Oxbridge interviews for any subject are tough to get through, but what type of Cambridge Law Interview questions can I expect on the day?
The Cambridge Law Interview questions may seem like a daunting prospect, so today we’ll provide some clarity on what the questions are like.
Students are not required to have any prior knowledge of law for the Interviews. The Admissions Tutors instead focus on an applicant’s ideas, thought processes, ability to defend and form logical arguments, ability to recognise counter-arguments and explain any changes in their view in light of new information or a change of circumstances.
In this article, we will illuminate the process and show how you can put yourself in the best position to succeed during your Cambridge Law Interview.
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What Is The Cambridge Law Interview
The Cambridge Law Interview is an Interview or series of Interviews undertaken by the University of Cambridge as part of the application process for the Law degree. Prior to the pandemic, all applicants would either travel to their college in Cambridge itself for the Interview while in some countries, such as Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong to name a few, have an ‘overseas Interview scheme’ whereby an academic will travel to the respective country to conduct the Interview.
When these two alternative arrangements were in place, the overseas Interview was notably shorter than the on-site one. The candidates sat a half an hour Interview with one interviewer – who is usually an academic in the subject who may or may not be a member of the college of your choice. For domestic students, it consists of two sets of Interviews in front of a panel of Law academics.
Since the pandemic, both alternatives have merged into an online option increasingly delegated from the ‘overseas Interview scheme’ to the colleges. Yet, despite the change in form, readers should not be worried, as the Cambridge Interview at its very core remains the same, a search for students of academic potential.
Motivation For Study
Many Interviews will start with some quite standard warm-up questions, such as why you want to study Law. So without over-preparing an answer, a good thing to do is get a clear idea of what interests you about law, and why you are choosing Cambridge.
These may seem like simple questions but they are also great opportunities to show your passion and motivation to study. By answering these questions, you will also demonstrate your understanding of what the law is.
To get a good idea of what the Cambridge Law Faculty is like and further admissions information, check out the Cambridge Law Undergraduate site.
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Subject Questions
Of course, a significant portion of the Cambridge Law Interview questions will be subject-based. It is likely that legal materials will be provided for you. An example of this would be that a subject of law would be provided along with a problem where you will need to apply that law to.
What you might notice is that it’s expected that the applicant does not have all the answers right away. In fact, the interviewers want applicants to demonstrate their thinking out loud. A good way to prepare for this is to look at the news, or at stories you are interested in and think about how the law has been applied. This may raise questions about the purpose of law in society and whether the law is adequate in certain cases. All the sorts of questions that may be raised in Cambridge Law Interview questions.
As mentioned at the start, Cambridge stresses that no legal knowledge is required to answer Cambridge Law Interview questions. You will not need to look up legal rules or statutes. However, a good knowledge of current events will be helpful in your understanding of the subject.
Preparation For Cambridge Law Interview Questions
Practice Out Loud
Beyond taking an interest in the social and political world around you, you should practice explaining your thought process out loud, as this is something that some applicants might not be used to. Overall, understand your own motivation for studying law and start thinking critically about the issues surrounding law, and practice clearly explaining your thought process on a problem question. This is a great way to prepare for the Cambridge Law Interview questions.
Stay up to date
Make sure you stay up to date with major ongoing issues in the world, such as Brexit and Climate Change discussions, even the situation in areas of war and conflict. This is critical for the morning of your interview so you are completely up to date and aware of what is going on around you that is related to the law.
It’s also imperative that you don’t just stop after reading the headline or the news story, you must form your own opinions and think about how you might argue your position and what counter-arguments may come up from this. Jot down your thoughts to help you remember and if you find yourself getting stuck with thinking of counter-arguments, an easy cheat for this is to read about the same story but use different sources such as the various political party supporting newspapers.
Read Your Personal Statement
We can’t stress enough how important it is that you go back through your Personal Statement before your Interview. The Interviewer will nearly always talk to you about it so make sure you are up to date with any current issues you mentioned in it and you refresh yourself on the wider reading that you will have written about in your Personal Statement.
Example Questions From Cambridge Law Interviews
Although you can never predict exactly what questions you will be asked in your interviews, it’s good to understand what questions have been asked in the past. You likely won’t be asked the exact same questions, but these examples demonstrate the structure of common questions and the topics you may need to discuss during your time with the tutors.
“Why Law?”
This is a very basic question, but it’s important for the admissions tutors to understand your motivations for studying the course. They don’t always ask this question, as an applicants Personal Statement may provide enough evidence of their motivation to suffice.
If you are asked this, there are a lot of ways you could approach this question. We’ve got a dedicated guide to the most effective answers here, so be sure to check it out in case you’re asked this question.
“Why Cambridge/Why This College?”
This is another common question that many applicants will face across all different subjects. This question is important because of how selective Cambridge is. They don’t just want to admit students who seem to be the best fit on paper – it’s also crucial that their students are motivated and will make the most of this opportunity.
If you’re genuinely passionate about studying at Cambridge, answering these questions should be fairly easy. Although you need to be concise with your reasoning, it’s best that you just be honest about your motivations and interest in the university.
Explaining why you chose the college may be a bit more difficult. Some applicants don’t do much research about the college they pick, while others choose to send open applications (meaning they are happy with any college). However, it’s important that you know some details about the college that is interviewing you, as all colleges at Cambridge are very unique from one another.
Even if you genuinely don’t have a specific reason for choosing the college that you’re applying to, you should do some research about its facilities and history in order to provide some kind of answer to this question.
“What are your arguments for and against bicycle helmets?”
Now we’re moving to some more law-specific questions. This example is just one of many questions that could be asked in this structure. These questions may cover topics that you’re not knowledgeable about, though most topics should be general enough that you have some relevant talking points to discuss.
You won’t be expected to know the exact legal details about all of these topics, so most questions will relate more to ethics and societal impact. The question asks you to highlight both sides of the argument, but be ready to pick a side if prompted to do so.
“What does it mean for someone to ‘take’ another’s car?”
Definitions are extremely important in Law, so be prepared to answer a question that involves defining something to the best of your understanding. Your definition doesn’t need to be the exact legal meaning, but you need to be able to justify your response with sound logic.
“What have you seen in the news recently that relates to X?”
Questions about wider reading and your following of the legal field will almost always come up in at least one interview, so it’s important that you have some talking points prepared. The question may relate to a specific topic or event, or it may just be a more general question that asks what you’ve been reading.
Either way, it’s your job to lead the discussion based on your own understanding and opinions of the topic. This doesn’t need to turn into a debate, but the purpose of these questions is to allow you to explain what you think about a certain story or topic, a skill that will be essential if you’re admitted to study the course.
“What is the meaning of life?”
This is a far more unusual question, and not one that should be taken quite as seriously as the previous ones. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t try to answer it, but you’re also not expected to actually provide a definitive or correct response.
This is a chance for the admissions tutors to understand your way of thinking, as well as your outlook on life and the universe. These may seem like excessively huge topics for a Law interview, but how you look at broad topics can provide clues as to how you approach a more specific situation.
“How comfortable is that chair?”
This is an even stranger one, and you probably shouldn’t expect to hear this one at your interviews. However, this more so represents the wild-card questions that you may find during your time with the admissions tutors.
These questions will often be completely unrelated to the course, but it’s important that you give them a go. There’s never a correct answer – it’s all about providing your opinion and the reasoning behind that opinion. You shouldn’t take too long when answering these questions, as they aren’t the most important questions you’ll be asked. As well as this, this is also a great chance to demonstrate how you can think fast and provide a well-spoken and concise response.
Student Experience of The Cambridge Law Interview
My name is Brendan and I write this article in my current capacity as a Cambridge third-year and member of Hughes Hall. The purpose of writing this is to give you a brief insight into my Interview experience.
While my experience is by definition personal to me, I believe it would help to unveil the mysterious ‘initiation process’ that many students undertake, but not all make through. I endeavour to write and provide information such that the latter outcome will not be the case for readers of this article.
My Interview Part 1: Before
When I first received the email with those daunting yet exciting words that I had been invited to the Interview, I did not think I was one of those students with academic potential. I knew that preparation was key, but I rarely went for Interviews, and most Interviews were for short term internships rather than a degree. My first step of preparation was talking to seniors who faced the Cambridge Interview themselves.
It is through discussion with these seniors that I learnt that some legal knowledge can be asked of you, and though it was not a requirement to have it, having it in your toolkit helps immensely. I was fortunate enough to take Law as an A-level subject, and it helped me display my analytical skills in some of the questions I was asked, but this is by no means a prerequisite, as prospective Cambridge applicants have read law books aimed at the aspiring contemplator of justice and have done so in their Interviews.
In my experience talking to other successful candidates, Allan Hutchinson’s “Is Eating People Wrong?” and Michael Sandel’s “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” are popular favourites in their reading list.
While substantive knowledge is crucial, it is important that preparation does not forget the bland yet trial-and-tested method that is rehearsal. Practice in front of an academic councillor, Cambridge student or at the very least a friend. Don’t be shy. It is important that your mock interviewer puts you on the spot – I did so for a mock interviewee of mine who got into Murray Edwards.
This is because being questioned and made to digest and link ideas on the spot is part and parcel of the Cambridge Law learning process, and upon entry into the programme it will seem second nature. An important caveat follows this, that you practice this Interview unlike any other Interview you had, but like a Cambridge supervision.
A bonus point on Interview preparation is to read up on your interviewer, of whom identity you will be informed of before then. This is helpful if you share a similar area of interest (or would like to steer of certain topics of disinterest which he may have an interest in!). It may also give you some useful material to ask them if they invite you to ask any questions.
Some brief but obvious administrative points, be aware of the timing and venue of the Interview. Visit the venue beforehand at least once!
Starting your Interview preparation as early as possible will put you on course for a successful Cambridge Law Interview.
If you wait until you get an invitation for the Interview to start preparing, it will already be too late.
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My Interview Part 2: During
I walked out the elevator – that only stopped at even floors for some reason – to the highest floor of the building where I was faced with a row of students clad in formal black attire, ready to display their potential.
Like most interviewees, I strove to maintain a calm outward demeanour despite having a whirlwind of thoughts on the inside. When it was my turn, I stepped into the room to meet my interviewer, Dr Martin Steinfeld, who would soon accept me into his college and be my Director of Studies.
The Interview started out rather dauntingly. I remember trying to shine some of my strong points in my Personal Statement, like how I had written a piece I was very proud of, only to be dismissed rather quickly, with Martin (as I now address him) showing disinterest. The rough start cast my mind back to something I read about the Interview, answer the questions they asked and be prepared to think on the spot.
The questions I were asked were more knowledge-based than aptitude. The typical “Why do you want to do Law?” question made no appearance, and in its stead was a customised problem question to do with a blind man and his distracted caretaker walking along a slippery airport floor with a mere “Caution: Wet Floor” display sign, with the blind man injuring himself and a question arising as to which party is liable – the distracted caretaker or the ignorant-to-the-needs-of-blind-people airport.
This was a challenging but apt task, as most of the written coursework I do now in Cambridge concerns such alterations of factual permutations. I remember answering this with my knowledge of Tort Law from A-Levels, particularly to do with breach of duty of care and contributory negligence, to deal with this question, but I was also asked questions that were meant to provoke more legal thinking.
For example, I remember being asked a point about whether I had a legal duty to help a blind man cross the street, a question that was probably prompted by some musings of morality I had uttered that had to do with how much more careful people should be towards blind people.
Besides this scenario question, I was heavily pressed on my UCAS Personal Statement, but not the good parts. Rather, I was pressed on any logical gaps or vagueness in my Personal Statements. I spoke about the ‘historical origins of law’ in my Personal Statement and was asked for a concrete example of it.
I remember this question clearly because I was stuck for a bit but then looked out the window to see council parking lots below, and proceeded then to make a distinction between law created for societal functioning without any moral basis, like the Law that you should not park on the parking delineation, versus a law with a moral basis like the law that criminalises theft.
It is still humorous to think looking out the window at a car park got me out of the brain fog.
My Interview Part 3: After
I thanked Martin for his time and told him I really enjoyed the Interview. I like to think he did too since he said “Unfortunately, our time is up!”, but he could just have been being polite. I went for a nice hot meal after the Interview – and yes, this should be taken as part of my advice as well.
Upon acceptance into Hughes Hall, the college Martin was a fellow of, he sat me down in our first Director of Studies meeting eight months later telling me what I could have done better in my Interview – which, despite the delay, puts me in the best position to reflect, to say the least! Martin pointed out that I did not spot some issues in the constitutional law realm but kept my analysis confined to private law.
In hindsight, I would have read more widely, and been aware of how my A-Level syllabus could act as a straitjacket to what I thought Law was about. Some other things I could have done better was to let the interviewer direct the Interview, instead of fighting to show the sides of me that I thought were good as I had done.
Concluding Thoughts
Looking back on my Interview which seemed like ages ago as a third year, having survived through almost two years of pandemic-affected learning, the Interview remains one of the most cherished memories, which I fondly speak of to friends in social gatherings – and believe it or not – parties!
Once the Interview is done, pat yourself on the back and do not overthink. Most of you are likely to be passionate lawyers who have done some background research, and with that would be able to do your best. And hey even if you do not, the Cambridge Law Interview always makes for a good party conversation!
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