Postgraduate Certificate in Law

With the largest range of postgraduate courses in the country, at New Zealand's top-ranked law school we'll give you the tools to advance your career. Our PGCertLaw is designed for professionals from non-legal backgrounds who require some knowledge of legal matters. Professionals such as accountants and auditors, architects and town planners, business development managers, compliance managers, engineers, IT professionals, police and public sector staff have greatly benefitted from this programme. The programme can also be used by law graduates wanting to bridge the gap to masters-level law study. The PGCertLaw is effectively half of a Master of Laws (LLM) degree or Master of Legal Studies (MLS) degree. Our programme provides flexible legal study for both full-time and part-time students. You can study while you work to keep up the momentum or go full-time to get to the next level even faster. Entry to the PGCertLaw is available throughout the year providing the flexibility you need to accelerate your career. The PGCertLaw also provides skills in legal research methodology for those without advanced skills in this area. With over 30 taught courses to choose from you can concentrate your study in particular areas of specialisation or study a broad range of legal subjects.

The PGCertLaw is made up of 60 points undertaken by coursework.

Students must complete a minimum of 60 points of courses from the postgraduate taught courses schedule (excluding thesis or dissertation courses), alongside Legal Research Methodology and Advanced Writing (LAW 700).

It is possible to complete the programme in one full-time semester (6 months) or take up to four semesters (two years) to complete the programme part time.

Flexible study
We understand that personal, family and work commitments are important factors when deciding whether to study, so we offer options to fit with your lifestyle:

• Full-semester courses taught in the early evening once a week
• Half-semester courses taught for six weeks of the semester in the early evening once a week
• Intensively-taught courses over three to five days (usually incorporating a weekend break, ie Weds, Thurs, Fri, Mon, Tue)

Postgraduate pathway

Download the Law postgraduate pathway (407KB, PDF)