Law and Business with Foundation Year
Law and business is a combination that equips you to understand two of the most important frameworks shaping organisational life. Law provides the rules, rights, and obligations within which all commercial activity takes place, and understanding it is essential for anyone operating in or advising businesses. Business and management adds the strategic, financial, and operational knowledge needed to understand how organisations work in practice and what makes them succeed or fail.
Together, the two disciplines produce graduates who can think legally and commercially simultaneously, which is a rare and genuinely valuable capacity.
At Birkbeck this four-year full-time LLB programme provides both strong links to the legal profession and connections to the world of business and management. You will study core legal subjects essential for practising lawyers, building the knowledge of substantive law and legal reasoning that underpins legal qualification. Alongside this, you will develop your understanding of how businesses function, covering areas such as company law, commercial contracts, and the regulatory environments within which firms operate.
The programme offers access to law clinics and progression agreements with major vocational training institutions, giving you a supported route towards the next stages of legal education and qualification. Birkbeck's evening teaching model means the degree is structured to allow students with other commitments to study alongside work.
Graduates of law and business programmes find careers across a wide range of legal and commercial settings. Training contracts with law firms, particularly those specialising in commercial, corporate, or financial law, are a primary destination, as are roles in in-house legal teams at companies, financial institutions, and public bodies. The business knowledge you develop is particularly valuable in commercial law contexts.
Some graduates pursue roles in compliance, regulation, or management consulting, while others continue to the Legal Practice Course or Bar Professional Training Course to qualify as a solicitor or barrister. Further study in business law, corporate governance, or related fields is also available for those wishing to specialise further.