ralph Wilde

Emeritus and former academic staff

• Eric Barendt - Emeritus Professor of Media Law
• Wiliam Twining - Quain Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus
• Stephen Guest - Emeritus Professor of Legal Philosophy, Principal Research Associate
• Bin Cheng - Professor of Air and Space Law, Dean of the Faculty (1971–1973)
• Valentine Korah - Professor of Competition Law
• Ian Dennis
• Ian Kennedy
• Ronald Dworkin
• Sir Malcolm Grant
• Sir Hugh Laddie
• Basil Markesinis KC

Honorary and visiting staff

• Baroness Hale of Richmond DBE - former President of the Supreme Court
• Scott Shapiro - Visiting Quain Professor of Law, UCL
• Richard Moorhead
• Robert Carnwath, Lord Carnwath of Notting Hill
• John Hendy, Baron Hendy

Notable alumni

Main article: List of University College London people in the Law

Judiciary

Sir Alfred Wills

• Taslim Olawale Elias (President of the International Court of Justice 1979–1985)
• Joseph Fok - Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal 2013–Present
• Lord Goldsmith QC (Attorney General for England and Wales 2001–2007)
• Chao Hick Tin (Attorney General of Singapore 2006–2008; Judge of Appeal 1999–2006 and 2008–2017)
• Sir Alfred Wills, High Court judge
• Lord Woolf (Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales 2000–2005)

Other

• Ghazi Abdul Rahman Algosaibi – Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Bahrain (1984 to 1992); Saudi Arabian Ambassador to United Kingdom and Ireland (1992–2002)
• Sir John Baker QC FBA – legal historian; Downing Professor of the Laws of England, University of Cambridge
• Peter Birks QC FBA – Regius Professor of Civil Law, University of Oxford
• Andrew Cayley – International Co-Prosecutor, Khmer Rouge Tribunal (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia)
• Sir Ellis Clarke – Governor-General of Trinidad and Tobago (1973–1976); President of Trinidad and Tobago (1976–1986)
• Terry Davis – Secretary General of the Council of Europe
• Geoffrey Dear, Baron Dear – Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary (1990–1997)
• Wu Ting Fang (1842–1923) – the first ethnic Chinese person to be called to the Bar in England
• Shreela Flather, Baroness Flather – first Asian woman to receive a peerage
• Garry Hart, Baron Hart of Chilton – former Special Adviser to the Lord Chancellor (1998–2007)
• Farrer Herschell – 19th Century Lord Chancellor
• Chaim Herzog – President of Israel (1983–1993)
• Michael Sfard – Israeli Human Rights Lawyer
• J. B. Jeyaretnam – Singapore politician and former leader of the Workers' Party of Singapore
• Sylvia Lim – Member of Parliament in Singapore and Chairman of the Workers' Party of Singapore
• Digby Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham – British politician and businessman; Minister of State for Trade
• Julie Maxton – Registrar of the University of Oxford (first woman to hold the post)
• John Stuart Mill - Philosopher and Liberal MP – attended lectures on jurisprudence by John Austin at UCL.
• Leonard Sainer – Solicitor and retailer
• L. J. K. Setright – Motoring author and journalist
• Rabindranath Tagore (studied one year; did not graduate) – Bengali poet; Nobel Prize in Literature (1913); first Asian Nobel Laureate
• Carol Thatcher – Journalist, author and media personality
• David Ivor Young, Baron Young of Graffham – Secretary of State for Employment (1985-1987); Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1987-1989)
• Jerrold Yam - Lawyer and poet

See also

• Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
• List of University College London people in the Law

External links

• UCL Faculty of Laws
• University College London