Should prospective lawyers do a Law degree?

Lord Sumption – a Justice of the UK Supreme Court – is reported to have said that “it is best not to read law as an undergraduate”, and that people intending to become lawyers should instead study another subject at university. It is certainly the case that many people who did not study Law at university go on to become lawyers – and, in some cases, Lord Sumption being a case in point, very successful ones.  But does this mean that prospective lawyers shouldn’t do Law at university? For a view that stands in contrast to Lord Sumption’s, take a look at this short video on the Cambridge Law Faculty website, in which one of my colleagues, Professor Graham Virgo, explains why studying Law at university is valuable – whether or not you eventually decide to practice as a lawyer: