Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

The Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge in September 2005
Undergraduates	700
Postgraduates	250
Location	Cambridge , Cambridgeshire , United Kingdom
Campus	Sidgwick Site
Website	www.law.cam.ac.uk

The Faculty of Law, Cambridge is the law school of the University of Cambridge.

The study of

The present-day faculty incorporates the Institute of Criminology as well as 11 Research Centres, including the world's leading research institute for international law, The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. The faculty has 31 professors, six readers, and over 70 other university, faculty and college teaching officers.^{[citation needed]} The student body comprises about 700 undergraduate and 250 postgraduate students. It is also home to the Cambridge University Law Society, the largest student-run law society in the United Kingdom and among the largest in the world.^{[citation needed]}

The BA Tripos undergraduate degree at Cambridge is intended to give a thorough grounding in the principles of law viewed from an academic rather than a vocational perspective.^[4] The faculty offers the following postgraduate degrees: the LLM, the MCL, the MLitt, the MPhil in Criminology, the MPhil in Criminological Research, the M.St in Applied Criminology, Penology and Management, the M.St in Applied Criminology and Police Management, the PhD in Criminology, and the PhD in Law.^[5][6] In addition, the faculty offers the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Studies and the Postgraduate Diploma in International Law.^[7]

Cambridge is unanimously ranked as the best law school in the UK by all major national academic league tables. It is currently ranked first by The Guardian,^[13] The Times/The Sunday Times' Good University Guide,^[14] and The Complete University Guide.^[15] Since it started publishing its annual rankings for 2010, The Guardian has ranked Cambridge first six times (2010,^[16] 2012,^[17] 2015,^[18] 2016,^[19] 2017,^[20] and 2018^[13]). The Complete University Guide has given the top spot to Cambridge since 2013^[21] and eight times in the last 11 years.^[22] The Times Good University Guide law rankings has Cambridge atop its league table since 2014.^[23]

In 2021, THE ranked Cambridge as the world's second best university for law in its 2021 subject rankings.^[24] In 2021, the QS World University Rankings ranked Cambridge as the world's third best university for law and legal studies.^[25]

The faculty is housed in the David Williams Building on the university's

The Squire Law Library, which occupies the majority of the first, second and third floors of the building, is a dependent library of Cambridge University Library.^[30] It contains one of the three largest legal collections in the UK with more than 180,000 volumes. The collection is very strong across UK law, the law of other major common law countries (the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand), international law and the law of the European Union, France and Germany. There are also smaller collections for the law of many other countries. The library provides its users with access to many major legal databases.

The library was founded in 1904, at first with only 8,000 volumes,

Most individual colleges also have a smaller law library of their own, while the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law has its own library composed of international law books and other related materials.

There are a number of groups and societies based around the Faculty of Law:

• Cambridge University Law Society
• Cambridge Societies at the Inns of Court (Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, and Middle Temple)
• Graduate Law Society
• The Cambridge University Society for Women Lawyers
• Cambridge University Students' Pro Bono Society
• Cambridge Pro Bono Project

Most colleges also have their own law societies.

Notable publications produced under the aegis of the faculty include:

• University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series ^[32]
• The Cambridge Law Journal
• International Law Reports
• Clarendon Studies in Criminology (joint venture with the criminology centres at Oxford and the London School of Economics)
• Cambridge Studies in English Legal History
• Cambridge International Law Journal^[33]

Named Chairs

• Downing Professor of the Laws of England (vacant since 2024)
• Helen Scott
  since 2022)
• Rouse Ball Professor of English Law (Louise Gullifer since 2019)
• Whewell Professor of International Law (Jan Klabbers elected in 2024 to take up the post in 2025)
• Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law (Alison Young since January 2018)
• S.J. Berwin Professor of Corporate Law (Brian Cheffins since 1998)
• Harold Samuel Professor of Law and Environmental Policy (Jorge E. Viñuales since 2013)

Others

• Trevor Allan, Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Law
• Catherine Barnard, Professor of European Union and Labour Law since 2008
• Eilís Ferran, Professor of Company and Securities Law since 2005
• Matthew Kramer, Professor of Legal and Political Philosophy
• Graham Virgo, Professor of English Private Law since 2007
• Richard Fentiman, Professor of Private International Law
• Jonathan Morgan, Professor of English Law