Law degree transferable skills

Jun 04, 2024

Written By Billy Sexton

Whether you decide to follow a career path in law after your degree or not, you will also develop a load of transferable skills during your law degree that make you super attractive to any employer.

So, you’re planning to jet off to university to study law? Perhaps you’re even there right now, reading away and swotting up for your next seminar or essay.

Those with a law degree are highly respected by others, not least because of all the knowledge you soak up on criminal or land law. But what other transferable skills will you develop by studying a law course?

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What are transferable skills?

“Slow down! What exactly are transferable skills?”

Transferable skills aren’t skills that you buy from another student because you think it’ll make you better at doing something like football clubs do. Rather, they’re skills you learnt in one aspect of studying or life and are able to transfer that skill to another part of your life.

For example, time management is a transferable skill that you will develop throughout your studies.

Remember the time you had eight GCSE exams in one week and had to organise your time to revise for each exam effectively? Well, what’s stopping you applying that effective time management in another area of life? Such as the workplace or at university? That’s right, absolutely nothing!

Which transferable skills do I learn by studying law?

Now that we’ve established what a transferable skill is, what skills do you pick up by studying law? Well, there’s bloomin’ loads but we’ll take you through the most important ones.

First up on the law transferable skills conveyor belt is one very shiny research, analysis and evaluation skill, up for grabs to all law students.

Throughout your law degree you will write countless essays and revise for numerous exams, taking on loads of complex information and constructing clear arguments.

Oh, and by doing this you’re also writing concisely, comparing theories and arguments and reaching a conclusion based on evidence – other useful transferable skills.

Other transferable skills you gain by studying law include the ability to work effectively with others. This could be through a group presentation or even some extracurricular activity such as law society mooting or pro bono work.

This shows you can set group targets, work professionally with others, reach agreements and respect different viewpoints.

You’re probably starting to realise all the transferable skills you can pick up by studying law, but we’ll continue to list them anyway, because we’re kind like that at AllAboutLaw.

If you do a law degree, it’s highly likely that you’ll have to do a spoken presentation at some point, giving you practice in presenting in a clear and effective way and the ability to think on your feet.

With law being a very demanding academic subject, you’ll pick up loads of transferable skills that will be attractive to a range of employers, not just law firms.

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