A Day in the Life of a Law Student

Yesterday evening whilst drinking my necessary just-arrived-home cup of tea I realised something.

I was chatting to my housemate who was diligently doing the washing up (best housemate ever) and I was relaying to him what I had learned during that day from my lectures and tutorial readings in one long stream of consciousness.

What I suddenly realised is that as a law student the variety of topics and ideas that you cover in a single day can be so diverse and varied. One minute I am questioning whether it would be preferable for people to own their body’s as a matter of law and the next I find myself considering the efficacy of secret trusts.

So I thought I’d write a ‘Day in the Life’ style blog to trace this variety over an average day.

My Friday morning kicked off at 9 o’clock with a Criminology lecture on the topic of Neurocriminology; specifically how we might utilise the findings of neuroscientific studies to improve lie detection and what the implications of this are for the criminal justice system and the trial process.

Hot on the heels of this lecture I had a Human Rights and Civil Liberties tutorial on the topic of the prisoner voting controversy – we discussed issues surrounding the UK’s blanket ban on prisoner voting focusing on relevant case law, policy documents and academic commentary.

After this I had an Equity and Trusts tutorial concerning personal liability of third parties and secret trusts. We had to apply the law on these topics to two sets of facts.

Back to Human Rights law with a lecture on how liberty and security are balanced in this country in the context of counter-terror measures. We have considered the Belmarsh detainees and control orders and we are now moving on to look at the Abu Qatada case and the challenges raised with respect to article 3 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

After a break for lunch (Roasted veggie’s with humous from Delicious :)) I had a Medical Law lecture next on the topic of assisted reproduction. We were looking specifically at the law as it relates to consent to reproductive treatment and parentage.

So there you have it! Never a dull moment 🙂

A quick note on my timetable: I have roughly 13 contact hours (lectures and tutorials) a week. Some days are quite contact hour heavy whilst for others I only have one or two classes  for the day, leaving me with lots of time to fit in tutorial reading and extra-curricular activities.

Please let me know in the comments below if you’d like to know more about which topics we’ve covered in any of the modules that I am currently studying (Equity and Trusts, Human Rights and Civil Liberties, Medical Law and Criminology). I am also happy to answer any questions you might have about the workload or any other bits and pieces that you think I might be able to help with.