Legal eagles rush to learn

In the economic gloom, when banking and finance are losing their appeal and companies are cutting back on recruitment, "safe" professions such as the law look even more attractive.

So it comes as no surprise that enrolments to postgraduate law courses are at an all time high this autumn as students seek a higher qualification to boost their chances.

King's College London closed applications to its LLM – the traditional name for a law Masters – early this year having reached its maximum intake. The University of Huddersfield has launched a new suite of law MAs this month and Leeds reports strong interest in European and cyber law.

Masters in law – which can be either an LLM or MA – differ from the qualifying exams for barristers and solicitors because their content is not prescribed by the Bar Council and the Law Society. Most LLMs cover specialist fields of law but a few, taken over two years, include more general material specified by the profession's ruling body and so can act as conversion courses for graduates of other subjects who want to train as lawyers.

An over-supply of law graduates has left many struggling to find pupillages in barristers' chambers or training places with firms of solicitors, so some students take a Masters to make them stronger applicants, says Alex Türk, the LLM director at King's College, London. The university's specialist law MAs include international peace and security, competition law and medical ethics and law which attracts doctors, nurses and healthcare administrators. Fees for the one year LLM are £5,550 for home and £12,500 for overseas students.

Mature students make up a high proportion of students on many of the courses. "You might already be a qualified lawyer who wants to have time to reflect on something specific such as securities or capital markets to help you better understand and advise your clients," says Dr Türk.

Overseas lawyers enrol on the King's Masters to boost their CVs or as a preliminary to qualifying in this country. Sonal Pattnayak, 24, a law graduate from Symbiosis Law School in Pune, practised as a solicitor in Mumbai for five months and now wants to work in Britain. Now studying for a Masters at King's, she hopes that the qualification will help her get a training contract with a UK firm. "I chose specialist modules in commercial and financial law at King's as there were lawyers from the big City firms lecturing on the course, which made the course practical and current," says Pattnayak, who has just handed in her final dissertation.

Jamie Turner, a Sheffield politics graduate, completed a two-year Law MA at the university in preference to a one year conversion course. It gave him more time to explore the subject in depth and to fund his studies through part-time work, he says. It helped too that the programme counts as a conversion course.

He was successful in gaining a training contract with a large firm of solicitors but is now back studying full time for another degree, this time the LLM in public international law at Nottingham University. "I worked for a really good firm and gained a lot of experience but the seat available at the end of my contract wasn't in an area of law in which I wanted to specialize. I've always been interested in politics – and public international law fits with it. I'm hoping to work for the United Nations or the Foreign Office," says Turner, 26, who is learning Hindi and keeping up with his French to boost his chances.

Richard Kirkham, a public law specialist at Sheffield University, says some students go on to practise law but others use it to get jobs in other areas. A recent survey of graduates on the course found they had chosen the two year MA because they wanted a more academic environment. It also worked out cheaper to do this MA at Sheffield where fees are £1,505 a year for home and £7,870 for overseas students than the £6,000 to £7,000 charged for an intensive, one year conversion course at a private college.

"Not all the students on our course decide that they are going to be lawyers. They are looking for a back-up because, if they decide not to pursue a law career they still have an MA from a reputable university which they can use for other careers," says Kirkham.

Leeds University offers a wide range of MAs including cyber law, international law and human rights law. Professor Roger Halson, the director of the Law School, says the oversupply of law graduates has increased competition. "There was a time when I could say the number of students with first degrees in law becoming lawyers was as high as 80 per cent. But I would say the number of first year LLBs who actually become lawyers is 50 per cent now," he says. Some students do an MA to enhance their chances of getting a training contract, some are planning to pursue an academic career and others want to pursue the law in a particular area not covered in a law conversion course, he says.

Such is the demand for postgraduate study the University of Huddersfield is offering a new suite of courses with modules taught by several different departments. If students take a majority of law modules they graduate with an LLM; if the selection is more mixed they are awarded an MA, says Tina Hart, the course director.

"Most of our students are practising lawyers who have represented a client in a particular type of case and are spurred on to do further research," she says. "Two years ago the main thing people were interested in was bad character – whether to put a defendant into the witness box. Some years we find immigration and asylum very popular and we get a lot of lawyers from Germany wanting to research company law," she says.

Several universities offer research MAs based on an induction course and a thesis on an aspect of the law. The Law Society's insistence that solicitors engage in continuing professional development is likely to ensure that, whatever the economic climate, postgraduate study will retain its appeal.