Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

The Faculty of Law, Cambridge is the law school of the University of Cambridge. The Faculty is one of the world’s oldest and finest law schools, renowned for the quality of its teaching and its cutting-edge legal research, particularly in international law. It is regularly ranked as the best law school in the United Kingdom by major national league tables. In September 2017, it was ranked the second best law school in the world.Legal study at the University of Cambridge began in the thirteenth century and the Faculty sits the oldest law professorship in the English-speaking world, the Regius Professorship of Civil Law, founded in 1540. Today, the Faculty incorporates the Institute of Criminology as well as 11 Research Centres, including the world's leading research institute for international law, The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. The Faculty has 24 professors, six readers, and over 70 other University, Faculty and College Teaching Officers. The student body comprises about 700 undergraduate and 225 graduate students.HistoryThe history of legal education in Cambridge dates back to the thirteenth century, when the core subjects of legal study in all European universities were Civil law (the law of ancient Rome) and the Canon law of the Church. Early graduates of the Cambridge Faculty of Canon Law held the highest judicial positions in Europe in the Rota at Avignon. Notable alumni of the Faculty include William Bateman and Thomas Fastolf, who wrote the first known law reports in the ius commune tradition, and William Lyndwood, the principal commentator on medieval English Canon law.