The SOAS Law Combined Honours Degree is a 3 or 4-year full time degree, which aims to produce highly skilled, civic minded and critically engaged graduates, who can effectively contribute to their communities and societies through the knowledge and skills gained on this course.
In an increasingly interconnected world, law is no longer the preserve of single jurisdictions as legal issues are no respecters of national borders. A SOAS Law degree addresses this need by providing our students with an educational experience that equips you with a distinctive set of skills far beyond what is offered by most traditional Law Schools.
The nature of the Combined Honours degree enables you to develop a specialist niche for yourself by studying a second subject.
The BA Law Combined Honours Degree is aimed primarily at those not wishing to become practicing lawyers, but provides students with a wide range of analytical and transferable skills and is suitable for any profession in which a non-specialised degree is required. Although it is possible to switch to the LLB at the end of Year 2 or 3 provided the student has taken and passed all the requisite courses necessary to qualify for an LLB.
See School of Law
Other disciplines - Development Studies, Economics, Geography, History of Art/ Archaeology, Linguistics, Politics, Study of Religions, Social Anthropology.
Languages – African Studies, Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, Georgian, Hebrew, Indonesian, Persian, Swahili, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese
Venue: Paul Webley Wing (Senate House)
Start of programme: September
Mode of Attendance: Full-time
BTEC: DDD
Access to HE: Minimum of 30 Level 3 Credits at Distinction
Scottish Highers: AAAAA
Scottish Advanced Highers: AAA
Irish LC: 360 points from 5 Higher level subjects at grade C1 or above
Advanced Placement: 4 5 5 (Two semesters - UCAS Group A) plus US HSGD with GPA 3.0
Euro Bacc: 85%
French Bacc: 15/20
German Abitur: 1.5
Italy DES: 85/100
Austria Mat: 1.5
Polish Mat: Overall 80% including 3 extended level subjects
Professor Emilia Onyema Convenor
Dr Jonathan Ercanbrack Convenor
Please see the Unistats data for the various combinations of this programme under the Combinations tab.
Click on a combined programme to load KIS data
Students take 120 credits per year composed of core and optional modules, which allows for students to design their own intellectual journey while maintaining a strong grasp of the fundamentals.
Students may take a maximum of 60 Law related credits and a minimum of 30 Law related credits a year on this programme.
In Year 1 students are introduced to the core elements and principles of the English legal system, and provided with the key analytical skills necessary for undertaking a demanding law degree program.
In second, third and fourth years’ our students will be even more fully immersed in the distinctively SOAS program. Our students can choose from a wide array of optional courses that draw on the unique research expertise of our staff. The emphasis we place on choice, and research-led teaching, will allow our students to pursue a number of distinct specialisms as their degree progresses, but whichever path they choose to focus on the courses they study will all be imbued with that distinctive SOAS dimension, that stresses critical engagement and understanding of the role of law in the world at large.
| Module | Code | Credits | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Law and Legal Processes | 155200070 | 0 | Term 1 |
| Contract Law | 155200071 | 30 | Full Year |
| Criminal Law | 155200068 | 30 | Full Year |
AND
Students take 60 credits in second subject
| Module | Code | Credits | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Law and Legal Processes | 155200070 | 0 | Term 1 |
| Contract Law | 155200071 | 30 | Full Year |
| Module | Code | Credits | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Law | 155200068 | 30 | Full Year |
| Legal Systems of Asia and Africa | 155200073 | 30 | Full Year |
AND
Students take 60 credits in a second subject
| Module | Code | Credits | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal Systems of Asia and Africa | 155200073 | 30 | Full Year |
AND
Choose modules from the List of Year 2 Guided Option modules below up to 30 credits
AND
Students take 60 credits in a second subject
Students take 120 credits in second subject OR choose modules from the List of Modules below to the value of 120 credits
| Module | Code | Credits | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law and Society in Africa | 155200033 | 30 | Full Year |
| Islamic Law | 155200037 | 30 | Full Year |
| Introduction to EU Law | 155200069 | 15 | Term 2 |
| Law of Tort | 155200072 | 30 | Full Year |
| Public Law | 155200076 | 30 | Full Year |
| Property I | 155200074 | 30 | Full Year |
| Introduction to Global Commodities Law | 155200080 | 15 | Term 2 |
| Foundations of Human Rights Law | 155200082 | 15 | Term 2 |
| Public International Law | 155200083 | 15 | Term 1 |
| Environmental Law in Action: Comparative and Domestic Perspectives | 155200088 | 15 | Term 2 |
| International Environmental Law | 155200089 | 15 | Term 1 |
| Law and Society in Africa | 155200090 | 15 | Term 1 |
Up to one 30-credit level 5 or level 6 LLB module in Law taught at another University of London Law School - King’s College, LSE, QMUL, UCL and Birkbeck - subject to approval and provided that a similar module is not taught at SOAS.
The information on the programme page reflects the intended programme structure against the given academic session. If you are a current student you can find structure information on the previous year link at the top of the page or through your Department. Please read the important notice regarding changes to programmes and modules.
Modules are taught through a combination of lectures and tutorials, usually two hours lecture and one hour tutorial a week. Sometimes, one follows the other in a three-hour bloc. Sometimes, the tutorial is at a different time or on a different day than the lecture.
Tutorials are sessions in which students are expected to present reports and take a lead in discussions.
Depending on the size of the class, some intermediate and final year level modules are less strictly divided between a formal lecture and a tutorial discussion, and instead, the topic is briefly introduced by the lecturer, followed by a seminar discussion.
All full-time undergraduate programmes consist of 120 credits per year, in modules of 30 or 15 credits. They are taught over 10 or 20 weeks. The programme structure shows which modules are compulsory and which optional.
As a rough guide, 1 credit equals approximately 10 hours of work. Most of this will be independent study (see Approaches to teaching and learning at SOAS). It will also include class time, which may include lectures, seminars and other classes. Some subjects, such as learning a language, have more class time than others. In the Department of Law, many undergraduate modules have a weekly two hour lecture or seminar. Some modules may also had an additional hour of smaller group classes weekly or fortnightly.
More information is on the page for each module.
This can be taken by final-year students only. Like the Special Subject dissertation, its aim is to provide an opportunity for students to conduct original historical research on their own initiative, to engage in in-depth analysis of particular subjects and to use a range of primary historical sources. It involves no formal classes and is assessed by a single 10,000-word dissertation (including notes but excluding bibliography).
SOAS Library is one of the world's most important academic libraries for the study of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, attracting scholars from all over the world. The Library houses over 1.2 million volumes, together with significant archival holdings, special collections and a growing network of electronic resources.
SOAS Law graduates leave SOAS as civic minded and critically engaged individuals who can effectively contribute to their communities and societies. With a thorough understanding of the legal dimensions underlying many of our global challenges today, our Law students are valued by employers due to their analytical skills, specialist knowledge, and global perspective.
Recent School of Law graduates have been hired by:
Visit our Careers’ section for more information.
Sarosh SethnaI was looking to study at a university that had global credentials, a progressive educational outlook and that in some way or another, had unparalleled expertise in major fields. I found that SOAS was exactly what I was looking for!
If you still have questions about this programme or studying at SOAS get in touch.
Undergraduate applications should be made through UCAS.