English Law & French Law

The joint LLB and Master 1 programme in English Law and French Law at King's College London is one of the most demanding and distinctive legal education programmes available in the UK. It provides a bi-juridical and bilingual education, developing fluency in both English common law and French civil law traditions and in the languages of legal reasoning in both English and French. This is not simply a matter of learning two legal systems: it is an education in how different legal traditions approach the fundamental questions of law, justice, and social organisation.

The programme is studied over four years full time and leads to a dual qualification: the LLB from King's and the Master 1 from a French partner institution. You will spend time studying in both countries, developing genuine linguistic and legal proficiency in both systems. The common law tradition, with its emphasis on precedent, judicial reasoning, and adversarial procedure, differs substantially from the codified civil law system of France, and understanding both gives you a sophisticated comparative perspective that is highly valued in international legal practice, particularly in corporate law, arbitration, and European and international institutions.

The programme is respected and valued by a wide range of employers, particularly those with interests across the Channel or within European and international legal contexts.

Graduates from this programme go on to careers in international law firms, European and international institutions, cross-border commercial practice, arbitration, and academia. The combination of bilingual legal competence and comparative legal understanding is genuinely rare and opens doors that a single-jurisdiction degree does not. Further study options include postgraduate degrees in international law, European law, and comparative private law.