Law @ St Catherine's, Oxford in 2019

Interview format

2 x 20 min interviews, LNAT

Interview content

Pre-reading; thoughts on the judgement; examples of wrongdoing

Best preparation

Practise reading case judgements in short periods of time and being able to discuss the case with someone after.

Test preparation

Arbitio, practised under timed conditions

Final thoughts

Don’t freak out if you think they’re asking you really difficult questions, they’re trying to see what you can do and how you think.

Remember this advice isn't official. There is no guarantee it will reflect your experience because university applications can change between years. Check the official Cambridge and Oxford websites for more accurate information on this year's application format and the required tests.

Also, someone else's experience may not reflect your own. Most interviews are more like conversations than tests and like, any conversation, they are quite interactive.

Interview Format

Test taken: National Admissions Test for Law (LNAT)
Number of interviews: 2
Time between interviews: About a day
Length of interviews: 20 minutes
Online interview: No

What happened in your interview? How did you feel?

They gave us a short reading in one (a judgement from a case from the European courts) and then a longer reading in the other (a fictional statute + case law + facts of a case). In the judgement one, they asked my thoughts on the judgement, whether it was correct etc and in the case one they asked me to find if there were any examples of wrongdoing in the facts using the statute and case law. There were zero questions about my personal statement in either interview, they said there simply isn’t time to ask us about them. I thought I had completely failed my second interview as the interviewer wasn’t giving much of a response to my answers (they weren’t reacting positively or negatively) but this means nothing, they’re not trying to catch you out but they’re also going to push you as far as you can be stretched, so if you’re getting difficult questions it’s not a bad thing.

How did you prepare for your interviews?

Practise reading case judgements in short periods of time and being able to discuss the case with someone after. In my mock interviews, I learnt that being right is really not important, what they’re looking for is someone who can be challenged and then once given new information or a different perspective can build upon that and adjust their answer. I read a lot of “scholarly articles” on any subject really. Kept up with the news.

If you took a test, how did you prepare?

The website Arbitio has really challenging MC questions which are useful. I turned debate motions into essay questions. Always practise in timed conditions

What advice would you give to future applicants?

Show that you’re teachable. Tutors want someone they can teach, not someone that thinks they’re right all the time. If they challenge you on something take the time to consider the new information or perspective they’re providing. Think before you say anything, it might feel like it’s been 30 seconds before you open your mouth but it’s probably been. Don’t freak out if you think they’re asking you really difficult questions, they’re trying to see what you can do and how you think.