Careers and employability
The School of Law and Criminal Justice is committed to enhancing your employability, providing you with real-world experiences and helping you to find the right career path for you.
Career development opportunities are embedded into your programmes and offered through extracurricular activities. Our practice-focused modules are designed to provide you with an immersive learning experience and are taught by leading experts or practitioners, allowing you to develop your theoretical knowledge and practical skills through simulations of real-world scenarios.
We also offer a wide range of extracurricular activities to enhance your skills and provide you with real life experience. This may include: work placements, insight days, site visits, field trips, bespoke careers fairs, alumni panels, external speakers and masterclasses, and commercial awareness programmes. You will also be able to participate in numerous employer-led workshops and internal or external competitions such as the Jessup International Law Moot, CEDR National Student Negotiation Competition and the international Sports Arbitration Moot.
These opportunities allow you to network with employers, gain real-world experience and develop your graduate attributes – the skills needed for employment. As an Edge Hill student you will also have access to our excellent University Careers Team which offers career guidance, support with CV and application writing and help searching for part-time work or graduate roles.
The School also has close links with employers and organisations across the legal and criminal justice sectors and beyond, including leading national and international law firms and barristers’ chambers, North West police forces, HM Prison and Probation Service, HM Courts and Tribunal Service and third sector organisations. Our links are also strengthened by our Professional Advisory Panels which meet biannually to advise on the development of our programmes and extracurricular activities.
We are extremely successful in getting you into high-level and rewarding careers from the moment you graduate. Our alumni (former students) frequently return for our annual Alumni Panels to share their experiences and networks through their positions as: Senior Crown Prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), barrister at 4 King’s Bench Walk Chambers, in-house solicitor at BAE Systems and Legal Director at Moderna. Our alumni have also secured roles in various police forces (e.g. Merseyside, GMP, Cheshire, Lancashire, North Wales, Isle of Man, Staffordshire, Northumbria, Sussex), the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the National Crime Agency and the Home Office.
Joining our School therefore means that you are supported not just with your academic studies but with your career journey too.
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The School hosts a number of events which students from across the School can attend. Not only do they provide students with an expert insight into interesting areas of law, criminal justice and policing they also allow students to network with practitioners and Edge Hill graduates. At these events, the School has attracted lots of people including; a former in-house lawyer for Microsoft, a senior Crown Prosecutor, the in-house lawyer for Everton Football Club and the Vice President of the International Criminal Court.
An example of past events include a media law seminar, with guest speaker Paul Tweed, a libel lawyer, who has represented clients such as Britney Spears, Whitney Houston and Liam Neeson, providing an excellent insight into his work. The Vice President of the International Criminal Court gave a keynote speech at an Edge Hill conference on 15 years of the International Criminal Court.
The School organises mooting workshops which enhance our students’ mooting and advocacy skills. A moot is an oral presentation of a legal issue or problem against an opposing team and before a panel of judges. It is perhaps the closest experience that you will have whilst at university to appearing in court.
You will be given the opportunity to join the School Mooting Society and enter the internal mooting competitions. The final of the competition is judged by members of the legal profession, with all the finalists representing Edge Hill University in the external mooting competitions.
The legal professional advisory panel comprises representatives of local and regional legal practices. The Panel is chaired by Adam Pendlebury and meets with members of the School two or three times a year, and provides a forum for discussion of current issues of relevance to our degree programmes and to legal practitioners. We are particularly concerned to ensure that future developments in law provision at Edge Hill are informed by the needs and requirements of practice.
The Criminal Justice professional advisory panel has members from a range of criminal justice and related occupations including the police, probation, prison service, youth services, social housing and victim support. The Panel is chaired by Sean Creaney and meets with members of the Department’s criminology team twice yearly. The Panel is a forum for discussion of current issues of relevance to local practitioners and to our criminology and criminal justice students. We are particularly interested in opportunities for student volunteering and with issues of employability.
The School runs a Pro Bono Law Clinic.
Undergraduate third year law students provide free of charge legal advice to students and staff at the University as well as members of the public. The students providing legal advice are supervised by experienced legal practitioners who are academic staff members of the School, as well as legal practitioners working for a range of practices based in the region. The key aims of the initiative are to enable students to gain practical experience of working in legal practice and to provide a no-cost advisory legal service to the student community.
Director of the Law Clinic and Solicitor Charles Lawrence said:
“Today’s law employers expect students to have completed work experience to be considered for legal practice roles. Law students who go further by interviewing and advising real clients gain a significant advantage, demonstrating to employers their commitment and the necessary skills for modern legal practice.”
Director of the Law Clinic and Solicitor Charles Lawrence
To develop further networking opportunities and career development advice for our graduates, the School has an established Law Alumni Association.
We are keen to maintain our relationships with students after they graduate and to hear about how their careers progress. We regularly invite our past students to careers talks, which enables them to share their career experiences with our current students. Graduates give a lot of inspiration to our current students, and practical advice to help them in their job search and career planning.
Our Law Alumni Association, consisting of over 400 Edge Hill law graduates, is committed to promoting work experience and networking opportunities for our law students. The Association is dedicated to providing mentoring for current students by way of informal chats and careers talks. The law Alumni association in conjunction with the Law team hosts an annual Question Time Event. Law graduates on the panel have included solicitors, solicitor advocates, barristers, lecturers, a CPS trainee, a company secretary, a football association Judicial panel member and a Super League Rugby referee.
The Executive Committee of the Law Alumni Association is comprised of current undergraduates, student law society representatives, academic staff, alumni and members of the professional community. The Executive Team work to provide an exciting collection of activities for the Community to get involved with, including:
- annual Lecture Series
- Undergraduate Awards (attended by Alumni)
- Programme of Professional Networking Events.
The School, in conjunction with the Student Law Society, host an annual Law Alumni Question time and networking event. The panel is made up predominantly of Edge Hill Law Graduates from the legal profession. It provides an excellent opportunity for Edge Hill Law students to find out more about life as a lawyer and develop key professional skills.
Two of our graduates shared their experience at the event:
“The question time panel was a great way to develop my networking skills which will be essential in my future career path.”
Eleanor Groves LLB law with Criminology Graduate
“The question time panel was an informative and innovative way to establish industry connections that are really tough to make on your own.”
Carl Disley LLB Law Graduate
As you can see from this video, Alumni and panel members provide excellent advice to Edge Hill Law students.
This award recognises excellence, with the successful student winning a certificate and a summer vacation scheme with Myerson Solicitors LLP, a top-tier ranked law firm in the Northwest.
The award winner can experience up to four seats in Commercial, Construction and Corporate, Commercial Litigation and Commercial Property, Employment, Intellectual Property, IT/Technology, Property Litigation and Residential Conveyancing.
The Celebrate Excellence in Law Award, will be awarded to the highest achiever in Advanced Lawyers Skills for this academic year. Along with a certificate and trophy, the winning student will be awarded three weeks work experience on a part time basis and receive from CEL Solicitors £500.
CEL Solicitors are a nationwide family-run law firm, specialising in civil litigation. Services include: general civil litigation, commercial and private, property litigation, data breach claims, Japanese knotweed claims, Plevin and financial mis-selling claims and housing disrepair claims.
Your work experience will take place at the head office, which is based in the centre of Liverpool.
Best of luck.
Contact us
If you would like to find out more about our careers and employability support, or if you are an employer who can potentially make placements available in your organisation, please contact Jennifer Giblin