Alex Hughes LLB Law (European Legal Studies)
Alumni 2014
The University of Southampton has a fantastic reputation for the quality of staff it employs within the Law School. Many of the lecturers are leading academics in their field and the opportunity to benefit from the high quality of teaching was a key reason for choosing to study here.
The careers events here really helped me get a clear idea of what I wanted to do and helped me boost my CV.
A memorable highlight of my time at the University is representing the University at an International Mooting competition hosted by University College Dublin. I managed to reach the Grand Final of the competition that was judged by four Irish Supreme Court judges, among others. Another standout highlight was winning the UK Law Undergraduate of the Year Award in 2014. The teaching and support at the Law School went a long way in helping me win this fantastic award.
The Law School runs a fantastic exchange programme and I took the opportunity to study French Law in Paris during my third year. I also took an active role in representing the University in mooting competitions and representing the students on my course as the Law School Academic President. These opportunities have vastly improved my ability to research effectively and articulate legal arguments.
It goes without saying that Law is a very demanding degree. However, the quality of the teaching at Southampton makes it manageable and what I enjoy most is being encouraged to develop my own ideas and views on different areas of law.
The Law School careers service provided a variety of fantastic opportunities to expose students to employers, whether it be through workshops, mock interviews, debates, and much more. The student-run Law Society and Inns of Court Society equally provided excellent careers opportunities to students. The careers events really helped me get a clear idea of what I wanted to do and helped me boost my CV. As a result I was able to obtain mini-pupillages and vacation schemes with various Law firms. This shows that law students at Southampton are highly sought after by employers, mainly due to the strong academic results they achieve from first-class teaching, developing key skills through extra-curricular activity and obtaining relevant work experience thanks to the fantastic work experience.
I am currently a trainee at Latham & Watkins LLP. I completed my first seat in Litigation & International Arbitration and I am now sitting in the Corporate department, focussing primarily on Private Equity and Strategic M&A work. The extra-curricular activities available through the Law School allowed me to develop many of the skills that I now use in practice, including presentation, negotiation and research skills. The teaching at Southampton encouraged me to research legal issues more widely to develop a more detailed understanding and to foster independent thought. This gave me more confidence in practice when researching legal issues on behalf of clients.
My advice to students is to take advantage at an early stage of the fantastic careers network that the Law School has built over the years as well as all the extra-curricular activities that are on offer. Not only will this make you stand out on application forms and give you an edge in assessment days, but it will also allow you to develop many of the core skills required in practice.