Law is a fascinating and vital part of our lives, and we who teach and research law at Trinity are eager to share it with you. Please note that applicants for Law at Cambridge must take the LNAT by no later than 16 October 2023 – this is earlier than the LNAT deadline for most other universities.  You can register for the LNAT from 1 August to 15 September 2023, and the LNAT can be taken from 1 September 2023.

There are many reasons you might want to study law. You might like debating, or solving practical problems and trying to get to the best solution; you might be an abstract thinker, who likes to ponder the meaning of words and concepts. Whatever your reasons for being interested in law, there will be others who share them in Cambridge.

These pages contain information about studying law at Trinity. We cannot tell you everything about the College or about law here, so we encourage you to visit for yourself, if you can. We hold open days each year but you can also visit the College at other times. If you can’t find an answer to a question you have about admission to read law, please email admissions@trin.cam.ac.uk : we would be delighted to help.

If you are interested in a legal career but not sure you want to take a law degree (as opposed to a conversion course after a degree in another subject), you might find it helpful to read our Why study law? page.

Catherine is a specialist in the law of the European Union and Labour Law. She teaches Trinity law students in their final year of study, as EU Law is a compulsory subject for those wishing to graduate with a degree that will let them practise law in England and Wales. It’s a foundational subject because it is so important to our present and our future. There are some comically bad examples of things the EU has done, such as fruit having to be certain shapes or sizes to be sold. But there are far more examples of things the EU has done which make our lives better: reduced roaming tariffs on mobile phones, cheap(er) flights with the low-cost carriers, even ensuring that we get fine café latte at breakfast. Studying EU law will explain how.

Rory’s research and teaching is in private law.  At Trinity, he supervises law students in Contract Law in their second year, and Equity in their third year.  At the Law Faculty, he lectures on a range of private law papers, including Contract, Equity, and the optional third year paper Aspects of Obligations in which he teaches the law of unjust enrichment.

Louise brings a wealth of experience at the bar to her academic work, specialising in subjects related to international business. Louise’s main teaching and research interests lie in the field of conflict of laws, also known as Private International Law. Given that trade, employment, regulation, and all sorts of commercial transactions now take place globally, rather than simply within one country, rules are needed to tell us which law applies to govern the relationship and where any disputes between the parties should be resolved. This is what the subject of private international law deals with.

For example, let’s think about Bianca, who gets a job working for Charles. Bianca is from Denmark and Charles is from England. Bianca is employed to drive a lorry around Europe, especially in France. In Denmark, Bianca is a member of a Trades Union which protects certain rights, such as coverage for dental treatment. Charles’s company is based in England, where he has arranged different deals with the Trades Unions than the deals in Denmark: for instance, he gives much more medical benefits but much lower dental benefits. Before we work out what Charles should be able to do, which law should decide the outcome? Danish, English? French? A little of one and some of the other? Who is entitled to say that their decisions on benefits are right, and someone else’s wrong? In which court should any dispute be heard? Conflicts of Laws is an area of study to help us to solve questions like that fairly.

Joe works in Legal History, and teaches a range of legal historical papers in the Faculty. In Trinity, he currently supervises law students in Criminal Law and the Law of Tort in their first year, Land Law in their second year, and the optional paper in Legal History.

Ben teaches the compulsory first-year subjects Constitutional Law and Civil Law I (Roman law), introducing students to the fundamentals of public and private law reasoning, as well as the advanced optional paper Civil Law II on the Roman law of delict. The reach of public law is changing constantly, and its distinctive principles and techniques for regulating the relationship between individuals and the state are evolving rapidly: this is a fascinating time to engage with the United Kingdom constitution. The institutions of Roman private law, refined over the course of a thousand years of sophisticated practical and principled juristic thinking, continue to shape the discourse and doctrines of the Western legal tradition. Studying Roman law offers insight into the conceptual structure and argumentative methods of the law governing relations between individuals; it not only exposes us to new and different concepts and alternative solutions to problems but also facilitates a better understanding of our own law.

Ben’s research interests span public law and Roman law, as well as connected aspects of legal philosophy and legal history. Ben is also interested in methods of legal education and, in particular, in mooting. He offers new Trinity law students a crash-course in reading, writing and thinking like a lawyer and he takes an active role in several mooting competitions: contests that simulate an appeal hearing, in which participants analyse a problem, research the relevant law, prepare brief written submissions, and present oral argument.