The University of Law (founded in 1962 as The College of Law of England and Wales) is a publicly-funded, for-profit university in the United Kingdom, providing undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in law, business, psychology, criminology, policing and computer science. It also provides postgraduate courses in education, and specialist legal training and continuing professional development courses for British barristers, solicitors and trainees; it is the United Kingdom's largest law school.Tam, Robert (3 July 2013). "Why UK legal education is falling short in a globalised world". The Guardian: Higher Education Network Blog It traces its origins to 1876.
The College of Law had been incorporated by royal charter as a charity in 1975, but in 2012, prior to the granting of university status, its educational and training business was split off and incorporated as a private limited company. This became The College of Law Limited and later The University of Law Limited. The college was granted degree-awarding powers in 2006, and in 2012 changed its name to The University of Law (ULaw) when it became the UK's first for-profit educational institution to be granted university status.Times Higher Education (12 May 2006). "College of Law to offer degrees". Retrieved 2 June 2016.
The charitable branch, which remained incorporated by the 1975 royal charter, became the Legal Education Foundation. Shortly after the granting of university status and being renamed The University of Law in 2012, The College of Law Limited was bought by Montagu Private Equity. Three years later, Montagu sold the company to its present owner, the Netherlands-based company Global University Systems.
The university has 18 locations in the UK in Birmingham, Bristol, Chester, Egham, Exeter, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, London (Bloomsbury and Moorgate), Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield, Southampton, Reading, as well as international branches in Hong Kong, Berlin (GISMA Business School) and University of Europe for Applied Sciences (Hamburg campus) and an online campus.
History 20th century The Law Society of England and Wales created The College of Law in 1962 by merging its own solicitors' training school, the Law Society School of Law (founded in 1903) with the tutorial firm Gibson and Weldon (established in 1876).Jackson, Richard Meredith and Spencer, J. R. (1989). Jackson's Machinery of Justice, p. 346. Cambridge University Press. The coat of arms were officially granted on 5 September 1967 to the then College of Law. The arms were depicted with the motto Leges Juraque Cognoscamus ("Let us know the laws and rights"). The crest was deprecated when the institution became a private limited company.
The college was created in its legal form by Royal Charter on 5 December 1975. It was registered as a charity on 24 May 1976, with the aim "to promote the advancement of legal education and the study of law in all its branches". Until the transfer of its training business to The College of Law Limited in 2012, The College of Law was in the top 100 of UK charities ranked by expenditure.
Following the recommendations of the Ormrod Report on the reform of legal education in England and Wales, The Law Society submitted proposals in 1975 for a 36-week Final Examination course for aspiring solicitors and a Common Professional Examination (CPE) or law conversion course for non-law graduates to be taught at The College of Law. The first CPE was held in 1978. The number of institutions approved to deliver the CPE gradually increased until by 2006 the BPP Law School and 27 universities, most of them former polytechnics, were also running the course.Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library. Council of Legal Education Archive: A.CLE 59: Common Professional Examination Board Records, 1973-1981 . Retrieved 2 June 2016.McKelvey, Cecilia and Peters, Helen (2002). APL: Equal Opportunities for All?, p. 69. Routledge. Kogan Page editorial staff (2006), British Qualifications: A Complete Guide to Professional, Vocational and Academic Qualifications in the UK. (36th edition), p. 960. Kogan Page Publishers. However, the leading providers of the CPE (now called the Graduate Diploma in Law) remained The College of Law and BPP Law School, whose enrollments still dwarfed those of the universities in 2010.Boon, Andrew and Whyte, Avis (2010). "Students as Stakeholders in the Legal Academy", p. 221. in Fiona Cownie (ed.) Stakeholders in the Law School. Bloomsbury Publishing.
In the 1980s, The Law Society asked the college to produce a scheme for additional tuition in accounts for articled clerks (now trainee solicitors), combining distance learning with one-day's attendance at lectures. Further distance learning courses were developed in a partnership with The Open University beginning in 1998. The Guildford campus of the college also established the Fresh Start distance learning course for solicitors returning to practice after a career break or those wishing to change their specialisation.(1996). Returning to Work: A Directory of Education and Training for Women, p. 17. Sage.
The 1990s saw a change in the relationship between The Law Society and The College of Law. In 1994, Nigel Savage, then the dean of Nottingham Trent University's law school, called for a review of the link between the college and The Law Society which had eight of its council members on the college's board of governors. Savage suggested that this gave the college an unfair advantage in recruiting students to the Legal Practice Course which had been set up by The Law Society in 1993 to replace the Final Examination course. The society also regulated the course and determined which institutions would receive a licence to deliver it. He proposed that the college should either "come clean" about the relationship and declare itself the official college of The Law Society or sever the link and become completely independent.Times Higher Education Supplement (27 January 1995). "Row over College of Law tie". The college subsequently severed the link, and The Law Society stopped appointing college governors. Savage went on to become the president and CEO of The College of Law in 1996 and served in that capacity for the next 18 years.Abel, Richard L. (2003). English Lawyers Between Market and State: The Politics of Professionalism, p. 108. Oxford University Press. Newman, Alex (6 February 2014). "Nigel Savage to retire from University of Law in April". Legal Week. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
21st century
The college was granted degree-awarding powers by the Privy Council in 2006, leading to development of its Bachelor and Master of Laws degree programmes. The London Moorgate centre was also opened that year. According to the University of Law, the Moorgate centre is the UK's largest corporate-specific law school.University of Law. The University of Law London Moorgate. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
In 2012, The College of Law underwent a major restructuring. The College of Law Limited was created as a private limited company to take on its educational and training business. The parent charity changed its name to the Legal Education Foundation. In April of that year, Montagu Private Equity agreed to buy The College of Law Limited for approximately £200 million.Rayner, Jonathan (17 April 2012). "College of Law sold in £200m private equity deal". The Law Society Gazette On 22 November 2012, it was announced that the college had been granted full university status and its name would be changed to "The University of Law". Shortly thereafter, Montague Private Equity completed the acquisition process. This raised questions about the legality of transferring the degree-awarding powers granted under royal charter to the original College of Law to the newly created company, and then selling that company, now with university status, to a for-profit provider. The UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills explained that while degree-awarding powers cannot be transferred, when a whole institute changes its legal status, the powers remain with it. This was considered to be the case with The University of Law because all of the original College of Law's education and training business had been transferred to the for-profit college, and the activities remaining with the chartered body were not related to the degree-awarding powers. Dame Fiona Woolf was named the newly created university's first chancellor in 2013.Baksi, Catherine (11 November 2013). "Woolf is University of Law's first chancellor". Law Society Gazette. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
The university began selling off its property portfolio on a leaseback basis in 2014, starting with the four buildings of its Bloomsbury campus. According to analysis of the university's accounts earlier that year by the Times Higher Education Supplement, the purchase by Montagu Private Equity in 2012 had loaded the university with £177m of debt.Staff Reporter (18 December 2014). "University of Law eyes property sales". The Law Society Gazette. Critics had compared the purchase by Montagu Private Equity to the leveraged buyouts of Premier League clubs in English football. At the time, The University of Law's ultimate parent company was L-J Holdco Ltd., which was incorporated in Guernsey and majority owned by Montagu-managed funds.John Morgan, "For-profit won the title (and a 'Premier League’'debt to boot)", Times Higher Education, No. 2, 150, 1–7 May 2014, p. 6.
In June 2015, Montagu Private Equity sold the university to Global University Systems (GUS) for an undisclosed sum. Former UK Education and Employment Secretary and Home Secretary David Blunkett, at the time a visiting lecturer at the London School of Business and Finance (also owned by Global University Systems), was named chairman of the board. The University of Law announced the launch of its De Broc School of Business in July 2015, but it had to defer the first intake of students (originally planned for September of that year) due to low student recruitment.QAA (October 2015). Specific Course Designation: Report of the monitoring visit of The University of Law. Archived version retrieved 12 September 2019.
The College of Law had established pro bono clinics, with students undertaking legal advice work for free supervised by the college's lecturers. In March 2015, The University of Law obtained an alternative business structure licence, allowing it to expand its legal advice clinics.Keenan, Denis J. and Smith, Kenneth (2007). Smith & Keenan's English Law: Text and Cases, p. 111. Pearson Education. Rogerson, Paul (4 May 2015). "Profits surge at University of Law" Law Society Gazette It also restructured its Legal Practice Courses to give students more choice and won contracts to develop law firm-specific LPC programmes for three magic circle firms – Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance and Linklaters. However, by the end of 2014, it had retained only Linklaters, having lost the contracts with Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance, who moved to BPP Law School.Kalia, Jaishree (2 June 2015). "Having lost two Magic Circle clients, University of Law sold to GUS less than three years after purchase". Legal Business. Retrieved 2 June 2016.