Alex discusses his career following the completion of his Law degree at our Penryn Campus (in Cornwall), and offers tips to students looking to pursue a career in Law.
The thing that really excites me about these programmes [LLB and BBL] is they blend together law and business...encouraging students to learn how law influences business and business influences law... and how they can work together better.
Professor Sue Prince, Head of the Exeter Law School
Our degrees and employability
Degrees and employability
About our Cornwall degrees
The University of Exeter Law School Cornwall offers students a pathway into the interrelated fields of law and business through two undergraduate degree programmes: LLB Law with Business and BBL Bachelor of Business and Laws. The programmes are provided in a collaboration with the University of Exeter Business School that is unique to the Penryn campus, allowing us to provide students with a wide range of programme opportunities to bolster employability and the development of professional skills.
The drop down menu below offers an overview of how our programmes work. You can also learn more about what makes the learning experience at ELS Cornwall unique on our teaching and learning page.
The LLB Law with Business programme equips students with both a qualifying law degree and a high level of business and commercial awareness skills which are transferable to a wide range of careers related to law and business.
The LLB programme is recognized as a qualifying law degree by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board. A qualifying law degree constitutes the academic stage of legal training for the purposes of proceeding to the Legal Practice Course or a Bar course. The programme's compulsory modules (contract law, criminal law, equity and trusts, public - that is, constitutional and administrative - and EU law, land law, tort law) cover subject matter which is also assessed on part 1 of the Solicitors' Qualifying Exam (SQE1), as do some optional modules.
The degree is offered over the course of three years (if taken full time) or four years (full time, with an industrial or professional placement). Students will take around a third of their modules in business and two thirds in law. All law modules are assessed by coursework only, but note that some business modules may be assessed by exam. For specific module information, please refer to the course content section of the LLB programme page.
The BBL Bachelor of Business and Laws programme allows students to study law and business in equal measure, providing a thorough grounding in how businesses are operated, managed, and regulated.
The programme includes compulsory study of law modules most useful to those seeking careers in industry and business. The programme also contains business modules that provide a sound understanding of key areas of business (economics, management, marketing, project management), with a unique emphasis on sustainability embedded throughout.
The degree is offered over the course of three years (if taken full time) or four years (full time, with an industrial or professional placement). Students may take around half of their modules in business and half in law. All law modules are assessed by coursework only, but note that some business modules may be assessed by exam. For specific module information, please refer to the course content of the BBL programme page.
Please note that, unlike the LLB, the BBL is not a qualifying law degree, but that the programme does include flexibility to allow students to switch to the LLB programme up to the beginning of the third year of study.
The LLB Law with Business and BBL Bachelor of Business and Law programmes can be taken in a four-year format which includes a professional placement year or an industrial placement year as part of the degree. This will be reflected in the degree title (eg 'LLB Law with Business with Professional Placement Year'). The year will usually be used for a single placement, although multiple placements may be possible where they comply with programme requirements.
- LLB/BBL with Professional Placement: placement within a law firm or an in-house legal team.
- LLB/BBL with Industrial Placement: placement in a non-legal setting, which must be in a professional business environment.
A placement year is an opportunity to gain
- a practical understanding of the workplace and of legal and business professionalism;
- valuable, hands-on experience; and
- essential employability and transferrable skills.
Placements equip our students with the means to demonstrate to employers their adaptability, commercial awareness, independence, and resourcefulness, putting them in a strong position to secure employment on graduation.
" I think a placement year is a good opportunity to gain crucial and transferrable skills, as well as preparation for the world of work after graduation”. Cathalina - placement student working as a Legal Privacy Intern for VMware
Placements are independently arranged, searched for and secured (either in the UK or abroad) by our students. Support is provided throughout this process. Find out more about our placements and how they affect tuition fees in the 'course variants' section of our LLB Law with Business and BLL Bachelor of Business and Laws programme pages.
Our LLB is accredited as the first stage of a Qualifying Law Degree recognised by the Bar Standards Board
Partnerships with law firms to develop skills and improve opportunities for our students
High quality education and a dedicated, award-winning Careers Service
Work experience through our industrial and professional placements
Working alongside the internationally recognised, triple accredited University of Exeter Business School
What are the benefits of studying Law and Business together?
Although often not taught together, business and law are closely related. Modern lawyers must not only understand the law: they deliver legal services across sectors, collaborating closely with businesses to do so. A sound grasp of skills as diverse as business fluency, client management, collaboration, project management, sales and marketing, the use of technology, people skills, and teamwork (among others) is now part of what it means to be an effective lawyer. Studying law with business helps prepare our LLB law students for a more diversified profession which requires a broader range of skills than is provided by traditional law degrees.
As legal regulation continues to increase across wide sectors of business, our BBL students in turn benefit from a better understanding of the law's role in the daily conduct of business and from a skill set which enables them to communicate better with members of the legal profession.
Beyond this, our interdisciplinary degrees afford our students a more diverse range of employment opportunities on graduation.
Explore more of what makes our students stand out to employers:
"We strongly believe in the importance of providing legal advice within a commercial context. We are therefore really keen to meet students studying the new degrees, as they will have a blend of legal and commercial skills that will set them apart from the competition when it comes to work experience and training contract applications.”
Henry Maples, Director at Murrell Associates