Course summary

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2024). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas. The Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) is the most prestigious of the Law Faculty's research degrees. It entails writing a thesis over a period of three, or at most four years if full-time, or six to eight years for part-time students. All students will be admitted to Probationer Research Student (PRS) status in the first instance, and all students except those who have previously completed the faculty's MPhil in Law programme will undertake a course in legal research methods during the first year as a full-time student or in the first two years as a part-time student. This provides training in legal research methodology, but it will also expose you to the diversity of and intellectual challenges involved in legal scholarship and serves as a forum of peers in which you can discuss the methodological challenges involved in your own research. The course comprises seven compulsory two-hour seminars during Michaelmas term while in Hilary term, students must attend eight hours of seminars from a wider range of options, including seminars offered by other social sciences departments and the faculty’s Centres for Criminology and Socio-Legal Studies. Students must also attend the course conference at the start of Trinity term. The Faculty can provide supervision for a wide range of different topics and a list of completed doctorates gives a general sense of the breadth and depth of the research undertaken by its students. A typical week for a student during your first two terms will involve attendance at a legal research training methodology class and perhaps participating in a discussion group (of which there are over 30) or auditing a BCL seminar that relates to your own research topic; apart from which you will be spending your time engaged in your own research. You will also meet with supervisors to discuss your work as explained in the supervision section below. After the third term (providing you transfer to full DPhil status) you may undertake fieldwork and research trips, depending on the nature of your research topics, and there may be opportunities to undertake paid research assistance or to teach undergraduate students.