Law

Teaching

Our law programmes further strenghen Goldsmiths’ rich heritage of social awareness and social engagement, strong entrepreneurial mindset, and unique ability to foster radical, critical and creative thinking.

Our academics and the organisations we work with all share a passion for justice, fairness, equality, human rights, defending the rule of law, and we jointly impart upon our students socio-legal values and modern legal skills indispensable to future legal practice.

We study areas such as:

• Criminal justice
• Human rights
• Migration and race studies
• Artificial intelligence
• Counter-terrorism
• Family law
• Intellectual property
• Environmental law
• Sexuality and gender studies
• European law
• Art law
• International law
• Relationship between Law and Politics

During your course, you will study law in both theory and practice, developing essential 21st century legal skills through lectures, seminars, placements, and law clinics. You'll also gain hands-on experience through field trips, meet the expert talks, and experiential learning activities, such as mock trials, debates, contract negotiations, police station advice, and jury trial role-playing all integrated across your modules.

We'll equip you with the core legal knowledge and skills required for the new Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), including an optional SQE-focused module in Year 3 and collaborations with practicing solicitors who deliver SQE-specific content within LLB modules.

In addition, you can choose optional interdisciplinary modules from other departments, such as Politics, Sociology, Media and Communications, and Psychology. This will broaden both your career opportunities and your academic perspective.

Facilities

As a law student, you’ll study in the Grade II-listed former Deptford Town Hall, built in 1905.

You’ll have unique access to the impressive Council Chamber and boardroom, where you’ll take part in mock trials, debating competitions, immersive jury trials, simulated contract negotiations, and research seminars. These spaces give you the chance to practice essential legal skills in an environment that feels like real courtrooms and commercial boardrooms. The building also houses the law common room and offices, where you’ll meet your personal tutor and take part in student activities.

You’ll also experience law in innovative ways. Using VR headsets, you’ll explore law in its cultural context, while our state-of-the-art collaborative workspace allows you and your peers to share content across individual screens, group tables, or the whole room.

The Law Library gives you access to the most important legal databases, including Westlaw, Lexis Library, HeinOnline, and Practical Law. Through international databases like Westlaw International, Practical Law International, and Nexis, you’ll explore materials from jurisdictions around the world.

You’ll also benefit from thousands of eBooks from leading publishers like Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Hart, as well as a full paper collection, so all your core textbooks are available in print and digital formats. Supporting your studies is our experienced law librarian, who has worked in major City law firms and at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London’s primary academic law library.

Collaborations

Our academics dynamically engage with contemporary socio-legal issues, drawing on original research, and an interdisciplinary ethos.

We have active collaborations with a wide range of professional networks, including barristers, solicitors, prosecutors and members of the judiciary, technology experts, policy-makers, journalists, politicians and leading experts in social justice and human rights NGOs.

Goldsmiths Law brings together influential academic thinkers, including our renowned visiting professors, and gives our students unique access to leading legal experts, organisations and institutions, across the UK, Europe, the United States, South-East Asia and beyond.

The LLB Law, LLB Law with Criminal Justice and Human Rights, LLB Law with Politics and Human Rights, and MPhil/PhD programmes draw on this wealth of knowledge and specialist expertise to educate future lawyers, policymakers, third sector experts, law and technology experts and academics.

Career development

As a Goldsmiths law student, you will be supported in pursuing a career to practise law as a barrister or solicitor.

Choosing to study law, also provides students with a range of legal and transferable skills to pursue careers not only in the legal industry, but also in other sectors.

Preparing you for a career at the Bar

If you want to become a barrister, our advocacy, public speaking, and excellence in written and oral argumentation, are skills we inject into a range of modules, to help to prepare you for this pathway. We integrate professional skills and career orientation sessions delivered by the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, one of the historic Inns of Court.

In our legal skills module, we give you access to mini pupillages and Inns of Court information evenings on careers at the Bar.

Preparing to become a solicitor

Qualifying to become a solicitor changed in 2021. Students now have to study for the Solicitor's Qualifying Exam (SQE) and undertake the required amount of Qualifying Work Experience. 

Goldsmiths was one of the first law schools in the UK to embed the SQE preparation elements into the law degree, offering students the option to take a bespoke SQE module in their final year of studies.

Preparing you for other career destinations

Throughout your journey at Goldsmiths, we will continuously bring you into contact with third-sector, human rights and NGO experts, journalists, technology experts, civil servants and individuals working in the creative industries. We will support you to plan a career for yourself in these areas and beyond, if practising law is not the path you wish to pursue.

Study with us

At Goldsmiths, you’ll immerse yourself in a subject you love within a welcoming and creative campus community.

Based in South East London, our vibrant setting connects you directly to the capital’s business, technology, and cultural networks. Your learning goes far beyond the classroom through partnerships, guest lectures, and real-world industry experience.

You’ll be supported by inspiring academics, dedicated staff, and fellow students who are passionate about making a difference. And because we’re in London – ranked the world’s number one student city (QS Best Student Cities 2025) – you’ll benefit from our close links with some of the capital’s leading creative and cultural organisations.

Discover the campus for yourself with our Virtual Tour.