The new law programme offered by the Open University and the College of Law has become Britain's most popular law degree course and is being hailed as a major innovation in legal education.

Launched just three years ago, it now has the largest intake of any taught law degree course in the country and has earned the respect of professional bodies and large law firms, according to Programme Director Dr Gary Slapper.

"The LLB we offer comes from institutions of international standing," he said. "The Open University is a world leader in providing supported open learning and all the courses have been written by highly qualified academics from the College of Law - the largest and most respected provider of professional legal education in Britain."

Course materials have been specially designed to allow smooth progress through difficult areas of law, and students have the flexibility of using the OU's advanced distance education methods with the support of regular face-to-face tutorials.

"Students are also able to contact their tutors for assistance by telephone, e-mail or letter, and there are tutor groups throughout Britain and Europe," Dr Slapper said.

"Our tutors are established legal academics, solicitors and barristers but, whatever their background, they all have at least one thing in common: a commitment and interest in teaching law to adults."

The College of Law has a long history of teaching the Academic Stage of Legal Training, and is the principal provider of the Postgraduate Diploma in Law and the Legal Practice Course for intending solicitors. It also runs the Bar Vocational Course for intending barristers, and has trained over 90 per cent of managing partners in the top city firms.

The law programme consists of four courses which cover the seven 'Foundations of Legal Knowledge' required by the Law Society for solicitors and the General Council of the Bar for barristers. These together with some further study lead to the award of LL.B.

The courses are being taken by a wide range of people including; teachers, health service workers, police and probation service workers, vets, insurance officers, the military, company executives, personnel officers, finance executives, magistrates, retired people, journalists, technicians and many others.

Some come to the OU because they don't want to put their careers on hold while studying. Others like the way they don't have to commit to a full degree and can simply sign up for individual courses to upgrade existing qualifications for career advancement or to seek new qualifications for a career change.

Whatever their reasons, they all recognise that we live in an era where continuing education or 'lifelong learning' (as it has become known in recent times) is becoming the norm rather than the exception. More than a third of the people who have just completed an OU undergraduate degree already had previous undergraduate or postgraduate degrees.

With the increasing pace of technological development, advances in communication media, and the growing global outlook of nations, today's workplace is demanding higher and continually upgraded knowledge and skills. The OU has succeeded because its unique method of supported open learning for part-time students has met this demand.

Seventy per cent of the OU's latest graduates remained working while gaining their degrees, and over 50,000 employers have voted for the value of OU courses by paying for their staff to enrol.

The OU allows people to study at home or in their workplaces for postgraduate and undergraduate degrees, diplomas, certificates and vocational short courses. As well as law, OU study areas include arts, modern languages, social sciences, health and social welfare, science, mathematics and computing, technology, business and management and education.

Students use a combination of specially produced printed texts, correspondence tuition, TV broadcasts, home experiment kits, computer software and other multi-media materials.
Every student has a local tutor, and seminars and summer schools are run at a network of 305 study centres throughout the UK.

More details are available from one of the 13 Open University Regional Centres or from general course enquiries on 01908 653231. Further information and full course descriptions are also available from the university's Web site at www.open.ac.uk or to order a prospectus online please go to www.open.ac.uk/brochure/law/ quoting reference LWAADC.