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LLM International Business Law and Practice

Develop the knowledge and skills to advise businesses, and gain unique experience of real cases and projects, assisting clients in our Baroness Hale Legal Clinic.

Year of entry: 2025 (September)

Length

1 year full-time

Department

York Law School

Start date

September 2025 (semester dates)

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Understand how lawyers use the law and legal structures to formalise business relationships and transactions, and manage clients’ commercial risks. Then, put this into practice advising clients, under the supervision of a lawyer, on their legal business issues in our Baroness Hale Legal Clinic.

On our International Business Law and Practice course, you can personalise learning to gain international perspectives on business, trade and commerce; engage with commercial, corporate and financial transactions; and gain insight into corporate finance, intellectual property and employment law.

You'll also develop legal skills in research, document analysis, drafting, problem-solving and advising, as well as your commercial awareness. You can also select specialist modules on business negotiation and arbitration.

Your course culminates with a unique opportunity to gain legal experience in our Baroness Hale Law Clinic. Working in a small group student law firm, supervised by a qualified lawyer, you will advise real clients on a range of business and related issues, further developing your professional legal skills and commercial awareness.

2nd for 'Learning opportunities'

among the Russell Group universities included for law in the 2024 National Student Survey (NSS).

Problem-based learning

A modern, dynamic learning method that ensures you experience and understand law in its practical, social and theoretical contexts

Course content

Through our combination of core and option modules, you'll developed a solid knowledge base of business law and practice, while also tailoring the course to focus on areas of practice and commercial activity that interest you most.

The York Law School pedagogy combines academic rigour with a professional, practical focus, and therefore whatever options you select will provide a platform to benefit from the experience and learning opportunities provided in the Business Law Clinic capstone module in the summer semester.

Modules

Core modules

  • Law, Commerce and Finance
  • Business Law Clinic

Option modules

You will also study five option modules - two in Semester 1 and three in Semester 2. Examples can be found below. Some option module combinations may not be possible. The options available to you will be confirmed after you begin your course. In previous years, options have covered topics such as:

Our modules may change to reflect the latest academic thinking and expertise of our staff, and in line with Department/School academic planning.

The York approach

Every course at York is built on a distinctive set of learning outcomes. These will give you a clear understanding of what you will be able to accomplish at the end of the course and help you explain what you can offer employers. Our academics identify the knowledge, skills, and experiences you'll need upon graduation and then design the course to get you there.

Students who complete this course will be able to:

  • Demonstrate a systematic understanding of the legal forms and regulation of businesses and their activities.
  • Critically analyse and evaluate proposed business activities and transactions to identify legal, commercial and procedural issues .
  • Apply appropriate research techniques to locate relevant primary and secondary sources, including practitioner know-how and precedents, applicable to the issues in hand.   
  • Analyse and interpret business contracts to be able to advise on the impact of specific provisions on business clients.
  • Apply relevant regulation, and adapt legal problem-solving strategies, to develop and advise on proposed solutions to meet the interests and objectives of business clients.
  • Communicate their analysis of legal and procedural issues, and legal advice, clearly and concisely to specialist and non-specialist audiences.
  • Act autonomously and as part of a team in planning and implementing tasks at a professional level to respond to business clients.
  • Apply, in business-related legal scenarios, an advanced awareness of ethical and professional values and codes of conduct.
The staff are the best part of studying at the University of York, their expertise and style elegantly guided me through each subject area. The student body is actively invited to work alongside staff for the betterment of the students, courses and university as a whole.
Kristian, LLM Law

Fees and funding

Annual tuition fees for 2025/26

Study modeUK (home)International and EU
Full-time (1 year) £11,200£25,900

Students on a Student Visa are not currently permitted to study part-time at York.

Fees information

UK (home) or international fees? The level of fee that you will be asked to pay depends on whether you're classed as a UK (home) or international student. Check your fee status.

Find out more information about tuition fees and how to pay them.

Funding information

Discover your funding options to help with tuition fees and living costs.

We'll confirm more funding opportunities for students joining us in 2025/26 throughout the year.

If you've successfully completed an undergraduate degree at York you could be eligible for a 10% Masters fee discount.

Funding opportunities

Chevening Scholarships

We are pleased to work with Chevening Scholars to offer funding for our Masters programmes. Chevening Scholarships provide one year of fully-funded postgraduate study in the UK for international (including EU) students. The scholarships are open to early and mid-career professionals who have the potential to become future leaders.

Living costs

You can use our living costs guide to help plan your budget. It covers additional costs that are not included in your tuition fee such as expenses for accommodation and study materials.

Teaching and assessment

Throughout the programme, you will study, learn and be supported and supervised by a faculty of experienced legal practitioners and leading academics. Our transactional and problem-based learning approaches to learning will provide you with the understanding, skills and experience needed to develop and succeed in a global workplace.

Teaching format

Dependent on your option choices, teaching methods will include problem-based learning, transaction simulations, and working in student law firms.

Problem-Based Learning

A core teaching method employed in some of our modules is problem-based learning. This will involve you working in a “student law firm” in which you will work on simulated, real-life corporate and commercial law problems brought to you by virtual clients. You'll learn to identify the relevant legal principles, and unravel the legal and contextual issues that lie at the heart of the problem. As in real life, the problems are messy, and typically involve several legal topics interacting and overlapping.

Additional learning resources

You'll also learn through a range of other resources, including practical workshops, practitioner know-how, transactional documentation, and a variety of relevant material in our virtual learning environment.

Teaching location

York Law School is located on Campus East. Nearly all of your teaching will take place within the Law building or nearby on Campus East.

About our campus

Our beautiful green campus offers a student-friendly setting in which to live and study, within easy reach of the action in the city centre. It's easy to get around campus - everything is within walking or pedalling distance, or you can always use the fast and frequent bus service.

Assessment and feedback

We use a variety of assessment methods to help you develop different transferable skills. These include client advice, coursework, file management, presentations and participation in workshops.

Careers and skills

The opportunity to engage with real cases and projects for business clients through the York Law Clinic will provide invaluable experience in developing the skills required for employability in the legal sector, which skills are also transferable to a wide range of alternative professions and employment. The range of options open to students provides additional opportunities to advise simulated clients on transactions and problems that have been developed by tutors with experience as legal practitioners.

You will also be supported by a dedicated law specialist employability tutor, who will provide support and feedback on applications, assessment centres and interviews, as well as opportunities to participate in a range of interactions with law firms and practitioners.

Career opportunities

  • Lawyer
  • Commercial in-house lawyer
  • Banking and finance
  • Business consultancy
  • Government and civil service
  • Local government

Transferable skills

  • Advising business clients
  • Commercial awareness
  • Problem-solving
  • Critical thinking
  • Document analysis
  • Legal writing and drafting
  • Practical legal research

Entry requirements

Typical offer
Undergraduate degree 2:2 or equivalent in Law or Management.
Other international qualifications Equivalent qualifications from your country

English language

If English isn't your first language you may need to provide evidence of your English language ability. We accept the following qualifications:

Minimum requirement
IELTS (Academic and Indicator) 6.5, minimum 6.0 in each component
Cambridge CEFR B2 First: 176, with 169 in each component
Oxford ELLT 7, minimum of 6 in each component
Duolingo 120, minimum 105 in all other components
LanguageCert SELT B2 with 33/50 in each component
LanguageCert Academic 70 with a minimum of 65 in each component
Kaplan Test of English Language 459-494, with 426-458 in all other components
Skills for English B2: Merit overall, with Pass with Merit in each component
PTE Academic 61, minimum 55 in each component
TOEFL 87, minimum of 21 in each component
Trinity ISE III Merit in all requirements

For more information see our postgraduate English language requirements.

If you haven't met our English language requirements

You may be eligible for one of our pre-sessional English language courses. These courses will provide you with the level of English needed to meet the conditions of your offer.

The length of course you need to take depends on your current English language test scores and how much you need to improve to reach our English language requirements.

After you've accepted your offer to study at York, we'll confirm which pre-sessional course you should apply to via You@York.

Applying

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