20th century The
Law Society of England and Wales created The College of Law in 1962 by merging its own
solicitors' training school, the Law Society School of Law (founded in 1903) with the tutorial firm
Gibson and Weldon (established in 1876). were officially
granted on 5 September 1967 to the then College of Law. The coat of arms of the College of Law of England and Wales was depicted with the
motto Leges Juraque Cognoscamus ("Let us know the laws and rights"). The
crest was deprecated when the institution became a private limited company. 's law books (1911) The college was created in its legal form by
Royal Charter on 5 December 1975. It was registered as a charity on 24 May 1976, with the aim "to promote the advancement of legal education and the study of law in all its branches". Following the recommendations of the Ormrod Report on the reform of legal education in England and Wales, The Law Society submitted proposals in 1975 for a 36-week Final Examination course for aspiring solicitors and a
Common Professional Examination (CPE) or law conversion course for non-law graduates to be taught at The College of Law. The first CPE was held in 1978. The number of institutions approved to deliver the CPE gradually increased until by 2006 the
BPP Law School and 27 universities, most of them former
polytechnics, were also running the course. However, the leading providers of the CPE (now called the
Graduate Diploma in Law) remained The College of Law and BPP Law School, whose enrollments still dwarfed those of the universities in 2010. In the 1980s, The Law Society asked the college to produce a scheme for additional tuition in accounts for articled clerks (now trainee solicitors), combining distance learning with one-day's attendance at lectures. Further distance learning courses were developed in a partnership with The Open University beginning in 1998. The 1990s saw a change in the relationship between The Law Society and The College of Law. In 1994,
Nigel Savage, then the dean of
Nottingham Trent University's law school, called for a review of the link between the college and The Law Society which had eight of its council members on the college's board of governors. Savage suggested that this gave the college an unfair advantage in recruiting students to the Legal Practice Course which had been set up The Law Society in 1993 to replace the Final Examination course. The society also regulated the course and determined which institutions would receive a licence to deliver it. He proposed that the college should either "come clean" about the relationship and declare itself the official college of The Law Society or sever the link and become completely independent. The college subsequently severed the link, and The Law Society stopped appointing college governors. Savage went on to become the president and CEO of The College of Law in 1996 and served in that capacity for the next 18 years.
21st century campus in 2007 The College of Law established
pro bono clinics, with students undertaking legal advice work for free supervised by the college's lecturers. In March 2015, The University of Law (as the college is now called) obtained an
alternative business structure licence, allowing it to expand its legal advice clinics. It also restructured its
Legal Practice Courses to give students more choice and won contracts to develop law firm-specific LPC programmes for three
magic circle firms –
Allen & Overy,
Clifford Chance and
Linklaters. However, by the end of 2014, it had retained only Linklaters, having lost the contracts with Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance, who moved to
BPP Law School. The college was granted degree-awarding powers by the
Privy Council in 2006, leading to development of its Bachelor and Master of Laws degree programmes. In 2012, The College of Law underwent a major restructuring. The College of Law Limited was created as a private limited company to take on its educational and training business. The parent charity changed its name to the
Legal Education Foundation. In April of that year,
Montagu Private Equity agreed to buy The College of Law Limited for approximately £200 million. On 22 November 2012, it was announced that the college had been granted full university status and its name would be changed to "The University of Law". Shortly thereafter, Montague Private Equity completed the acquisition process. This raised questions about the legality of transferring the degree-awarding powers granted under royal charter to the original College of Law to the newly created company, and then selling that company, now with university status, to a for-profit provider. The UK
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills explained that while degree-awarding powers cannot be transferred, when a whole institute changes its legal status, the powers remain with it. This was considered to be the case with The University of Law because all of the original College of Law's education and training business had been transferred to the for-profit college, and the activities remaining with the chartered body were not related to the degree-awarding powers. The university began selling off its property portfolio on a
leaseback basis in 2014, starting with the four buildings of its
Bloomsbury campus. According to analysis of the university's accounts earlier that year by the
Times Higher Education Supplement, the purchase by Montagu Private Equity in 2012 had loaded the university with £177m of debt. Critics had compared the purchase by Montagu Private Equity to the
leveraged buyouts of Premier League clubs in English football. At the time, The University of Law's ultimate
parent company was L-J Holdco Ltd., which was incorporated in Guernsey and majority owned by Montagu-managed funds. campus in 2018 In June 2015, Montagu Private Equity sold the university to
Global University Systems (GUS) for an undisclosed sum. Former UK Education and Employment Secretary and Home Secretary
David Blunkett, at the time a visiting lecturer at the
London School of Business and Finance (also owned by Global University Systems), was named chairman of the board. The University of Law announced the launch of its De Broc School of Business in July 2015, but it had to defer the first intake of students (originally planned for September of that year) due to low student recruitment. The summer of 2015 also saw a restructuring of the university's governance. The provost, Andrea Nollent, also assumed the role of Chief Academic Officer. John Latham, who had been its CEO and president since 2014 and had overseen the sale of The University of Law to Global University Systems, resigned by "mutual consent". The office of president became a non-executive position and was assumed by
Lord Grabiner. David Johnston, the former chief operating officer, took over as CEO. Johnston was subsequently replaced as CEO by economist Stelios Platis in April 2016. In turn, Platis stepped down in October 2016 and was replaced by Professor Andrea Nollent, who serves as both CEO and Vice-Chancellor. In September 2018,
Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, the former president of the
Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, was appointed to succeed Dame Fiona Woolf as the university's chancellor. On 4 January 2021, Legal Practice Course students complained that the university had given them an exam on a topic they hadn't yet been taught. The university apologised for the mix-up. On 27 January 2021, it was reported that The University of Law's owner
Global University Systems was looking to sell a portion of its stake in the university. ==Campuses==