Content Official Master's Degree in Legal Profession

Ideal student profile

This master's degree is aimed at those interested in pursuing careers as lawyers. It builds up competences that will help graduates to join the legal profession in the best conditions possible.

Access to the master's degree is open to graduates in Law in Spain or those whose degree has been officially recognised in Spain.

It is officially regulated professional training (Law 34/2006, of 30 October and Royal Decree 775/2011, of 3 June, on access to the professions of lawyer and court procurator), which is needed by all those wishing to undergo the professional aptitude assessment of the ministries of Justice and Education.

Basic skills

• Integrate knowledge and use it to make judgements in complex situations, with incomplete information, while keeping in mind social and ethical responsibilities.
• Communicate and justify conclusions clearly and unambiguously to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.
• Solve problems in new or little-known situations within broader (or multidisciplinary) contexts related to the field of study.
• Use acquired knowledge as a basis for originality in the application of ideas, often in a research context.
• Continue the learning process, to a large extent autonomously.

Specific skills

• Put into practice the specialist academic knowledge acquired on the degree programme in order to avoid damage, risk or conflict with respect to clients' interests or regarding professional practice before the courts and other authorities and when offering consultancy services.
• Know the techniques for ascertaining the facts in different types of procedure, especially the production of documents, examination and expert evidence.
• Choose the correct strategy for defending clients' rights, while keeping in mind the particular demands of each area within professional practice.
• Defend clients' rights within the framework of national and international jurisdictional systems.
• Know the different techniques for arriving at a reconciliation of interests and solving problems through out-of-court settlements.
• Know and act in accordance with the rights and duties afforded by the profession's code of practice, in dealings with clients, other parties, the court or other authority and other lawyers.
• Know and assess the various responsibilities linked to professional practice, including the basic workings of free legal assistance and the promotion of lawyers' social responsibility.
• Identify conflicts of interest and know the techniques that are used to resolve these, determine the scope of professional confidentiality and maintain independence of judgement.
• Identify the essential service and organisational requirements for legal consultancy.
• Understand and be able to implement the activities that support the professional lawyer: organisation, management and commercial dealings, and their legal framework, governing association, taxes, employment and data protection.

Cross-curricular skills

• Present facts and their corresponding legal implications orally and in writing, in a way that is appropriate to the context and the addressees and, where necessary, to the established procedures.
• Work more efficiently and improve the overall performance of the group or institution through better access to information sources, foreign language proficiency, knowledge management and mastery of specialist techniques and tools.
• Plan and manage the individual and collective resources available for the practice of the legal profession in its various organisational branches.
• Work in specialist interdisciplinary teams.
• Develop the interpersonal skills that lawyers need in their relations with citizens, other professionals and institutions.