Law with Criminology

Law with criminology at a Scottish university offers a degree that combines the rigorous professional training needed to qualify as a Scottish solicitor with a criminological perspective that enriches your understanding of why the legal system exists, how it functions in practice, and what its effects on individuals and communities actually are. The two disciplines are natural partners: law defines crime and sets the rules of the criminal justice process, while criminology asks the deeper questions about human behaviour, social inequality, and institutional performance that the law itself often cannot answer.

At Robert Gordon University, this four-year degree is a qualifying law programme, providing students with the range of law options required as part of the process of qualifying as a Scottish solicitor. The criminology element adds an alternative perspective on crime and human behaviour, broadening your understanding of society and of the conditions that generate the cases that lawyers and courts deal with every day. You will study the core areas of Scots law alongside criminological theory, the sociology of crime, and the analysis of criminal justice institutions.

The degree includes a year abroad, giving you an international perspective on how different legal and criminal justice systems operate and what can be learned from comparing them.

You will develop legal reasoning skills, the ability to apply legal principles to complex situations, and the broader analytical capacities that criminology develops. You will also build skills in research, written argument, and professional communication that are central to legal practice.

Graduates from this degree are well positioned to pursue a career in law, entering the solicitor pathway in Scotland or seeking graduate opportunities in legal practice across the UK more broadly. Others move into criminal justice roles, policy, the civil service, or the third sector. Postgraduate legal training or a master's degree in criminology, law, or public policy is a natural next step for those who wish to specialise.