University of Derby

United Kingdom (UK)

ENGLISH AND LAW | BA(Hons)

About Program

Course description

The best bits

Combining two subjects boosts your employability and gives you the opportunity to develop knowledge and expertise in two subject areas, making you a more versatile graduate
Develop all the key skills required to succeed in the legal sector - including drafting, advocacy, interviewing and negotiation
Our Law facilities are based One Friar Gate Square in the heart of Derby’s city centre, featuring a replica Crown Courtroom, Custody Suite and Student Legal Advice Centre
We're networked into the legal profession, which opens up exciting opportunities for work internships and professional mentoring
There is the opportunity to broaden your experience with work-based learning projects, study visits to cultural and heritage institutions, as well as lectures and seminars delivered by guest speakers
Engage with literary, critical and cultural theory and develop a highly nuanced and sophisticated approach to the analysis of literature, language and culture
You will explore fascinating aspects of English, including the evolution of fantasy, the representation of crime, the legacy of Empire, cultural politics, existentialist writing, classical myth and the 19th-century realist novel

English and Law at Derby

Studying English and Law provides you with analytical, research and creative transferable skills that open up a range of career paths to explore, keeping your career options open for the countless professions where legal knowledge is invaluable.

We aim to broaden your understanding of literature and culture, while equipping you with skills and knowledge of the legal sector. We're networked into the legal profession, which opens up exciting opportunities for work internships and professional mentoring.

You will also have the opportunity to explore a variety of literature from around the world, reading into key themes and creatively applying literary theory to uncover new perspectives and possibilities – from gender and identity, to culture, politics and genre.

Student Legal Advice Centre and Pro Bono work

Students studying Law at Derby may have access to our Student Legal Advice Centre - our dedicated space for real-world learning. Volunteering in the Centre provides you the opportunity to develop transferrable skills that will assist you in gaining the skills required once you graduate.

The Centre offers assistance in the following areas:

Family law
Criminal injuries compensation authority claims
Immigration family reunion (in partnership with British Red Cross and Paragon Law)

The Centre also offers support to Litigants in Person in Family Law matters at the Family Court at Derby. In Autumn 2022, a Business Clinic and Legal Triage Clinic (exclusively for University of Derby students) was launched.

The Centre also has a Policy Clinic and Justice Project. The Justice Project promotes the teaching of law to all members of the community, including school children, by informing them of their legal rights and responsibilities.

The Centre was shortlisted for Best Contribution by a Law School at the LawWorks and Attorney General Student Pro Bono Awards 2022, and was highly commended at the LawWorks Pro Bono Awards 2021 for Best contribution in relation to the Centre’s Immigration Family Reunion Clinic.

A broad perspective with English

English at Derby is an exciting, diverse and challenging course that not only incorporates the close analysis of literature, but also considers the situations in which literature is produced and read. This means your studies will include the intellectual and cultural history of art, film and philosophy, as well as contemporary cultural politics. You will be introduced to a range of cultural expression from across the globe and from diverse historical periods.

The range of options will gradually allow you to acquire a degree of specialisation in a particular area. They include key aspects of literary history such as Renaissance drama, the 'rise of the novel' in the eighteenth century, Romantic poetry, nineteenth-century realism, modernism, and postmodernism, as well as modules investigating postcolonial writing and the literature of crime.

Literature asks questions about who we are, why we are here, and the nature of the world in which we find ourselves, and studying English reflects the vibrancy, dynamism and profundity of the subject at large.

Tailor your degree

To make sure you get the most out of your degree, your Law modules are prescribed. However, you’ll be able to tailor your studies in English by choosing various modules covering different themes and theories in literature such as crime, fantasy, gender and cultural politics – all to suit your career goals and interests.

Expert teaching

Our Law teaching team includes barristers, solicitors, criminal psychologists, sociologists and experienced police officers. Several are still actively engaged with practice, which helps you keep up to date with contemporary issues in justice. Our teaching is also enriched by research covering some of the most pressing issues confronting society today, from slavery to digital privacy.

This course is supported by visiting professors and guest lecturers who are leading authorities in their fields. Our celebrated Public Lecture Series also brings influential figures to the University to shed new light on the legal system.

For English modules, you will be taught by an enthusiastic team with research expertise covering a broad range of areas. We place emphasis on discussion and active engagement with the material. We aim to challenge you to achieve your best, and offer substantial tutorial support in addition to scheduled classes.

Facilities

Law students are based on the Derby Campus at One Friar Gate Square. It includes a mock court room, replica custody suite and social learning hubs where you can develop your skills and familiarise yourself with the type of environments you’ll encounter in real-life legal situations.

Choose your pathway

Studying an English and Law Joint Honours degree allows you to choose whether you major in one subject or study them both equally.

You begin this degree by studying both subjects equally in your first year. By the end of your first year, you will then decide whether you would like to major or minor in a chosen subject or continue to study them both equally.

How you will learn

You'll be taught through a variety of methods, such as:

lectures
seminars
workshops and tutorials
student presentations
debates
one-to-one sessions with a tutor
work projects
self-directed study
video discussions with overseas partner institutions
case preparation
mooting - where you present a legal issue against opposing counsel in a mock court case
interviewing
negotiation

Engaging in real or simulated legal practice, you will build a range of the key skills required to succeed in the legal sector at every stage of the course.

You will also develop skills in legal scholarship, with the chance to undertake problem-based research and original academic enquiry. If our teaching team consider the work you produce to be of sufficient quality, it could be published in the Derby Law School Journal.

Through our peer assisted mentoring scheme, students from later years of the course also give helpful guidance and support to first year students.

English is a subject based upon discussion and interpretation, and your English classes will reflect this, with great emphasis placed upon student contributions and presentations in addition to lectures.

Showcasing your skills

Mooting forms part of certain modules and you can develop your expertise further through regional and national competitions. We have an excellent record of success in these challenges.

We also help run a schools’ debating competition in partnership with Derby & District Law Society and Enterprise for Education where you can mentor local secondary school pupils.

How you are assessed

Our assessment strategy is designed to produce confident, articulate graduates with a broad set of skills.

For Law modules, assessments include:

group work
oral presentations
written coursework
examinations
seminar debates
group presentations
conference papers

For English modules, there are no exams and forms of assessment include seminar debates, group presentations and conference papers alongside essays and longer research projects. We place great emphasis on developing your research skills, with independent projects playing a key part in the second and third year of the course.