Former teacher Tom joined RGU via the online LLB (Law) course to pursue his passion and take on a new challenge in his career.
He shares what he’s learned on a recent field trip to the Supreme Court in Glasgow organised by the Law School and tells us more about his experience of the online course.
The Supreme Court in Glasgow
A Journey to the Courtroom
It was fascinating to attend the UK Supreme Court, sitting in Glasgow’s City Chambers, a few hundred yards from the property under dispute – the famous Merchant City restaurant, Rogano.
Caught up in the end of term anxiety, I even received some of my coursework results while waiting in the queue for the metal detectors outside the court door. I have only just completed my first year on the Online LLB (Law) course, and having been a high-school teacher for the past decade it was great to be a participant – rather than organiser – in a ‘school trip’.
It was great to put some faces to names, and I’m grateful for the school’s efforts to organise the excursion. Living on one of the Inner Hebrides it would be impossible to study Law without the programme – though there’s not much they could do about the 48-hours door-to-door required to get up and down the road.
First Impressions of the Supreme Court
I thought the court would be intimidating, but in fact it was thrilling in a nervy way. Indeed, remembering my current career, the courtroom setting had something reminiscent of a classroom, or exam hall.
It was fascinating to see two advocates with dramatically different approaches present their cases to the five highly-respected legal experts comprising the bench – and to witness a case fought solely on points of law. The fact that the parties had settled the night before meant that nothing was at stake apart from the precedent it may set!
The rarified world of the Supreme Court was a world away from the everyday work of Sherrif-courts across Scotland. All the participants were laser focussed on issues of principle, and for the lawyers involved it must have felt like trying to make it through a PhD viva, given the serious interrogation of their understanding of the law.
It was hard to determine who had convinced the bench by the end – and it will be eight weeks before all is revealed – but it convinced me that even the apparently most esoteric areas of law can lead to high drama.
My Experience Studying Law Online as a Former Teacher
Motivations for Studying Law
During my career as a teacher, I worked for a time in a pastoral role, which meant taking a multi-agency approach alongside social work and police, as well as producing plans to support young people that had legal weight.
I’ve always been interested in the interaction between everyday life and politics, and it struck me that the law is the mechanism by which the different realms are connected.
After a decade organising classrooms I felt ready for a new challenge, and going back to a subject that had always interested me seemed like a great idea.
Online LLB v Traditional Classroom
As a teacher in the new post-Covid world, I was aware that the nature of learning had changed. I undertook my first degree in the early 2000s, with a very early version of Moodle, and a morning dash to grab a spot at a library computer.
The Online LLB is very well organised, and as materials are available for a semester in advance it allows me to fit my studies around full-time work. I live in rural Scotland and it would be simply impossible for me to attend a university campus as the nearest one is over two hours drive away.
Career Goals
I’ve come to admire my lecturers – which may potentially derail me into a more academic law route than I suspected! However, my experience in the classroom has always meant that I’ve been interested in family, criminal, and employment law.
It has always been important to me to support equality and justice of all sorts across disadvantaged social groups, and ideally I’d find a way to make a career in one of these areas. However, I’m only just going into my second year, so things might change!
Tom Coles
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