I have been admitted to both universities. I was admitted to Trinity for Environmental Science and Kings for Bachelor of Laws. My ultimate goal is to obtain a degree in environmental law, however I have interest in criminal law as a mock trial vet. I am an American living in Southern California, however, I am well-travelled and excited to study abroad for four years. I can’t decide, because Kings (ranked #10 in world with prestigious law program in one of the top 5 cities for a career in law) is in busy London where people seem a bit uptight and anti-American and Trinity (ranked #74 in world and #1 city for science careers) is in Dublin, which is more livable and pro-American. I feel like King’s offers a “classier” student life and a direct channel to pursuing a Law Degree at an Ivy League or Oxbridge, however Trinity seems to be more fun and is the best way for me to pursue an environmental law degree.
PLEASE HELP I AM SO TORN AND STRESSED
(I think London would be crazy fun and I have a friend attending a London university, and if I had an environmental science acceptance there I wouldn’t hesitate to accept at King’s)
“I feel like King’s offers a “classier” student life and a direct channel to pursuing a Law Degree at an Ivy League or Oxbridge, however Trinity seems to be more fun and is the best way for me to pursue an environmental law degree”
If your plan is to do a law degree in the US, then you might as well go to Trinity & get the environmental part.
You do know that your law course at Kings is ‘law school’ for the UK, yes? after you finish at Kings you would normally go on to do the Legal Practice Course and a training contract (2 year apprenticeship), and at that point you would be qualified as a solicitor. Law at Oxford or Cambridge is also be an undergraduate course (OR a post-grad course for people who already have a law qualification), so you wouldn’t do the course at Kings and then go do it again.
Yes, I would be working as a lawyer in London or obtaining a degree for which intl cert is possible. With a bachelor of laws from UK and Ireland many students sit bar exams in several states in the US and pass after a Legal practice course. Bachelor of laws teaches general aspects of a wide variety so it opens up a lot of avenues for me and the UK laws are similar enough to US laws that apply for a graduate degree at a US law school would be a non-issue.
You should go for King’s … it is a highly reputable uni, good results, amazing student life and good employment stats afterwards…And it is defo better if you wanna obtain MA Degree from Oxbridge or Ivy then…
King’s College London in the UK is something like John Hopkins in the USA…
Hope it helps…
Let me know how you decide
Have you visited either one? Dublin and London are both great, great cities, but quite different.
Me, personally, I have spent time in both, and was a student at LSE for a semester, and I would prefer to be an undergraduate in Dublin at TC, but you need to decide what is best for your personality and interests.
Izzyjo, do you have right of residency in the UK / EU? If not, you might have trouble getting a training contract or working in the UK after you graduate.
I would definitely talk to someone about how the UK law degree would be viewed in the US.
Seems like if you want to end up in the US then do the environmental degree.
Not an expert on it, but the law is different, so you would need to do extra study to pass the bar exam. Similarly, if you go to a law school in another state, it requires extra study to pass the Louisiana bar exam, which is partly based on Napoleonic and Roman-based law.
Also, if you want to practice environmental law, you probably need an environmental or related degree.
You might be able to practice law at a younger age with a UK degree, and obviously that is a prestigious school. There are people with degrees from unaccredited law schools practicing law, and I think in one or two states you can still “read law” with a law firm, though not many people do; so you probably can practice if you pass the bar exam.
Also, it used to be 50-100 years ago that most US lawyers just had bachelor of law degrees, and didn’t go to undergraduate school or would go to law school after 2 years undergraduate. However, now almost everyone in the US gets an undergraduate degree first, and they somewhat pretentiously call law degrees Juris Doctorates.
Aside from Louisiana, I have heard that graduates of Harvard and Yale Law Schools can pass the bar exam, but sometimes have a harder time than graduates of the main law school for that state, as the law is different by state. My father had a boss who was a Jewish lawyer in Vienna, fled to the US, and could not practice law, as it was too different from the Napoleonic or whatever law in Austria. Austrian law is more different than British law, and he was older and it was harder to learn something knew and he needed to get a job. However, there are some difficulties with a law degree in a different country.
So it might cause some problems, not having another bachelors degree, not studying environmental science to be an environmental lawyer, and studying British law.
Trinity College Dublin is far superior to King’s College London. KCL is well known in the UK but Trinity College Dublin is far, far better known in the UK. And you can “incorporate” into Oxford and Cambridge, which is what my brother did. Just note that if you read law in Ireland or the UK, that will count as an undergraduate degree in the US. Major law firms will want to see a US law degree. You can contact the American Bar Association for advice.
If you were a US citizen, and got a British law degree, probably the best course would be to then get an LLM from a US law school. You could get a British LLB in 3 years and the LLM in 1 years, which is less time than a US undergraduate degree in 4 years and 3 years for a US law degree. You can sit for the bar exam in some states but not others with just a British law degree. As a practical matter, it might require 1 year of full time study to pass the bar exam because of the differences in British and US law.
You are unlikely to be hired by a major US law firm with just a British law degree. You should also get a degree in Environmental Science or whatever and a law degree if you want to practice environmental law.
There are a few US law schools that don’t require an undergraduate degree, and those are not top schools. They generally require 2 years of college. It used to be real standard the early to mid 20th century for college students to leave to law school after 2 years. There are some states that will not allow one to practice with only a British law degree and some that require an undergraduate degree and a law degree.
There is some benefit to the US system, as a science or engineering degree prepares you for certain specialties, economics has obvious benefits, and English or humanities are good for writing and speaking.
