Career Options / Information

To LLB students intending to qualify in Hong Kong.

Dear Students,

We have recently been notified, by letter dated 20 February 2006, by the Office of the Solicitor-General in Hong Kong, of changes starting in the 2008-09 academic year in respect of admission to Hong Kong's professional exams, the PCLL.. Information is available on the following websites, and we suggest that you check the position there.
www.hku.hk/pcll/
www.cityu.edu.hk/cityu/dpt-acad/slw.htm
www.cuhk.edu.hk/law/pcll.html

The changes apply to students taking the PCLL in the academic year 2008-09. Broadly the position seems to be that students taking an LLB outside Hong Kong will have to have covered certain important 'core' subjects in their LLB, or else take them, or part of them, as 'add-ons' in Hong Kong before they can take the PCLL. The provisions for taking these add-ons have not yet been finalised in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong 'core' courses are: contract, tort, constitutional law, criminal law, land law, equity, evidence, business associations, commercial law, civil procedure and criminal procedure. Most of these are the subject areas of courses of the same name that are offered at UCL, although it is not yet known whether the UCL syllabuses for these courses are the same in relevant respects as the Hong Kong syllabuses.

At UCL the public law 1 and 2 courses cover some constitutional law, the property 1 and 2 courses cover some land law and equity, the company law course covers some business associations law.

We do not have details of the syllabuses of the Hong Kong core courses and so we cannot tell whether UCL's LLB courses meet those requirements.

Nor do we have information about requirements such as hours of teaching etc that will ensure that UCL courses are treated as equivalent to those offered at a university in Hong Kong.

We do not offer LLB courses on civil procedure and criminal procedure at present, though we shall be considering whether to introduce courses that cover these topics in due course.

UCL LLB graduates returning to Hong Kong may therefore have to take exams there in parts of the above subjects if they have not been covered in the UCL LLB programme.

In addition, all LLB graduates who have taken their degrees outside Hong Kong will be required to take top up subjects in Hong Kong in Hong Kong Constitutional Law, Hong Kong Legal System, Hong Kong Land Law.

Dawn Oliver
Director of Teaching