Honours in law
Honours students have the opportunity to build high-level research skills through conducting independent legal research.
There are two possible pathways to obtain honours in law, depending on when you commenced your Deakin Law studies. The final honours grade is calculated differently depending on the pathway.
M412 Bachelor of Laws (Honours)
Entry will be based on performance in:
- Completion of a minimum of 21 credit points of MLL coded units from the Bachelor of Laws (M312) with a Weighted Average Mark (WAM) of at least 65% across these units OR
- Completion of a minimum of 16 credit points of MLL coded units from Law combined degrees with a Weighted Average Mark of at least 65% across these units.
To complete the Bachelor of Laws (Honours), students will be concurrently enrolled in the Bachelor of Laws course (M312) (or combined Law degree) and Bachelor of Laws (Honours) (M412) course.
Students are required to complete 4 credit points of core units as follows:
- MLH401 Legal Research Training (2 credit points)
- MLH402 Legal Research Project (2 credit points)
Overall:
- Students enrolled in the Bachelor of Laws must attain a total of 36 credit points, consisting of 4 credit points from the Bachelor of Laws (Honours) (M412) and 32 credit points from the Bachelor of Laws (M312).
- Students enrolled in a combined Law degree must attain a total of 44 credit points, consisting of 4 credit points from the Bachelor of Laws (Honours) (M412) and 40 credit points from the Law combined degree.
If you commenced your Deakin law studies prior to 2015
Students who commenced a Deakin Bachelor of Laws before 2015 are eligible for a degree with honours, awarded for outstanding achievement.
To meet the requirements for honours in law you must have:
- Successfully completed all of the requirements of the Bachelor of Laws
- Successfully completed 4 credit points of law units at level 4; and
- Maintained a minimum WAM of 65 across all law units. This is a strict requirement.
Grades and calculations
How to enrol
Because honours in law is a course (M412), rather than just a subject, you need to apply to Deakin to undertake the course. While the application process isn't particularly onerous, there is a small amount of effort involved.
When you land on the applicant portal:
- click on 'undergraduate courses'
- go to the year 'non-year 12 applicants' section
- click on the link which says 'apply here directly' (so, you do not apply through VTAC).
You will then proceed through several steps to complete the application.
Once you've been accepted into M412, you will need to enrol in the two Honours subjects, MLH401 and MLH402 in the normal way via StudentConnect.