Law/History

Law and history at the University of Glasgow is a four-year undergraduate combination that reflects a genuine intellectual relationship between two disciplines. Law is not merely a set of rules: it is a system that has evolved over centuries in response to changing social, economic, and political conditions, and understanding how law operates today requires precisely the kind of historical perspective that history provides. Conversely, legal sources, charters, statutes, case records, and court proceedings are among the most important materials available to historians trying to understand past societies.

The two disciplines inform each other, and students who study them together develop a particularly sophisticated capacity for critical analysis of texts, arguments, and institutions.

At Glasgow, you will study Scots law in depth, with the Scottish legal system providing a distinctive context shaped by its own civil law tradition and its relationship with both English common law and European legal traditions. The history component allows you to engage with a broad range of periods and themes across British, European, and global history, developing your skills in archival research, critical reading of primary sources, and historical argument. The law curriculum covers the foundations of the Scottish legal system, constitutional and administrative law, contract, tort, and the areas of substantive law that form the core of any qualifying law degree.

The programme includes a year abroad, giving you experience of a different legal or historical tradition in an international academic environment.

Graduates from law and history programmes at Glasgow are well placed for careers in the legal profession, having studied a qualifying law degree, and they can proceed to the Diploma in Professional Legal Practice and then to training as a solicitor or advocate in Scotland, or to the relevant qualification in another jurisdiction. The combination also opens doors in public policy, the civil service, journalism, advocacy, and academic research. Many students go on to postgraduate study in law, history, legal history, or public policy.

The analytical rigour, capacity for close reading of complex texts, and ability to construct and evaluate arguments that the degree develops are valued across a very wide range of professional contexts beyond law and history themselves.