Programme

We will offer education mainly through lectures. Lectures in year 1 are mostly one-way, with some interaction. In addition, all courses have a working group. In that working group the theoretical framework offered in the lectures will be applied to cases. This allows you to get a better understanding of the theoretical framework, but also engages you more with the materials and teaches you to look at the world from a lawyer’s perspective. If you want to take the most out of the lectures and working groups, we strongly recommend that you read the literature for that week before the lectures.

In your first year, you will be guided through the transition from high school to university life in SYAC. You will explore essential topics to set a strong foundation for your degree. With small group sizes (half of your working group), you will easily connect with peers and build a supportive network. In these workshops you will be supported by mentors. These mentors are advanced Law students who understand the challenges you will face. They will help you navigate study-related subjects and answer your questions.

In the exams you will mainly be presented with case-based legal questions, so that you can demonstrate that you understand the law and also know how to apply it in specific cases. Because it is year 1 and you will also have to have foundational legal knowledge, some knowledge-questions will also be included in 1^st year exams.

Each year you will have specific courses that help shape your academic and legal skills. In these courses in the first block of the first year, your skills are practiced and tested during the working groups and the active participation that is required to participate in the final exam. See the course descriptions of these courses in Ocasys and (once the academic year has started) Brightspace for more details.

The aim of the use of the teaching methods ‘lecture’ and ‘working group’ is to equip you with the skills and mindset that you will need in your professional career:

• Lectures will teach you how to listen to a broad and sometimes detailed story, from which you can extract the key issues and relevant information. This skill is very important when you deal with clients in the future or have to respond to the legal team of your client’s opponent during negotiations.
• In working groups (and the exams), you will be applying course material to cases. In any legal job you will need to apply the law to specific cases, which requires you to identify the facts relevant to that particular case.

Dive into your 1^st year with confidence. Questions? Contact your study adviser or explore Ocasys for more details.

If you want to know exactly what the learning outcomes of the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) are and how the different courses contribute to these, you can have a look at the programme files from last academic year. They are available per track, which you will choose in year 2. All 1^st year courses are the same in both tracks. For more information about these tracks, please check here.