 | This articlecontainspromotional content. Please helpimprove it by removingpromotional language and inappropriateexternal links, and by adding encyclopedic text written from aneutral point of view.See ouradvice if the article is about you and read ourscam warning in case someone asks for money to edit this article.(July 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
TheFaculty of Law is thelaw school at theSocial Sciences Division at theUniversity of Oxford inOxford, England, United Kingdom. The school has a history of over 800 years in the teaching and learning oflaw.
Along with its counterpart at Cambridge, it is unique in its use of personalisedtutorials, in which students are taught by facultyfellows in groups of one to three on a weekly basis,[1] as the main form of instruction in its undergraduate and graduate courses. It offers the largest doctoral programme in Law in the English-speaking world.[2]
There were faculties ofCivil Law andCanon Law in the medieval University. During theReformation,Henry VIII prohibited the teaching of Canon Law, instead founding theRegius Chair of Civil Law, one of the oldestProfessorships at theUniversity of Oxford. From then until the 19th century, the university awarded theBachelor of Civil Law and theDoctor of Civil Law, through the Faculty of Civil Law.[citation needed]
William Blackstone, a graduate ofPembroke College, Oxford and subsequently aFellow ofAll Souls College, Oxford, was appointed the inauguralVinerian Professor of English Law in 1758, and was the first professor at any university to teach thecommon law. His lectures formed the basis for hisCommentaries on the Laws of England, a definitive source of and case for the study of theEnglish common law.[3][4][5]
It was not until the 1870s that Oxford offered a degree inEnglish law, the BA in Jurisprudence. Not long after,Cornelia Sorabji was the first woman to read law at Oxford in 1889.[6][7] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were prominent professors in Oxford such asFrederick Pollock,William Anson, andAlbert Dicey. The emergence of a large community of legal scholars in twenty-five men's colleges can be dated from the 1920s and 1930s, but the development was consolidated in the 1950s and 1960s, when Law Fellowships also became common in the women's colleges.[tone] The Oxford law school flourished through the operation of the resulting internal market, and through the brilliance of particular leading scholars such asH. L. A. Hart,Rupert Cross,Tony Honoré, John Morris,Peter Carter, and others.[8]
In the twentieth century, theBCL became amaster's level degree; and, by the 1970s, Oxford developed a large graduate programme in law. It has been claimed that the BCL at Oxford is "the most highly regarded taught masters-level qualification in the common law world".[9] The DPhil in Law, which dates to the 1910s, became popular at that time particularly ininternational law,comparative law, andphilosophy of law; after the 1970s, the areas of research pursued in the doctoral programme broadened to make it a general training ground for legal academics. In 2010 the MSc in Law and Finance (MLF) was introduced and is taught jointly by the Faculty of Law and theSaïd Business School. The MLF programme involves a combination of finance and economic courses combined withBCL law courses.[10] Like theBCL taught at Oxford, entry into the MLF is highly competitive with on average less than fifteen per cent of applicants being accepted.[citation needed]
These graduate programmes have an acceptance rate of around 5%.[citation needed]
The MSc in Law and Finance (MLF) is delivered jointly by the Faculty of Law and Saïd Business School. MLF candidates study the law courses alongside BCL students and attend finance courses alongside MSc in Financial Economics students.
| National rankings | |
|---|---|
| Complete (2026)[11] | 1 |
| Guardian (2026)[12] | 1 |
| Global rankings | |
| QS (2026)[13] | 2 |
| THE (2026)[14] | 7 |
Oxford's Law Faculty is currently ranked second in the UK and fourth in the world in the 2023Times Higher Education World University Rankings under the law subject.[15]
Its average acceptance rate was less than 5% in between 2016 and 2019.[16] Oxford's BCL programme has been described as "the most highly regarded taught masters-level qualification in the common law world".[9] A first-class in undergraduate degree in Law or equivalent is a prerequisite (as a guide a student will need to be in the top 5% of his or her graduating class), with the same applying for the MJur and Masters in Law and Finance.[citation needed]
For research programmes, an outstanding record in earlier higher education and the skills and commitment to pursue research to the highest level are required by applicants for postgraduate research programmes. It is very rare for a candidate to be admitted without having completed a degree in Law, except in socio-legal studies and criminology.[17]
The faculty has a number of research centres and institutes.
The Oxford Pro Bono Publico (OPBP) is an organisation consisting of graduate law students and members of faculty to provide comparative law research, gratis, for lawyers actingpro bono around the world as well as promotingpro bono law in general.[18]
The Law Faculty offices, together with the English Faculty, are situated in the St Cross Building, which is a Grade II*listed building completed in 1964 and designed bySir John Leslie Martin (architect of theRoyal Festival Hall in London) andColin St John Wilson (architect of theNew British Library). The St Cross Building is also home to the Bodleian Law Library.[19][20]
TheBodleian Law Library was opened in 1964 and holds over 450,000 volumes. It is aLegal Deposit Library, allowing it to claim a copy of any printed legal material published in theUnited Kingdom orIreland. It is also an officialDocumentation Centre for theEuropean Union.[21]
Notable people associated with the Faculty of Law include former UK Prime MinisterTony Blair, twelveLord Chancellors, nineLord Chief Justices and twenty-twolaw lords (such asLord Hoffmann,Lord Denning); several heads of state around the world, includingJohn Turner,Prime Minister of Canada (1984–1984),Seni Pramoj (1947–1951),Prime Minister of Thailand, and severalPrime Ministers of Pakistan, includingLiaquat Ali Khan (1947–1951),Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (1956–1957),Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1945–1946).The formerLord Chief Justice (the most senior judge in England and Wales),Lord Burnett, in office from 2017 to 2023, was educated at Oxford.[citation needed]
.jpg)
LLM Guide, University of Oxford was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
