Durham Law School

54.775082°N 1.574678°W / 54.775082; -1.574678

Durham Law School

Entrance to Durham Law School
Type	Law school
Established	1969
Parent institution	Durham University
Dean	Volker Roeben
Address	Durham University Palatine Centre Stockton Road Durham DH1 3LE , Durham , UK
Website	www.durham.ac.uk/law/

Durham Law School is the law school of Durham University in Durham, England. It has particular research strengths in the areas of public law and human rights, commercial and corporate law, EU and international law, and in biolaw with further strengths in Chinese law and legal philosophy.

History

Law degrees have been awarded at Durham University since the university's inception in the 1830s, mainly to graduates working in law, and there was a reader in law from 1833 to 1872 who gave occasional lectures on the subject. Regular law lectures began in 1907 at Armstrong College in Newcastle (now Newcastle University) and the first formal law school was established there in 1923. After Newcastle became independent of Durham in 1963, law teaching was introduced in Durham in 1964.^[1] Durham Law School as a formal institution within the university was founded in 1969. It was congratulated on its 50th anniversary in a House of Commons early day motion in 2018.^[2]

Location

Durham Law School is housed in the BREEAM excellent-rated Palatine Centre, on Durham University's Lower Mountjoy site. This was named as the most impressive law school building in the world by Best Choice Schools in 2014.^[3][4] The building includes a moot court and the 90-seat Harvard-style Hogan Lovells lecture theatre.^[5][6]

Academic profile

Programmes

Undergraduate teaching is delivered through lectures, seminars and small group tutorials. Extra-curricula opportunities include mooting and pro bono legal work.^[7]

Durham Law School offers a three-year LLB degree and a four-year LLB with Year Abroad degree.^[8] They are both Qualifying Law Degree programmes for the purpose of practicing as a barrister or solicitor in England and Wales. The course includes modules on Chinese law, launched in response to the needs of City firms.^[9] The law school also runs a Chinese law summer school – the first in the UK and first in English outside Asia – in a move described by the Times as offering "great career prospects" for Durham Law School graduates beyond what is offered at other UK law schools.^[10]

Taught postgraduate LLM degree programmes include a general Master of Laws LLM, LLM in Corporate Law, LLM in European Trade and Commercial Law, LLM in International Trade and Commercial Law, LLM in International Law and Governance, LLM in International Environmental Law and LLM in Medical Law and Ethics.^[11]

Research postgraduate degree programmes include a one-year Master of Jurisprudence MJur and PhD in Law.^[12]

Engagement with public policy

Professor Clare McGlynn has partnered with GLAMOUR magazine, the End Violence Against Women Coalition and Not Your Porn to campaign for legislation against image-based abuse.^[13]

Professor Thom Brooks wrote the report The Life in the United Kingdom Citizenship Test: Is It Unfit for Purpose? in 2013.^[14] His recommendations were subsequently backed by the House of Lords Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Participation, the House of Lords Liaison Committee and the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee.^[15] He has continued to point out problems both with the test and its administration.^{[16][17][18][19]}

Reputation and rankings

Rankings

National rankings
Complete (2026)[20]	3
Guardian (2025)[21]	6
Times / Sunday Times (2025)[22]	5
Global rankings
ARWU (2025)[23]	151-200
QS (2026)[24]	57
THE (2025)[25]	55

For 2026, Durham Law School was ranked third in the UK by the Complete University Guide, behind only Cambridge and UCL.^[26] In the 2025 national rankings, it was ranked sixth by the Guardian University Guide^[27] and fifth in the Times Good University Guide.^[28] Internationally, Durham Law School was ranked 55th in the world for law in the 2025 Times Higher Education ranking,^[29] 57th in the world for law by the 2024 QS ranking.^[30] and in the 151–200 range by the Academic Ranking of World Universities.^[31]

In 2015, the Chambers Student triennial survey of which universities law firm trainees had attended ranked Durham third behind Oxford and Cambridge, supplying 7.6 per cent of law trainees in the UK (up from 4th in 2012). The survey also placed Durham second in supplying national firms (up from 11th in 2012) and third in supplying US firms in London (up from 5th in 2012).^[32][33]

Research

The Palatine Centre, home to Durham Law School

Research centres and groups

Durham Law School supports a range of institutes, centres and groups open to academic staff and law students. These include: the Centre for Chinese Law and Policy (CCLP), the Centre for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (CCLCJ), the Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences (Durham CELLS), the Durham European Law Institute (DELI), the Centre for Gender Equal Media (GEM), Gender and Law at Durham (GLAD), the Human Rights Centre (HRC), the Institute of Commercial and Corporate Law (ICCL), Islam, Law and Modernity (ILM) and Law and Global Justice at Durham (LGJ).^[34]

Durham's Centre for Chinese Law and Policy is among the largest in Europe.^[35]

Major areas of research

• Biolaw: including bioethics, medical law and intellectual property issues^[36]
• Chinese law
• Comparative law
• Criminal law and criminal justice: including international criminal law, jury trials, organized crime, sentencing and theories of punishment and restorative justice.
• English private and commercial law: including commercial fraud, consumer law, contract law, corporate law, equity, Europeanisation of private law, intellectual property international trade law, law and economics, restitution, tort law
• EU law: including EU constitutional law, EU external trade, EU competition law, Third Pillar matters
• Gender and law: including discrimination, equality and diversity, feminist legal theory gender and crime and women in the legal professions
• Human rights: including counter-terrorism issues, discrimination law, the Human Rights Act, international human rights law, media freedom and religious liberty
• Legal theory: including jurisprudence, legal realism, moral philosophy, multiculturalism, political philosophy, socio-legal studies and theory of international law
• Public international law: including international human rights law, international humanitarian law, conflict studies, international criminal law and WTO law
• UK public law: including human rights, citizenship, comparative constitutional law, separation of powers, scrutiny of security services and United Kingdom immigration law.^[37]

Notable people

Notable academics

The following notable individuals are or have been academics of Durham Law School:

• Dapo Akande - Former Lecturer, 2000-2004
• Deryck Beyleveld – Former Head of School
• Leo Blair – Former Lecturer of Law, father of Tony Blair
• Thom Brooks – Former Dean and Professor of Law and Government
• David Campbell - Former Head of Law
• Emma Cave - Professor of Healthcare Law
• Clare McGlynn – Professor of Law
• David O'Keeffe - Former Head of Law
• Shaun Pattinson - Professor of Law

Notable alumni

Judiciary

• Lady Jill Black (Trevelyan) – second women to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom;^[38] former Lady Justice of Appeal^[39][40]
• James Goss (University) – Justice of the High Court (Queens Bench Division)
• Lord Anthony Hughes (Van Mildert) – Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom; former Lord Justice of Appeal; Vice-President of the Criminal Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales^[41]
• Andrew McFarlane (Collingwood) – President of the Family Division,^[42] High Court Judge, Lord Justice of Appeal^[43]
• Finola O'Farrell (Trevelyan) – Justice of the High Court (Queens Bench Division)^[44]
• Caroline Swift (St Aidan's) – leading counsel to the Inquiry in the Shipman Inquiry and Justice of the High Court (Queens Bench Division)^[45]

Barristers

• Jolyon Maugham (Hatfield)

Politics

• Graham Brady (St Aidan's), former Conservative MP for Altrincham and Sale West (1997–2024) and chair of the 1922 Committee (2010–2024), member of the House of Lords (2024–present)
• Robert Buckland QC (Hatfield), Conservative MP for Swindon South (2010–2024) and Lord Chancellor (2019–2021)
• Nick Gibb (Hild Bede) – Conservative MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (1997–2024), Minister of State for Schools (2022–2023)^[46]
• Huw Merriman – Conservative MP for Bexhill and Battle (2015–2024) and Minister of State for Rail and HS2 (2022–2024)^[47]
• Earl Pomeroy, former Democratic Party member of US House of Representatives for North Dakota's at-large congressional district (1993–2011)
• James Wharton, Conservative MP for Stockton South (2010–2017), chair of the Office for Students 2021–2024, member of the House of Lords (2020–present)

Media

• Gabby Logan (Hild Bede)