Durham Law School

Coordinates: 54°46′30″N 1°34′29″W / 54.775082°N 1.574678°W / 54.775082; -1.574678

Durham University
Durham Law School

Established	1969
Dean	Thom Brooks
Address	Durham University Palatine Building Stockton Road Durham DH1 3LE, Durham, England, UK
Affiliations	University of Durham
Website	www.dur.ac.uk/law/

Durham Law School is part of Durham University and one of the UK's leading centres for legal research and teaching. Durham is ranked joint 40th in the world for law by the 2017 QS World University Rankings by Subject.^[1] Durham Law School graduates currently sit on the UK Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, in government and in Parliament as well as other leading roles.^[2] Small group teaching in tutorials taught in academic staff offices and seminars are a central part of the School's award winning legal education and unique for most law schools.^[3] Durham Law School has particular research strengths in the areas of Public Law & Human Rights, Commercial & Corporate Law, EU & International Law and Biolaw. Professor Thom Brooks is Dean of Durham Law School.^[4]

Programmes Offered

Durham Law School offers a three year LLB degree and a four year LLB with Year Abroad degree.^[5] They are both Qualifying Law Degree programmes for the purpose of practicing as a barrister or solicitor in England and Wales. Durham's law students rank among the very best in the UK for employability.^[6] The School offers a wide diversity of modules covering virtually every key area of law with particular strengths in public law, human rights, commercial and corporate law, EU law, international law and biolaw (including medical law) as well as comparative law, family law and jurisprudence.

Taught postgraduate LLM degree programmes include a general Master of Laws LLM, LLM in Corporate Law, LLM in European Trade and Commercial Law, LLM in International Trade and Commercial Law and LLM in International Law and Governance.^[7]

Research postgraduate degree programmes include a one-year Master of Jurisprudence MJur and PhD in Law.^[8] Durham Law School has a staff common room and a postgraduate student suite that each have panoramic views of Durham Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Durham Castle is a college of the University.

Reputation

Durham Law School has been ranked as the 3rd best Law School in the UK by the Complete University Guide for 2016,^[9] behind Cambridge and Oxford respectively, as well as 3rd in the UK for the quality and impact of its research, according to the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2014.^[10] It was ranked joint 4th in the UK in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in terms of the proportion of research activity ranked at the highest 4* level,^[11] and was one of only five UK law schools to be awarded the top grading of 5*A in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).^[12] The School achieved the top rating of "Excellent" for its teaching in its last inspection by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and is consistently rated as one of the very top UK law schools in various league tables.^[13][14][15] The UK's Supreme Court has more Durham Law School graduates than any other non-Oxbridge university.^[16]

Durham Law School has been named the most impressive law school building in the world. The findings were published in 2014 by Best Choice Schools who selected the 50 most impressive law schools in the world.^[17][18]

Research

Durham Law School

Research centres and groups

Durham Law School supports a range of institutes, centres and groups open to academic staff and law students:

• Centre for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice
• Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences (CELLS)
• Durham European Law Institute (DELI)
• Centre for Gender Equal Media (GEM)
• Gender and Law at Durham (GLAD)
• Global Policy Institute (GPI)
• Human Rights Centre (HRC)
• Institute of Commercial and Corporate Law (ICCL)
• Islam, Law and Modernity
• Law and Global Justice at Durham

Major areas of research

• Biolaw: including bioethics, medical law and intellectual property issues^[19]
• Comparative law
• Criminal law and criminal justice: including international criminal law, jury trials, organized crime, sentencing and theories of punishment and restorative justice.
• English private and commercial law: including commercial fraud, consumer law, contract law, corporate law, equity, Europeanisation of private law, intellectual property international trade law, law and economics, restitution, tort law
• EU law: including EU constitutional law, EU external trade, EU competition law, Third Pillar matters
• Gender and law: including discrimination, equality and diversity, feminist legal theory gender and crimeand women in the legal professions
• Human rights: including counter-terrorism issues, discrimination law], the Human Rights Act, international human rights law, media freedom and religious liberty
• Legal theory: including jurisprudence, legal realism, moral philosophy, multiculturalism, political philosophy, socio-legal studies and theory of international law
• Public international law: including international human rights law, international humanitarian law, conflict studies, international criminal law and WTO law
• UK public law: including human rights, citizenship, comparative constitutional law, separation of powers, scrutiny of security services and United Kingdom immigration law.^[20]

Notable individuals

Notable academics

The following notable individuals are or have been academics of Durham Law School:

• Deryck Beyleveld - former Head of School
• Leo Blair
• Thom Brooks - inaugural Dean & Professor of Law and Government
• David Campbell
• Roger Masterman - former Head of School
• David O'Keeffe
• Wolfgang Schomburg - Honorary Professor

Notable alumni

Judiciary

• Jill Black (Trevelyan) - Lord Justice of Appeal and Privy councillor^[21][22]
• James Goss (University) - Justice of the High Court (Queens Bench Division)
• Anthony Hughes (Van Mildert) - Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom; former Lord Justice of Appeal; Vice-President of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales^[23]
• Andrew McFarlane (Collingood) - High Court Judge, Lord Justice of Appeal^[24]
• Robert Strother Stewart (Hatfield & Armstrong) - Justice of the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast Colony and Member of the West African Court of Appeal.
• Caroline Swift (St Aidan's) - leading counsel to the Inquiry in the Shipman Inquiry and Justice of the High Court (Queens Bench Division)^[25]
• Mark Waller - former Lord Justice of Appeal and Vice-President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales

Politics

• Graham Brady MP, Chair of 1922 Committee
• Robert Buckland QC MP, Solicitor General
• James Wharton

Media

• Gabby Logan

References

External links

• Durham Law School