Bachelor of Laws - LLB

Summary

If you're interested in how society is governed by law and how laws are made, and you love communicating ideas and solving problems, then the Bachelor of Laws is the right degree for you.

Designed to hone your skills in communication, problem-solving, research, and independent thinking, your Bachelor of Laws will be prized by employers in many different fields. You’ll learn to apply the techniques of legal analysis and gain a solid grounding in different aspects of law, including public law, commercial law, international law, common law, and statute law. To practise law in New Zealand you need to have a law degree.

Gain the skills and vocabulary to both uphold and challenge the legal principles that govern our daily lives. You'll get the opportunity to put what you learn into practice straight away by entering debates and legal competitions, clerking and contributing to justice projects and community law organisations.

You'll need to complete 90 non-Law points by the end of your Bachelor of Laws, so you might want to combine your LLB with another degree. This will take a minimum of five years’ study. Law can be combined with any subject offered at Victoria through a conjoint or double degree.

First year

In your first year, you'll study three core 100-level courses and make up the rest of your required degree points with non-Law courses.

The core courses give you a basic introduction to the New Zealand legal system and its relationship to government, Parliament and the courts. You'll look at the Treaty of Waitangi and our constitutional framework, and explore critical, theoretical and cultural perspectives on the legal system, including race and gender issues.

Gain an understanding of legislation and the processes involved in drafting and interpretation. Learn about case law, how precedent works and gain case law reasoning skills. You'll study the social context of why judges make the decisions they do, and the interaction between case law and legislation.

Second year

If you're selected for second-year Law, you'll need to take five 200-level full-year courses—the Law of Contract, the Law of Torts, Public Law, Criminal Law and Legal Research, Writing and Mooting.

Because taking all five 200-level law courses in one year is a very heavy workload, it's recommended you spread the 200-level courses over two years. The best way to do this is to take LAWS 297 with either two or three of LAWS 211–214 in the second year of your LLB—your first year of 200-level Laws.

You'll learn how to use the Law Library and computer databases, how to refer to and cite legal sources and how to prepare legal opinions. You also get to argue a case before a judge in a mock New Zealand courtroom.

Third and fourth years

The third and fourth years of the LLB will give you a deeper insight into law. You'll be able to choose from a variety of courses, so use your choices wisely and limit your Law electives to no more than four a semester to keep your workload under control.

Get a postgraduate qualification

If you're interested in continuing your Law studies you can study a Master of Laws (LLM) over one year full time. Or, if you want to get out to the workforce, you might be interested to take some of our short courses as professional development for practitioners.