How To Become a Lawyer in the UK: Your Step-by-Step Guide

Eager to reap the rewards of a prestigious and stimulating career in law? The UK has highly respected law schools, and you'll find the pathways to law practice provide exceptional training, making the UK an excellent choice for aspiring lawyers. From law course admissions to licensure, this guide walks you through the key decisions and 4 essential steps you'll need to navigate on your way to becoming a practising solicitor or barrister in the UK.

Law programmes offer a chance to earn a degree that is highly respected, and one that demonstrates you've mastered exceptional reasoning, argumentation, and communication skills.

Degrees in law also open doors to a prestigious profession and make it likely you'll find yourself in an exceptionally rewarding and intellectually stimulating career.

However, stepping back and understanding the big picture is crucial when it comes to anticipating and preparing for your next steps and for increasing the odds of long-term success.

In this guide you'll find valuable insights you can use to make the right decisions each step of the way, to choose the best path forward, and to take the guesswork and pitfalls out of your journey to becoming a lawyer.

Becoming a Lawyer: Job Outlook and Opportunities

The UK legal system offers diverse career opportunities in law firms, government agencies, and corporate sectors.

Those still learning about the UK legal system, however, need to be aware that becoming a lawyer involves two prominent but distinct pathways, becoming a solicitor vs. becoming a barrister.

This aspect of legal training in the UK implies an important decision-making process after you finish your law degree, but it also provides an opportunity for aligning your UK law career with your individual personality, preferences, and aptitudes.

Whichever of the two roles you pursue will entitle you to officially sanctioned privileges for specific kinds of law practices corresponding to your chosen training and title (solicitor or barrister).

However, all licensed lawyers also have privileges to offer more general legal services and advising — irrespective of their specific title — increasing your opportunities across roles, industries, and workplace settings:

• Corporate/Business Advisor: You can work within a private firm or public corporation, providing the leadership with legal advising, for contracts, advertising, human resources, and a range of corporate finance or governance issues.
• Regulatory Compliance Officer: With a law background, you might help any number of organisations ensure they understand and comply with regulatory requirements.
• Civil Servant: In government roles, law experts often work alongside legislators or in government agencies to craft or help enforce regulatory statutes across sectors ranging from financial and environmental, to workplace, health, immigration, and employment.
• Other Roles: As a trained lawyer, you’ll have any number of potential qualifications and transferable skills valued for many roles — skills in analytical, research, written communication, policy advocacy, risk assessment, or public speaking and public relations.

Step 1: Obtain a Law Degree (LLB or Conversion Course)

The first step in your legal journey is perhaps the most multifaceted step of all: obtaining a law degree. This step involves:

• Selecting leading universities and law courses that match your aspirations and interests
• Preparing for admission to your prospective universities as you advance to the end of your secondary schooling and your intensive preparation during 6th Form, including achieving strong marks on accepted qualifications
• Taking the LNAT (required by most of the top-tier law programmes) and other entrance examinations (when required), or opting to attend a university where the LNAT is not required
• Interested students can get LNAT support through Crimson Education’s UK Admissions team
• Staying the course for three or four years and obtaining your law degree

Your Degree Track

If you're set on law from the get-go, then you’ll probably want to opt to get a bachelors in the law field, by pursuing a Bachelor of Laws (LLB).

However, if you've completed an undergraduate degree in another field, don't worry — there's the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL), a conversion course that offers you a way to get a graduate degree in an unfamiliar subject with a streamlined process, so you can make a quicker career pivot.

Identifying Top UK Law Schools

When considering where to study, some of the top UK law schools include Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics (LSE), and University College London (UCL). These institutions not only provide excellent education but also open doors to prestigious career opportunities and professional networks.

When trying to decide which university programmes best match your goal and interests, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Do they offer the right kind of law degree and what courses or modules are offered? In what combinations?
• Am I uniquely focusing on a law degree, or pursuing a combined degree?
• Do I want a programme that integrates study abroad opportunities or participates in Turing Scheme programming?
• Do school rankings offer me any useful insights for selecting the right schools for my interests?

Getting Into Top Law Schools

Students who are preparing academically well ahead of applying to university law courses should have a leg up for getting into law school.

Obviously, it's important to understand early on which academic achievements and specific qualifications are expected for admission to the universities and programmes that interest you.

According to to UCAS, average A-Level offers for law programmes are ABB.

For top-tier law universities, however, expectations are more rigorous. Schools such as Oxford, Cambridge, or LSE, will expect high marks.

Alongside A-Levels, widely recognised alternative qualifications include International Baccalaureate, European Baccalaureate, International A-Levels, International APs, some country-specific qualifications (depending requirements specified by specific UK schools and programmes).

To get a sense of how top schools might assess alternative and international qualifications, check out Oxford’s guidance on other UK qualifications and on international qualifications.

The demands for getting an offer from Oxford Law can be intimidating!

Remember that you can seek out UK law schools with less rigorous A-Level standards and less rigorous IB score requirements. These UK universities make the path to becoming a lawyer in the UK less challenging and more accessible to more students.

The Best A-Level Subjects for Becoming a Lawyer in the UK

Believe it or not, you have a good measure of leeway in choosing your A-Level subjects. Also, be aware that a Law A-Level is not required nor specifically encouraged by most universities.

Universities are more interested in broader foundational skills developed across a spectrum of liberal arts subjects:

• Developing nuanced foundations in rhetoric, grammar, and semantics and honing essay skills
• Constructing interpretive claims and arguments, marshaling and analysing historical or textual evidence, and applying philosophical, ethical, or social-historical frameworks
• Developing rigorous logical reasoning skills, responding persuasively to open-ended questions, and navigating theoretical constructs
• Understanding, analysing, comparing, and applying legal, political, and ethical perspectives from historical, religious, or philosophical frameworks

Therefore, the best A-Level subjects for students on their way to becoming lawyers in the UK are typically in the humanities and social sciences, including:

• Philosophy
• Language and Literature
• Government & Politics
• Classical Studies
• Religious Studies
• International History
• Economics/Mathematics

For more tips and guidance, check out: What A-Levels Should You Take for Law?

Step 2: Choose Your Path (Solicitor or Barrister)

Once you have your degree, it’s time to choose between becoming a solicitor or a barrister —  one of the most important decisions of your legal career.

The path to obtaining each title (solicitor or barrister) will entail some different qualifying steps and challenges. The title you earn will also determine which reserved legal activities you’ll be entitled to perform (or prohibited from performing, as the case may be), depending on which title you hold, solicitor or barrister.

Therefore, the choice involves both opportunities and restrictions. The main distinction to remember is that

• solicitors provide core legal services and advice and serve as the client's point of contact

while

• barristers specialise in the courtroom advocacy and litigation

Whether you choose to become a solicitor or a barrister, earning a law degree is the most common first step. But what if you want to earn a different degree, or already completed a degree and it’s not a law degree, what then?

In this case, remember we said you can opt for a conversion course as a streamlined tactic — earning your GDL (Graduate Diploma in Law), and then proceeding to the subsequent steps.

Becoming a Solicitor

If you're drawn to working closely with clients, managing legal transactions, and providing a broad range of legal advice, the solicitor path might be for you.

To qualify as a solicitor, you'll need to pass the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) after finishing your law degree or acceptable equivalent qualification.

The SQE is a new, standardised assessment that will assess key skills required for practising law as a solicitor. The SQE consists of two parts:

• SQE1:  Assesses the depth and breadth of your functional legal knowledge (English and Welsh law), across diverse areas of law, including legal systems and processes. This robust assessment involves some 10 hours of closed-book Single-Best-Answer multiple choice questions — questions where you’re required to pick the best option from among more than one viable option.
• SQE2:  Assesses a range of practical legal skills commonly put into practice by solicitors, such as client interviewing, advocacy, case analysis, and legal research and writing. It comprises 12 separate written assessments and is typically taken over three days.

Becoming a Barrister:

If you’re interested in advocating in court and managing litigation strategy for your clients in the courtroom, becoming a barrister is the option for you. After completing the BTC, the academic component of your Bar training (i.e., your law degree), you’ll be ready to start the vocational component of your Bar training.

However, to start your vocational learning, joining an Inn of the Court — a qualifying professional membership association that provides educational activities and support for barristers, apprentices, and students — is required. (What an adventure!)

For more detailed information on professional qualifications and how to apply to them, you may find it helpful to visit the Central Applications Board (CAB) online information portal.

Step 3: Vocational Training

Vocational Training is a critical component of becoming a lawyer, providing practical experience and professional development. Again, however, this step will look different depending on whether you’re on the road to becoming a solicitor or a barrister…

As you can see, the path to becoming a lawyer in the UK isn't one that will leave you out in the cold after your finish your law degree.

On the contrary.

After you select your path — solicitor or barrister — your rigorous academic preparation will be supplemented with a well-structured, extensive, and well-supervised period of hands-on training.

Step 4: Admission to the Profession

The final step is now upon you — gaining admission to the profession. While relatively predictable, the steps are again a bit different for solicitors vs. barristers!

Reaping the Rewards of Your Achievements

Your achievements are significant and not without important privileges! At this stage in your journey to a law career in the UK, you now have authoritative legal training and an officially sanctioned professional standing within a prestigious profession.

This means you've got strong credentials for the exciting step of launching your career. While this may seem disorienting initially, there are lots of practical steps you can take:

• Seek the support of your vocational mentors and more experienced members of your Inn (for barristers)
• Get more active on alumni networks or on professional channels on networking apps
• Attend legal events and law fairs

Your success doesn't require magic, just the right connections and some fortuitous timing!

Furthermore, once you gain additional experiences, expertise, and professional references, your confidence will increase and more doors are likely to open.

Final Thoughts

The pathway to practising law in the UK requires discipline and perseverance, but it will also be be very rewarding, both intellectually and academically, equipping you with both specialised authoritative knowledge and valuable transferrable skills that enable you to excel professionally — in roles requiring high level advocacy, specialised advising, and complex analysis, research, and writing.

If you’re looking for a leg up when it comes to getting the utmost out of each step of your journey to becoming a lawyer in the UK, our transformative law school admissions advisory services will provide expert guidance and exceptional support and encouragement all along the way.

Why not find out more about all that's possible? It's easy to speak to an advisor with their own impressive law school accomplishments — one keen to learn about your law school dreams and help you map out a highly personalised roadmap for achieving your goals.