香港大学

Programme Aims and Features

The Bachelor of Laws (LLB) offers an education in fundamental legal concepts and subjects, as well as a wider liberal-arts education. In 2004-05, the LLB became a four-year programme, in line with recommendations made by government-appointed consultants. Under the 2012 curriculum reform, the LLB remains as a 4-year programme. The four-year LLB provides students with greater opportunities to address the following challenges:

• Acquiring a solid foundation in legal knowledge, transferable critical and analytical skills, and broadening of intellectual horizons
• Developing a high level of language proficiency
• Preparing for vocational training in the new skill-based PCLL
• Understanding globalisation and the changing international scene
• Understanding the close interaction between the systems of China and Hong Kong
• Developing maturity

The LLB comprises a professional core which equip students with a solid foundation in legal knowledge, and elective courses which allow students exposure to the broader context in which the law operates. Students will have the opportunity to obtain a minor in a non-law area, or to obtain specialization in a specific area of law.

In addition to our 4-year LLB, students may also consider choosing to study on one of the following related programmes:

a 5-year Integrated Double Degree Programme that is jointly offered with the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Business and Economics or the Faculty of Social Sciences; or
the 4-year and 5-year Dual Degree Programme jointly offered with UCL and PKU respectively, which will enable graduates to obtain two LLBs from two top-ranking law schools in the world (HKULLB and UCLLLB / PKULLB), and open paths to legal qualifications in both jurisdictions. Applicants may refer to the programme information on the relevant website and submit an application through the online application system.

Career Prospects

Hong Kong is a fascinating, stimulating environment for the study and practice of law because of its position as an international centre of trade and finance. Under the Basic Law, the existing law of Hong Kong will remain fundamentally unchanged for 50 years from 1997, which means that the Common Law, based on the English system, continues to apply. Hong Kong lawyers are playing a larger role in the modernisation of China, as well as in the constitutional and legal questions associated with the change of sovereignty – so Chinese law is also relevant. International trade and humanitarian law are becoming increasingly important, too.

Many graduates of the Faculty of Law are now serving the Hong Kong community as solicitors, barristers, magistrates and judges, corporate counsel and government lawyers. Others are teaching law in Hong Kong's three law schools. Our alumni have served as chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association, Permanent Judge of the Court of Appeal and Judges of the High Court. Many have also been appointed Senior Counsel or joined the governing bodies of the legal profession in Hong Kong, the Bar Council of the Hong Kong Bar Association and the Council of the Law Society of Hong Kong.

Faculty graduates can also be found pursuing a wide range of careers that at first sight might seem to have little to do with law. Some of our graduates become senior figures serving the business sector, political leaders, chairpersons of statutory bodies, and senior civil servants and journalists.