PSA against doing joint-honours LLB degrees
Hello all,
I am a recent graduate of Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). I did the LLB Law & Politics (ML13) programme. I am here to warn against choosing this programme or law and business. This also applies at other UK universities.
if you do the joint-degree, you will not be eligible for the NY Bar. If this is something you think may be of interest to you, you must do the 3 year straight law LLB. This may be cured with an LLM, but some states (like DC) require the straight LLB regardless of LLM.
your grades in the joint-degree will be lower. You will take hard courses (Land, Tort, Equity) later and they will have a higher impact on your grade. I don't know anyone on the L&P programme that got a 1st, but knew plenty of straight law LLB people that did with similar core marks.
You will not have many classes or electives with the friends you meet in your 1st year LLB courses.
You will need to meet the same entry requirements (ie A*AA) for the joint programme, but about 1/3 of your classes will be with people who came on clearing or otherwise had lower entry requirements. The quality of teaching may not be as good depending on the school, but more importantly your classmates in your 'other' school will not enrich your learning in the same way.
If there's one thing I regret from my time at Queen Mary, it's not doing the straight LLB. This is just my 2 cents. I hope this helps someone!