There's a lot of talk about "the FLK" in relation to Law degrees. Just what is it and why is it relevant?
Quite simply FLK stands for the Foundations of Legal Knowledge, an umbrella term for the core subjects that a prospective barrister in England, Wales or Northern Ireland or a prospective solicitor in Northern Ireland (or, until a recent radical change in legal education, previously a prospective solicitor in England or Wales) is required to have studied as part of the academic stage of their journey to becoming a qualified lawyer.
(Scotland has its own Law, legal system, legal profession setup and required subjects. I have struggled to find a simple single webpage to link to. The Law Society of Scotland website unhelpfully says "There isn't one 'required subject list' that applies for all courses, as it will vary dependent on where you study." Suffice it to say that a Scottish law degree is the starting point.)
These are requirements of the professional bodies, primarily the Bar Council of England and Wales who set the standards for barristers and, previously, the Solicitors Regulation Authority who do the same for solicitors (though, as we'll see, the SRA has moved away from these requirements). Crucially there is no formal requirement from universities themselves or from legislation for a student to have studied the FLK subjects for their qualification to be a "Law degree". Indeed, there are some Law degrees that do not require the full FLK to pass including the Open University's "Academic law degree route" and "Solicitors Qualifying Examination route" (detailed on the Bachelor of Laws (Honours) (LLB) page, but unhelpfully with drop down boxes - see under "Course details").
But most Law degrees still require the full FLK. For those who wish to qualify as a barrister in England and/or Wales, the seven subjects are (with links to the OU module description pages):
For those who wish to qualify as either a barrister or solicitor in Northern Ireland they have to take the above seven subjects and also:
Note that some of these subjects are sometimes described using different words. For example Public Law is sometimes called Constitutional and/or Administrative Law. Land Law is sometimes called Property Law.
And to answer many questions, yes European Union Law is still a required part of the FLK post-Brexit as previously discussed. I will eventually do a later post discussing whether this still feels relevant. Notably the SRA has reduced the amount of EU Law required for the SQE, which has the effect that the SQE route of the OU only has six of the FLK subjects covered in compulsory modules, though EU Law can be taken as an option.
Students are also required to learn basics such as legal research skills, but this often isn't a set subject in its own right and instead incorporated into other modules.
The FLK used to also be compulsory for the academic stage of a prospective solicitor's learning and training. However, in recent years this has been radically reformed inn England and Wales such that a would-be solicitor now must be a graduate, but their degree doesn't have to be in law (though it helps) and there is more flexibility to what must be learned for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination, of which more detail can be found on the Law Society's SQE page.
The basic Law curriculum has changed before and will no doubt change again in future. But for now these are the "Foundations of Legal Knowledge".
(Photograph my own.)
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