Law as a Mature Student.

scorplett

I am looking to study Law as a mature student. I dont believe it would be possible for me to attend a full time course and as such GCD part time LLB is the option available to me. That is unless I can get proper answers to my questions regarding the hours of lectures in full time courses... Does anyone here know what sort of hours are involved in the majority of full time uni courses. (length of lectures, number per day and mon to fri spread)
You could well be a lifesaver you know...

dermot_sheehan

TCD is 8-10 hours a week (generally 8 hours but have seminars in two subjects every week for most of term). This is apparently full time (lax I know), but it was a fun 4 years.

scorplett

Thanks for that gabhain7.
From what I can see, most law courses are some lectures and a whole lot of study. It was a bit obvious when part time takes the same number of years as full time...

Ava

while law lectures only comprise 8-12 hours a week - you are both required and expected to put in 20+ reading, texts, judgements, ILRM etc

Thirdfox

We were told 30+... the lecturers lied! I go to TCD too (straight law) - we generally have 11 hours a week (9 hours of lectures + 2 hours of seminars). The majority of students that studied the course were not spending 30+ hours in the library (maybe they were using the online facilities from home...) - I know because I was in the library most of the time

Our lecturers said that you must try hard to fail the subjects and indeed having some common sense about exam questions and a smattering of legal cases will get you a pass. To achieve high grades a lot of effort must be put in.

In TCD there are a few mature students... 3/4 I think. And finally we have classes everyday, some at inconvenient times e.g. 10 in the morning and another class at 5 in the evening.

cramming

UCG / NUIG as it now more commonly refereed to. Has an LLB programme that is specifically targeted to those working full time. However if you live in Dublin and are not interested in relocating it wont be of much interest to you.

All the core lectures are scheduled between 6pm and 10pm.... you might find it a bit inconvenient if you want to do something like Public International Law, International Trade Law or EC Mergers - there are a very large number of Mature Students who take this option and i think it is generally acknowledged that most of them perform significantly better than their 22 year old counterparts;)

Hours wise i think its between 10 and 12 a week lecture time (if you take the max number of credits) there are tutorials etc on top of that.

NUIG has a very strong Human Rights / Corporate focus with some really excellent lecturers..... Tom O'Malley is perhaps the most famous.

skyhighflyer

To the OP:

I know for a fact that a full-time law degree is a viable proposition for someone with a full-time job (provided you're not on a rigid 9-5 schedule and can get a couple of hours off here and there) I'm going into 3rd Law in UCD and there are a few people on our course with full time commitments, such as family, jobs, etc, and who are able to successfully complete the course.

There are about 12 hours of lectures/tutorials a week and you can always find someone to give you the notes if you miss a lecture. As long as you get notes for the lectures (HINT- BUY PINTS FOR THE CASH STRAPPED YOUNGER STUDENTS )and more importantly get to as many tutorials as you can you should have no problem.

Very little learning is done in the lectures themselves... most of the legal knowledge I have is self-learnt in the month or so before the exams. There is absolutely no need to do anything other than attend the lectures and tutorials until the last couple of months of your course. I you have the kind of long term memory I have, you'll have forgotten any work you do before that anyway.

I would suggest that yout invest in a new copy of each of the core textbooks for each subject you do... if you have these, you can study from them when it suits you as opposed to being tied to the library. Most of the case law you will need will be available either online or in the textbooks.

The very best of luck - the best advice I could give you is to stop thinking about it and just go for it

scorplett

Skyhighflyer, you may well be my saviour...
I currentley work shift and have been looking at facing up to a 10k per anum pay drop to go 9-5 so that I could throw away 4500euro or there abouts every year for three years and then have nothing left to fund time in kings inn full time /aprenticeships/ fees or whatever route I might take after the degree itself... I am no maths wiz but you may well have (if I can apply and get accepted + iron out a few other things) saved me in the region of 40k plus... So thanks, that would go a very long way for the post LLB no mans land...
Please could you confirm if this is the case on the Horizons programme as the LLB and BCL are being offered on that basis?


Could anyone suggest which of the available general law books would be best for prep and maybe which ones are used for UCD 1st year...

Thanks everyone for your replies

hullaballoo

First year law books in UCD are:
Contract: Contract Cases and Materials Clarke and Clark;
Contract Law McDermott (sp?);
Tort: Law of Torts McMahon & Binchy;
Constitutional: Constitutional Law Keane;
Criminal: Someone help me out here!

Note: I'm working from memory here, so some of the titles might not be accurate, but the authors are, to the best of my memory! Someone will be able to tell you what the name of the author of the criminal book is.

Hope this helps.

Thirdfox

As a general introduction to law you can't beat "The Irish Legal System 4th ed by Byrne, Raymond; McCutcheon, J.Paul" available in various bookstores (Easons etc. etc.) and also online e.g.

http://www.wildy.co.uk/isbn/1854752863/the_irish_legal_system.html

Gives you a general overview, isn't too hard to digest either. Some of it is out of date though...

skyhighflyer

scorplett wrote:

Skyhighflyer, you may well be my saviour...
I currentley work shift and have been looking at facing up to a 10k per anum pay drop to go 9-5 so that I could throw away 4500euro or there abouts every year for three years and then have nothing left to fund time in kings inn full time /aprenticeships/ fees or whatever route I might take after the degree itself... I am no maths wiz but you may well have (if I can apply and get accepted + iron out a few other things) saved me in the region of 40k plus... So thanks, that would go a very long way for the post LLB no mans land...
Please could you confirm if this is the case on the Horizons programme as the LLB and BCL are being offered on that basis?


Could anyone suggest which of the available general law books would be best for prep and maybe which ones are used for UCD 1st year...

Thanks everyone for your replies

I'm pretty sure that Horizons hasn't changed anything much (in relation to the BCL degree at least). Whereas you used to have five subjects which were examined at the end of the year you now have ten 'modules'. Although I'm open to correction on this, I think 5 of the modules are examined at Christmas and the other five in Summer. And in first year it will still be five subjects, just divided into ten modules (criminal law 1 and 2, tort 1 and 2), etc.

Most importantly for you, the hours will probably stay much the same.

Here's the kind of timetable you can expect:

http://www.ucd.ie/law/timetables.htm

As the above poster suggested, buy a second hand copy of Byrne and McCutcheon's The Irish Legal System and have a good read of it.

EDIT: The first year criminal book was 'Criminal Liability' by McAuley (the crim prof in UCD) and McCutcheon. I think McAuley isn't around this year so it could be that the new lecturer chooses to use Paul McDermott's book on Criminal Law (probably easier to follow too)