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BCL Bachelor of Commercial Law

Start date
September
Duration
3 years, 4 years with year abroad
Course Type
Undergraduate
Fees

 

This programme is not currently accepting applications

There are close connections between the law and modern business enterprise. Lawyers acting for commercial clients can benefit from an understanding of organisations, their management and the way they structure their activities. People in business can benefit from a concrete knowledge of the law.

The Bachelor of Commercial Law (BCL) at Birmingham Law School is a comprehensive programme designed to equip students with a robust understanding of commercial law. This programme covers all traditional qualifying subjects, including criminal law, public law, contract law, tort law, land law, equity and trusts, and EU law, ensuring a well-rounded legal education.

What sets the BCL apart is its specialised focus on commercial law, preparing students for careers in major commercial jurisdictions worldwide.

Why study this course?


  • Specialised Focus: Emphasis on commercial law, preparing students for global careers.
  • Practical Skills: Strong emphasis on real-world applications and employability through or Centre for Employability, Professional Legal Education and Research.
  • Global Perspective: Designed for students aiming to practice in major commercial jurisdictions.
  • Experienced Faculty: Learn from leading experts in the field of commercial law.

 

Modules

Please note: You will take 120 credits of modules in each year of study. The modules listed on the website for this programme are regularly reviewed to ensure they are up-to-date and informed by the latest research and teaching methods. Unless indicated otherwise, the modules listed for this programme are for students starting in 2025. On rare occasions, we may need to make unexpected changes to compulsory modules; in this event we will contact offer holders as soon as possible to inform or consult them as appropriate.

First year:

  • English Legal System, Legal Skills and Method
  • Principles of Criminal Law & Regulation
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Decolonising Legal Concepts
  • Principles of Contract Law
  • Principles of Public Law

Second Year: Compulsory

  • Principles of Law of Torts
  • Principles of Property Law
  • Principles of Commercial Law
  • European Union and International Trade Law
  • Legal Solutions
  • International Dispute Resolution

Final Year: Compulsory

  • Equity, Trusts, Wills & Formalities

Final Year: Optional

  • Company Law
  • Private International Law
  • Employment Law in Practice
  • Intellectual Property
  • Environmental Law
  • Dissertation on a Prescribed Legal Topic
  • Legal Systems of the World
  • International & European Economic Law
  • Advocacy 
  • Contemporary Issues in International Law & Globalisation

Standard offer

International Requirements



Number of A levels required:
3

Alternative offers through our Pathways to Birmingham programmes and our Contextual Offer scheme

Students who are eligible and successfully complete a Pathways to Birmingham programme will receive special consideration from admissions tutors and an alternative offer (typically two grades below the standard offer). In addition, our Contextual Offer Scheme recognises the potential of students whose personal circumstances may have restricted achievement in school or college. If you are eligible to benefit from the contextual offer scheme, you will receive an offer which is one grade lower than the standard offer.

International Students

Depending on your chosen course of study, you may also be interested in one of our foundation pathways, which offer specially structured programmes for international students whose qualifications are not accepted for direct entry to UK universities. Further details can be found on Birmingham International Academy web pages.

Photograph of students consulting books in the University of Birmingham library

At Birmingham Law School the staff who teach you are frequent participants in legal debates and contribute regularly to the policy-making process. You will draw on their vast expertise to acquire essential skills that are highly valued in the competitive employment sector, from creativity and independence to team-working, goal-setting and problem-solving. 

Critical enquiry, debate and self-motivation, which we call enquiry-based learning, is central to learning and teaching here. This places you at the centre of your own learning process so that you learn through engagement and ownership and not simply by listening. 

Respondents to the National Student Survey have acknowledged the enthusiasm of our staff and their ability to explain things clearly and make material intellectually stimulating. We encourage all our students to challenge us and draw their own conclusions. 

What you can expect… 

Lectures 

Lectures are an important method of teaching used in the School, intended to provide a structured framework for learning and dispensing essential knowledge. They won't tell you all you need to know, but they should help you to navigate the reading you're expected to undertake to pursue your studies effectively. 

Seminars 

Seminars are smaller group classes, which involve the development and testing of ideas in discussion, with a high degree of student input. 

Providing a forum for discussion and exchange of ideas, in all seminars you are expected to be prepared and to participate. This is tremendously important at university level and will help you to clarify and extend your understanding of the topics you are studying, as well as develop confidence in expressing yourself orally. 

Seminars in Law also provide an opportunity to learn the difficult but vital skill of applying the law to factual situations. This is assessed in exams through ‘problem questions’. For some seminars you will be given the facts of problem questions in advance, and you devote time to working out your own answers beforehand, then testing those answers in argument during the seminar. 

Teaching staff 

Students at the University of Birmingham are taught by a mixture of professors, associate professors, assistant professors,  and doctoral researchers, thereby receiving a rich diversity of academic knowledge and experience. Many of our teaching staff have published important works about their areas of expertise, whilst others have taught at international institutions and can offer unique perspectives of their subjects. 

You can find out more about the members of staff (including their qualifications, publication history and specific areas of interest) in their academic profiles linked below. 

Contact Hours

All Birmingham degrees are set within a credit framework designed to measure your academic achievements. We expect all students to accumulate 120 credits in each full year of study which is equivalent to 45-54 hours of learning a week. Learning is considered to include contact learning (lectures and seminars), private study, revision and assessment. 
 
For this programme, those 45-54 hours are estimated to be broken down and split into lectures, seminars and other guided teaching opportunities and independent study. This is a general rule across the entire academic year and may change week by week.  
 
Year 1: 20% Lectures, Seminars or similar, 80% Independent study 
Year 2: 20% Lectures, Seminars or similar, 80% Independent study 
Year 3: 20% Lectures, Seminars or similar, 80% Independent study 

Assessment Methods

Birmingham Law School uses a variety of methods to assess student performance, this includes exams, essays and dissertations. At the beginning of each module, you'll be given information on how and when you'll be assessed for that particular programme of study. 

  • Examinations take place at the end of each semester and exam-based modules are typically assessed by a 3-hour exam. 
  • Essays vary in length (1500-3500 words) depending on whether the essay is only part of the assessment for the subject or whether the subject is assessed 100% by essay. 
  • The dissertation is an optional module in the final year of the LLB which is an individual research project into a specific topic which varies in length (up to 6,000 words). 

Studying at degree-level is likely to be very different from your previous experience of learning and teaching. You will be expected to think, discuss and engage critically with the subject and find things out for yourself. We will enable you to make this transition to a new style of learning, and the way that you are assessed during your studies will help you develop the essential skills you need to make a success of your time at Birmingham.  

Feedback 

Developing skills and enhancing academic performance is a key part of a university education and the Law School provide feedback on your work throughout your degree. 

  • You'll receive feedback on each assessment within four weeks, so that you can learn from and build on what you have done 
  • Individual feedback on academic performance is provided during progress review meetings with your Personal Academic Tutor throughout the year. 
  • All academic members of staff will have academic support  hours during which you can see them without prior appointment and speak to them on a 1-1 basis to discuss feedback or other academic support you may require. 

Birmingham Law School Skills Academy 

In addition to the feedback you will receive from academic staff , our Birmingham Law School Skills Academy team will help you to develop skills which are crucial to legal study. We run regular drop-in sessions and workshops open to all undergraduate Law students. Recent workshops have included: 

  • How to prepare for seminars and lectures 
  • How to answer essay and problem questions 
  • How to read cases and articles 
  • How to learn from feedback and tackling common mistakes 
  • How to manage your time effectively 
  • How to prepare for exams 

Student support 

You will have access to a comprehensive support system to help you make the transition to higher education when you start at Birmingham: 

Personal academic tutors – You will be assigned your own personal academic tutor who will get to know you as you progress through your studies. They will provide academic support and advice to enable you to make the most of your time here at Birmingham. 

Wellbeing Officers – Alongside your personal academic tutor, you will also have access to dedicated wellbeing officers who provide professional support, advice and guidance to students across a range of issues. They can meet with you to discuss extensions, disabilities, reasonable adjustments, extenuating circumstances, or talk through any problems you might be experiencing, and help you access wider support on campus and beyond if you need it. 

Our Student Experience Team will help you get the most out of your academic experience. They offer research opportunities, study skills support, and help you prepare for your post-university career. They also organise social events, such as field trips, to help you meet fellow students from your course. 

Birmingham Law School's Centre for Employability, Professional Legal Education and Research (CEPLER) provides a diverse range of opportunities and activities to enhance knowledge, skills, confidence and employability - all the things that help graduates to stand out from the crowd in a competitive jobs market.

Our students can benefit from activities, opportunities, help and resources in areas including:

Careers

  • CEPLER's extensive provision of careers lectures and skills workshops offers advice and guidance on a range of specialist areas of law and legally-related careers, in addition to practical skills sessions on how to present yourself and succeed at interview. View information on our careers lectures provision. Or find out about other careers activities.
    • We are forging links right across the legal community and beyond to public, third sector and non-law commercial organisations to provide valuable work experience placements. 

Pro Bono

  • CEPLER's Pro Bono Group began in 2009 and has grown from one Street Law Project to a diverse portfolio of opportunities to build your experience and serve the community. Visit the Pro Bono Group page for full details on the range of projects.

Mooting & Advocacy

  • Being able to evidence your experience of advocacy is a key advantage in the over-subscribed legal profession. CEPLER offers skills sessions and three Mooting competitions, as well as Debating and Negotiation.

Education

  • CEPLER is developing new and innovative approaches to teaching to give you experience of real world law. So far, we have introduced two new practice-based modules: Regulation of the Legal Profession, which will encourage you to question assumptions about lawyers and their role in society; and Advocacy, which covers a range of skills such as mooting, negotiation and mediation, along with court observations and presentation skills development.

Professional Accreditation

Barristers

The various LLB Law degrees at Birmingham Law School cover the areas of Law that are required in order to meet the academic requirements for qualifying as a Barrister. On successful completion of the degree, intending Barristers must take the Bar Course, which is a further one-year full-time postgraduate course. There then follows a one-year period of Pupillage – a form of apprenticeship in a Barrister’s chambers. Birmingham Law School has a member of staff who specialises in supporting students who are seeking careers as Barristers.

Solicitors

On the 1st of September 2021, the Solicitors Regulation Authority changed their qualifying system to introduce the new Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). Previous pathways will continue to be ran during a 10-year transition period to 2031 if you are enrolled prior to the change. There are a range of options to assist students with preparing for the SQE, and Birmingham Law School has an arrangement with a high quality SQE training provider which offers discounted SQE preparation fees to Birmingham Law School graduates. Under the new SQE pathway, candidates must:

All of our LLB Law degrees satisfy the first requirement, and there will also be opportunities during the degree for students to develop some of the legal knowledge and skills that are relevant to the SQE.

Again, Birmingham Law School has a dedicated member of staff who provides advice and organises events to support students who are looking to qualify as Solicitors. 

  • Meets the Law Society of Northern Ireland (LSNI) requirement of an acceptable law degree to qualify as a solicitor under the Law Degree Route
  • Meets the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) degree pre-requisite for the purposes of the Solicitor's Qualifying Exam
  • Meets the Bar Standards Board (BSB) requirement as part of the academic component covering the "Foundations of Legal Knowledge" subjects, as well as the skills associated with graduate legal work such as legal research which are required for commencing a course of Bar training