You can select between 80 and 120 credits of the following courses:

• Company Law (40 credits, full-year course)

  This course aims to give you a broad understanding of United Kingdom corporate law, including current changes; where appropriate, reference will be made to the position in Europe. The course seeks to develop awareness of the interaction between theory and practice, and the complex issues involved in balancing the needs of business and the community.

          

• Contract Law in Europe (40 credits, full-year course)

  The aim of this course is to examine the law of contract from a comparative perspective. Reference will be made to civilian and common law systems (including mixed systems) and, in particular, the laws of Scotland, England, France, and Germany. You will critically consider major themes, spanning the life of a contract, in these jurisdictions. Students will be asked to consider whether there are significant differences between the common law and civilian systems or whether the differences are more apparent than real. The use of supra-national and harmonisation initiatives will also be discussed.

            

• European Labour Law (20 credits)

  The course is designed to introduce you to  Social Policy,  Labour Law, and the overall importance of European Social Policy to the European Programme. This will include an overview of a range of topics which comprise the subject of European Labour Law, including European equal treatment law, European equal pay law, family-friendly policies, the protection of part-time and fixed-term employees, the regulation of working time, and the safeguards for employees on the restructuring of an undertaking. This course is particularly suitable if you are intending to practice employment law as a practicing lawyer, work as a human resources professional, or work in-house as a practicing lawyer for a company.

          

• Insolvency Law (20 credits)

  This course examines selected issues of insolvency law, including personal and corporate insolvency. The course will primarily focus on law within the United Kingdom and will take an advanced look at a variety of topics. Theoretical and comparative law material from a variety of systems (in Europe and the Anglo-American tradition) will be used to examine the subjects studied.

            

• The Law of International Trade (20 credits)

  This course examines the legal aspects of international trade in a broad context. The legal framework of the course is English law as well as the relevant international conventions and standard terms. The course examines international sale of goods which are transported by sea. It investigates the trade terms used in international sale contracts (in the context of English common law and Incoterms in particular) and analyses the resulting obligations of the parties regarding payment methods (with emphasis on letters of credit and bills of exchange), transportation of the goods (focusing on bills of lading and waybills), and marine cargo insurance in the manner in which these relate to one another.

                        

• Principles of Corporate Finance Law (20 credits)

  The course is designed to introduce you to the general principles of insurance law in the UK. This will include an overview of a range of topics which comprise the subject of insurance law, including insurable interest, the law of misrepresentation, breach of warranty, non-disclosure of material facts, the indemnity principle, subrogation, the proximate cause principle and European Insurance Law. Where relevant, the course will distinguish between English law and Scots law. This course is particularly suitable for students who would like to understand the principles and rules that regulate the insurance and reinsurance industries and insurance brokers and agents. This is particularly important in the context of international trade, carriage of goods by air, rail, sea, and road as well as in respect of shipping and admiralty.

You can select between 0 and 40 credits of the following courses:

• Comparative and International Trust Law (20 credits)

  The aim of this course is to examine the notion of ‘trust’ from a functional perspective. It explores the essential nature of trusts, as well as their core features across a number of jurisdictions. The course is not limited to any particular system of trust law, but is international and comparative in its approach. The trust jurisdictions considered include England, the United States of America, selected ‘offshore’ jurisdictions, mixed legal systems (e.g. Scotland, South Africa, and Quebec), and civil law systems, such as, for instance, France and Germany. European harmonisation projects and other international trust instruments will also be considered. This course does not require any previous knowledge of trust law. However, it does presuppose a basic knowledge of the law of obligations, of property law, of succession law, of insolvency law, and of international private law. It also presupposes familiarity with basic comparative methodologies as well as a basic understanding of the two major legal traditions examined, the civil and the common law.

                         

• EU Competition Law (40 credits)

  The purpose of the course is to impart to students an understanding of the rationale behind competition regulation in the European Union, the substantive and procedural rules which comprise EU competition law, and their place within the scheme of the Treaties – they being ‘fundamental provision[s] – essential to the accomplishment of the tasks entrusted to the [Union] and, in particular, the functioning of the internal market’ (Case C-126/97 Eco Swiss China Time v Benetton International [1999] ECR I-3055, para 36).

  It is the private law side of Union integration and a mirror of the law of the internal market – put otherwise, the commercial law of the EU. Appropriate comparisons with the equivalent laws of the member states, in particular those of Germany (the GWB) and the United Kingdom (the Competition Act 1998; the Enterprise Act 2002), will be drawn throughout the course.

                         

• Fundamentals of Comparative Private Law (20 credits)

  The growing permeability of frontiers, the openness of national economies and societies, has a deep impact on the evolution of the law, as legal concepts and principles flow across borders. Anyone envisaging a career with an international dimension will need to engage not just with foreign laws and foreign legal concepts, but will also be confronted with different legal cultures. It is therefore crucial to be familiar with the opportunities but also the difficulties that arise when stepping outside one’s own legal system. The aim of this course is to provide students with a general introduction to the basics and the methodology of comparative law, and to equip them with the tools necessary to conduct comparative analysis. It further introduces student to the historical developments of the major legal traditions and their respective styles. The course therefore offers an ideal foundation for students who want to study core areas of private law across both civil and common law jurisdictions.

                          

• International Private Law: Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments (20 credits)

  This course deals with civil jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments, issues which have been central to recent developments within International Private Law. It will consider the provisions contained in  instruments, focusing on the Brussels I bis Regulation but also looking at the Insolvency Regulation and Brussels II bis Regulation. The course will also examine proposals for reform of these instruments. In addition there will be consideration of appropriate Hague Private International Law Conventions, especially the Choice of Court Convention and the current work of the Hague Conference in the field of recognition and enforcement of judgments.

If you have a non-UK degree, please check whether your degree qualification is equivalent to the minimum standard before applying.

Check your degree

Postgraduate study in the field of law requires a thorough, complex and demanding knowledge of English, so we ask that the communication skills of all students are at the same minimum standard.

Students whose first language is not English must therefore show evidence of one of the following qualifications below:

• IELTS: total 7.0 (at least 6.5 in each module).
• TOEFL-iBT: total 100 (at least 23 in each module).
• PTE(A): total 67 (at least 61 in each of the Communicative Skills sections).
• CAE and CPE: total 185 (at least 176 in each module).
• Trinity ISE: ISE III (with a pass in all four components).

Your English language certificate must be no more than two years old at the beginning of your degree programme.

We also accept an undergraduate or masters degree, that was taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country as defined by UK Visas and Immigration . The UK Government’s website provides a list of majority English speaking countries.

View the UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree, or equivalent, that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries.

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than three and a half years old at the beginning of your programme of study.

Find out more about the University’s English language requirements

Your application may not be successful if you do not currently satisfy any of these requirements; alternatively, you may be offered a place conditional on your reaching the satisfactory standard by the time you start the degree.

Applications are made online via the University Application Service, 

Please follow the instructions carefully and make sure that you have included the following documentation with your application:

• Degree certificates showing award of degree.
• Previous academic transcripts for all past degree programmes (please upload the full transcript showing results from all years of study).
• A reference in support or your application. The reference should be academic and dated no earlier than one year from the start of study on the LLM programme.
• Evidence of English language proficiency, if required.

If you are currently studying for your degree or you are not in a possession of an English test result you may still apply to the programme. Please note that it is your responsibility to submit the necessary documents.

After your application has been submitted you will be able to track its progress through the University’s applicant hub.

Application processing times will vary however the admissions team will endeavour to process your application within four to six weeks of submission. Please note that missing documentation will delay the application process.

You will be informed as soon as possible of the decision taken. Three outcomes are possible:

• You may be offered a place unconditionally
• You may be offered a conditional place, which means that you must fulfil certain conditions that will be specified in the offer letter. Where a conditional offer is made, it is your responsibility to inform the College Postgraduate Office when you have fulfilled the requirements set out.
• Your application may be unsuccessful. If your application has not been successful, you can request feedback from us or refer to our guidance for unsuccessful applicants, which explains some of the common reasons we why we reach this decision.
  View the University’s guidance for unsuccessful applicants

• The University’s terms and conditions form part of your contract with the University, and you should read them, and our data protection policy, carefully before applying.

  Northampton University admissions terms and conditions