Diploma of Higher Education in Law

Studying law is stimulating in its own right and will assist you in developing important academic and employability skills. You’ll acquire the legal awareness needed to understand and apply the law and start to develop your skills of legal analysis and methods. Understanding how laws are made, the importance of legal rights and duties and how the law impacts society helps you understand society and your own role within it. You’ll be well prepared for further study, such as continuing on to complete our law degree, or career development in the law, business, government, education, charitable organisations and a wide range of other public-facing and regulatory roles.

Key features of the course

• Develops your understanding of the English legal system and the role and place of law in today’s society.
• Provides a specialist knowledge of Contract Law, the Law of Torts, Public Law and Criminal Law.
• Helps develop key legal skills with identifying legal issues and applying legal principles
• Can assist your career development by demonstrating your academic ability to potential employers.

A nationally recognised qualification in its own right, this diploma of higher education is also equivalent to the first two-thirds of the Bachelor of Laws with Honours (LLB) (R81).

Accessibility

We make all our qualifications as accessible as possible and have a comprehensive range of services to support all our students. The Diploma of Higher Education in Law uses a variety of study materials and has the following elements:

• studying online – some modules have a mixture of printed and online material, and others are entirely online. Online learning resources may include websites, audio/video media clips, and interactive activities such as online quizzes and tutorials
• finding external/third party material online
• using technology for research purposes involving access to catalogues and databases online
• continuous and end-of-module assessment in the form of essays, short answer questions
• using feedback: continuous assessment involves receiving detailed feedback on your work from your tutor and using this feedback to improve your performance

This qualification develops your learning in four main areas:

• Knowledge and understanding
• Cognitive skills
• Practical and professional skills
• Key skills

The level and depth of your learning gradually increase as you work through the qualification. You’ll be supported throughout by the OU’s unique style of teaching and assessment – which includes a personal tutor to guide and comment on your work; top quality course texts; e-learning resources like podcasts, interactive media and online materials; tutorial groups and community forums.

Course details

This qualification has two stages, each comprising 120 credits.

• You’ll start Stage 1 with an introduction to criminal law and the criminal court system and will then study tort law and the civil justice system.
• At Stage 2, you’ll build your legal knowledge with contract law and public law as well as choose two aspects of the law that are of particular interest.

Prepare for OU study with an Access module

We offer two starting points depending on how confident you are or how long it’s been since you last studied. Choose to dive straight in at Stage 1, or if you’d prefer some extra preparation, you can get started with an optional Access module.