University of Law

The University of Law

Former names	The College of Law (1962-2012)
Motto	Leges Juraque Cognoscamus
Motto in English	May we learn the laws and ordinances
Type	Private, for-profit
Established	1962 (1962)
Chancellor	Dame Fiona Woolf, DBE, JP
President	Lord Baron Grabiner, QC
Vice-Chancellor	Andrea Nollent
Students	approx. 16000
Undergraduates	approx. 6600
Postgraduates	approx. 9400
Location	Birmingham, Bristol, Chester, Guildford, Leeds, London (Bloomsbury and Moorgate), and Manchester, England
Campus	Urban
Owner	Global University Systems
Colours
Website	law.ac.uk

The University of Law (ULaw) (formerly the College of Law) is a for-profit, private university in the United Kingdom, providing law degrees, specialist legal training, and continuing professional development courses for British barristers and solicitors. Founded in 1962 as the College of Law, it is the UK's largest law school.^[1] The College of Law was granted degree-awarding powers in 2006, and in 2012 it became the UK's first for-profit educational institution to be granted university status.^[2][3][4] ULaw has eight branches across England.

The College of Law had been incorporated by royal charter as a charity in 1975, but in 2012, prior to the granting of university status, its educational and training business was split off and incorporated as a private limited company.^[5] This became the College of Law Ltd and later University of Law Ltd. The charitable branch, which remained incorporated by the 1975 royal charter, became the Legal Education Foundation.^[6] Shortly after the granting of university status in 2012, College of Law Ltd. was bought by Montagu Private Equity.^[7] Three years later Montagu sold the University of Law to its present owner, the Netherlands-based company Global University Systems.^[8]

The university's alumni and staff include many UK Members of Parliament and chief justices.

History

20th century

Coat of arms of the former College of Law

The Law Society of England and Wales created the College of Law in 1962 by merging its own solicitors' training school with the tutorial firm Gibson and Weldon.^[9] The college was created in its legal form by Royal Charter on 5 December 1975.^[10] It was registered as a charity on 24 May 1976 with the aim "to promote the advancement of legal education and the study of law in all its branches".^[10] Until the transfer of its training business to College of Law Ltd. 2012, the College of Law was in the top 100 of UK charities ranked by expenditure.^[11]

Following the recommendations of the Ormrod Report on the reform of legal education in England and Wales, the Law Society submitted proposals in 1975 for a 36-week Final Examination course for aspiring solicitors and a Common Professional Examination (CPE) or law conversion course for non-law graduates to be taught at the College of Law. The first CPE was held in 1978. The number of institutions approved to deliver the CPE gradually increased until by 2006 the BPP Law School and 27 universities, most of them former polytechnics, were also running the course.^[12][13][14] However, the leading providers of the CPE (now called the Graduate Diploma in Law) remained the College of Law and BPP Law School whose enrollments still "dwarfed" those of the universities in 2010.^[15]

In the 1980s, The Law Society asked the college to produce a scheme for additional tuition in accounts for articled clerks (now trainee solicitors), combining distance learning with one-day's attendance at lectures. Further distance learning courses were developed in a partnership with the Open University beginning in 1998.^[16] The Guildford branch of the college also established the Fresh Start distance learning course for solicitors returning to practice after a career break or those wishing to change their specialisation.^[17]

The 1990s saw a major change in the relationship between the Law Society and the College of Law. In 1994 Nigel Savage, then the dean of Nottingham Trent University's law school, called for a review of the link between the college and the Law Society which had eight of its council members on the college's board of governors. Savage suggested that this gave the college an unfair advantage in recruiting students to the Legal Practice Course which had been set up the Law Society in 1993 to replace the Final Examination course. The society also regulated the course and determined which institutions would receive a licence to deliver it. He proposed that the college should either "come clean" about the relationship and declare itself the official college of the Law Society or sever the link and become completely independent.^[18] The college subsequently severed the link, and the Law Society stopped appointing college governors. Savage went on to become the president and CEO of the College of Law in 1996 and served in that capacity for the next 18 years.^[19][20]

21st century

The Bristol campus

The College of Law established pro bono clinics, with students undertaking legal advice work for free supervised by the college's lecturers. In March 2015 the University of Law (as the college is now called) obtained an alternative business structure licence, allowing it to expand its legal advice clinics.^[21][22] It also restructured its Legal Practice Courses to give students more choice and won contracts to develop law firm-specific LPC programmes for three magic circle firms – Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance and Linklaters. However, by the end of 2014, it had retained only Linklaters, having lost the contracts with Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance who moved to BPP Law School.^[23]

The college was granted degree-awarding powers by the Privy Council in 2006, leading to development of its Bachelor and Master of Laws degree programmes.^[2] The London Moorgate centre was also opened that year. According to the University of Law, the Moorgate centre is the UK's largest corporate-specific law school.^[24]

Logo while known as the College of Law and first used in this form in 2011^[25]

In 2012, the College of Law underwent a major restructuring. College of Law Ltd. was created as a private limited company to take on its educational and training business. The parent charity changed its name to the Legal Education Foundation. In April of that year Montagu Private Equity agreed to buy College of Law Ltd. for approximately £200 million.^[26] On 22 November 2012, it was announced that the college had been granted full university status and its name would be changed to "University of Law". Shortly thereafter, Montague Private Equity completed the acquisition process. This raised questions about the legality of transferring the degree-awarding powers granted under royal charter to the original College of Law to the newly created company, and then selling that company, now with University status, to a for-profit provider. The UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills explained that while degree-awarding powers cannot be transferred, when a whole institute changes its legal status the powers remain with it. This was considered to be the case with University of Law because all of the original College of Law's education and training business had been transferred to the for-profit college, and the activities remaining with the chartered body were not related to the degree-awarding powers.^[7] Dame Fiona Woolf was named the newly created university's first chancellor in 2013.^[27]

The university began selling off its property portfolio on a leaseback basis in 2014, starting with the four buildings of its Bloomsbury campus. According to analysis of the university's accounts earlier that year by the Times Higher Education Supplement, the purchase by Montagu Private Equity in 2012 had loaded the university with £177m of debt.^[28] Critics had compared the purchase by Montagu Private Equity to the leveraged buyouts of Premier League clubs in English football. At the time, the University of Law's ultimate parent company was L-J Holdco Ltd. which was incorporated in Guernsey and majority owned by Montagu-managed funds.^[29]

In June 2015 Montagu Private Equity sold the university to Global University Systems (GUS) for an undisclosed sum. Former UK Education and Employment Secretary and Home Secretary David Blunkett, at the time a visiting lecturer at the London School of Business and Finance (also owned by Global University Systems), was named Chairman of the Board.^[8] GUS began a programme of restructuring its UK holdings with the intention of making the University of Law the company's sole provider of academic qualifications and professional qualifications, including the master's degrees previously offered by the London School of Business and Finance.^[30] The University of Law announced the launch of its De Broc School of Business in July 2015 but had to defer the first intake of students (originally planned for September of that year) due to low student recruitment.^{[31][lower-alpha 1]}

The summer of 2015 also saw a restructuring of the university's governance. The provost, Andrea Nollent, also assumed the role of Chief Academic Officer. John Latham, who had been its CEO and president since 2014 and had overseen the sale of the University of Law to Global University Systems, resigned by "mutual consent". The office of president became a non-executive position and was assumed by Lord Grabiner. David Johnston, the former Chief Operating Officer, took over as CEO. Johnston was subsequently replaced as CEO by economist Stelios Platis in April 2016.^[33][34][35]

Academics

In the 2014 National Student Survey, the university was jointly classified with University of Exeter, University of East Anglia and University of Buckingham as the UK's second most successful university in terms of student ratings, with a learner satisfaction level of 92%.^{[36][lower-alpha 2]} The courses offered by the university (as of 2016) include:^[37]

• Bar Professional Training Course (the professional qualification for barristers)
• Graduate Diploma in Law (otherwise known as the Common Professional Examination, or the "Law Conversion Course")
• Legal Practice Course (the professional qualification for solicitors)
• Master of Laws (LL.M) in Legal Practice
• Master of Science (MSc) in Law, Governance, Risk and Compliance
• Bachelor of Laws (LL.B)
• Professional Skills Course (the professional course studied by trainee solicitors by day-release)

The Open University's courses in Law (including the LL.B by distance learning) are offered in association with the University of Law. However, the Open University announced in a 2013 press release that this partnership was being phased out and would end completely in 2018.^[16] In 2015, the university also established a one-year foundation programme for international students wishing to progress to undergraduate legal study in the UK.^[38]

Notable alumni

Notable alumni and staff of the University of Law include:

Notes

References

External links

• Official website
• QAA. University of Law assessment reports
• Law Society Gazette (14 April 2000). "Cutting old school ties"
• Law Society Gazette (2 June 2015). "Going Dutch"

Law schools in the United Kingdom
Law school Legal education in the United Kingdom Law of the United Kingdom
England	London BPP Law School City Law School (Inns of Court School of Law) University of East London School of Law Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Kaplan Law School King's College London School of Law SOAS School of Law UCL Faculty of Laws University of Law Other BPP Law School UWE Bristol Law School Faculty of Law, Cambridge Durham Law School University of East Anglia Law School University of Law Leeds Law School Manchester Law School Nottingham Law School School of Law, Oxford Brookes University University of Oxford Faculty of Law
Northern Ireland	Ulster University School of Law
Scotland	University of Aberdeen School of Law University of Dundee School of Law University of Edinburgh School of Law University of Glasgow School of Law Strathclyde Law School
Wales	Cardiff Law School
Defunct	Oxford Institute of Legal Practice
Category

Universities in the United Kingdom
England	East Anglia Anglia Ruskin BPP Cambridge East Anglia Norwich University of the Arts Suffolk London University of London Birkbeck City Courtauld Goldsmiths Heythrop Institute of Cancer Research KCL London Business School LSE LSHTM Queen Mary Royal Academy of Music RCSSD Royal Holloway Royal Veterinary College St George's SOAS UCL Other BPP Brunel East London Greenwich Imperial Kingston Law London Met London South Bank Middlesex Regent's University London Richmond, The American International University in London Royal College of Art Royal College of Music Roehampton St Mary's University of the Arts London Westminster West London Midlands Aston BPP Birmingham Birmingham City Bishop Grosseteste Coventry De Montfort Derby Harper Adams Keele Law Leicester Lincoln Loughborough Newman Northampton Nottingham Nottingham Trent Staffordshire University College Birmingham Warwick Wolverhampton Worcester North Bolton BPP Bradford Central Lancashire Chester Cumbria Durham Edge Hill Huddersfield Hull Lancaster Law Leeds Leeds Beckett Leeds Trinity Liverpool Liverpool Hope Liverpool John Moores Manchester Manchester Metropolitan Newcastle Northumbria Salford Sheffield Sheffield Hallam Sunderland Teesside York York St. John South Arts Bournemouth Ashridge Bath Bath Spa Bedfordshire Bournemouth BPP Brighton Bristol Buckingham Buckinghamshire New Canterbury Christ Church Chichester Cranfield Creative Arts Essex Exeter Falmouth Gloucestershire Hertfordshire Kent Law Oxford Oxford Brookes Plymouth Portsmouth Reading Royal Agricultural University St Mark & St John Southampton Southampton Solent Surrey Sussex UWE Winchester
Northern Ireland	Queen's Ulster
Scotland	Aberdeen Abertay Dundee Dundee Edinburgh Edinburgh Napier Glasgow Glasgow Caledonian Heriot-Watt Highlands and Islands Queen Margaret Robert Gordon Royal Conservatoire of Scotland St Andrews Stirling Strathclyde West of Scotland
Wales	Aberystwyth Bangor Cardiff Cardiff Metropolitan South Wales Swansea Swansea Metropolitan UW Trinity Saint David Wrexham Glyndŵr
Overseas territories	American University of the Caribbean Bermuda College Cayman Islands Law School International College of the Cayman Islands Saint James School of Medicine St. Matthew's University University of Gibraltar University College of the Cayman Islands University of Science, Arts and Technology University of the West Indies
Crown dependencies	University of the Channel Islands in Guernsey
Non−geographic	Lambeth degrees Open University University of London International Programmes
Related	List by date of foundation (Third-oldest in England) List by endowment List by enrollment Colleges within universities Degree abbreviations National Union of Students Rankings Undergraduate degree classification UCAS HEFCE Scottish Funding Council
Category Commons List