Law with Irish (UCD, UCC)

time2move

Just wondering if anyone is currently completing (or completed) either of the undergraduate degree courses Law with Irish in UCD or UCC or if anyone has any information on workload, job prospects etc on either of these courses. I have a Leaving Cert student at home who is interested in these but would love to touch base with anyone who could offer advice.
Thanks a lot

hullaballoo

They are both excellent courses and any law degree offers decent employment opportunities even if it is not the goldmine it once was.

A law graduate can expect a salary of €40-50,000 in Dublin. A 10 year PQE employed lawyer can expect €80-100,000. No one makes millions these days unless they're very risk friendly and go things alone.

The Irish language part won't add much salary wise but opens some opportunities. There's a lot of state work in law translating up to EU level.

Obviously anyone considering a state job has to look at about a 30% reduction in salary expectations. But there's a pension and other benefits.

time2move

hullaballoo wrote: »

They are both excellent courses and any law degree offers decent employment opportunities even if it is not the goldmine it once was.

A law graduate can expect a salary of €40-50,000 in Dublin. A 10 year PQE employed lawyer can expect €80-100,000. No one makes millions these days unless they're very risk friendly and go things alone.

The Irish language part won't add much salary wise but opens some opportunities. There's a lot of state work in law translating up to EU level.

Obviously anyone considering a state job has to look at about a 30% reduction in salary expectations. But there's a pension and other benefits.

Thanks very much for your response. Welcome any other opinions.

randomrb

If you are good with languages there are some very interesting and well paid jobs at the EU courts of justice, working level of french is required with two other EU languages which would be Irish and English.

ArthurDayne

time2move wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone is currently completing (or completed) either of the undergraduate degree courses Law with Irish in UCD or UCC or if anyone has any information on workload, job prospects etc on either of these courses. I have a Leaving Cert student at home who is interested in these but would love to touch base with anyone who could offer advice.
Thanks a lot

Firstly, it is great to see that you are pro-actively seeking further information about the courses. So many people just blindly beer towards Law courses for the sake of being seen to do something “cool” like Law, without giving it proper deep thought. So you are going about this the right way. Another thing you can do is take a look at LinkedIn and search the course name to find graduates of it. From there you can see how their CVs have panned out and even drop a couple of them a message to see if they would take a minute to give their thoughts on the course and the options it gave them (I find that people are actually quite happy to help out with some info so don’t be shy — I certainly have always been willing to give my two cents for students and graduates breaking in to the Law world and the worst case scenario is that they just don’t find the time to reply). Nobody who has experienced the hoop-jumping required to progress in a legal career will sneer at a prospective student dropping them a message on LinkedIn.

As has been said above, a Law degree from either of UCC or UCD is highly respected and (provided you knuckle down when it comes to keeping your grades in at least a healthy consistent 2:1 level) will certainly open doors for you into the so-called elite Irish firms, or other firms and career paths here or overseas. I know at least one person who did Law with Irish at UCC and has gone on to a traineeship in a major Dublin commercial firm.

Ultimately, as someone who loves the Irish language, we all know that realistically the career paths it offers are limited compared to other things you can minor in like foreign languages, economics, maths, business etc. That’s not to say it’s worthless from a strictly career-based standpoint as there are translation opportunities which can be lucrative. Nonetheless, with a Law degree attached you’ll have all the employability you need and it’s great to also have something to study that you have a genuine love for and which is an important part of our cultural heritage and identity. Not to mention, it will get you directly involved in the social scene of and work being done by the Irish speaking community — all of that will feed into your extra curricular credentials which are nowadays becoming equally important as the name of your university and the quality of your degree.

Best of luck with it all.