Oxford and Cambridge law interviews

What is a law interview like?

Oxford’s law faculty says interviews are now held online, and that some colleges send reading before the interview while others give you a short paragraph during it. Its admissions report on the last round says candidates typically had two interviews of about 25 minutes at their first college, and that a second round usually had one 25-minute interview. For 2027 entry, Oxford’s timetable puts first-college law interviews between Monday 7 and Wednesday 9 December 2026, with decisions about second-college interviews by 11am on Thursday 10 December.

At Cambridge the colleges run the interviews, within the main period of 7 to 18 December 2026, and some give you material beforehand. Trinity, for example, gives candidates a problem and some paper 30 minutes before one of their interviews, and St Catharine’s publishes example pre-reading: a short extract from a judgment and a short statute with facts to apply it to.

What are the tutors looking for?

Oxford’s course page lists academic achievement, reasoning ability, good communication on paper and in speech, a capacity for hard work and an interest in law. Its law faculty says it is not testing existing knowledge of law but on-the-spot thinking and the ability to build arguments, and that where you are given an extract, the only legal knowledge being sought is what can be learnt from it.

So what matters is reading carefully, stating a clear rule or position, applying it consistently when the facts change, and either defending it or changing it when a new example shows a problem. One of Oxford’s tutors puts it as seeing how well you justify your view, consider objections and respond to them.

Questions Oxford has published

Oxford’s sample questions include one from the law faculty: what does it mean for someone to take another person’s car? Can you take a car without driving it, or without moving it? The interviewer then tests your definition with an example: I am walking along the street when it starts to rain, so I open the door of an unlocked car and sit in it for 15 minutes until the rain passes. Have I taken the car? There is no right answer; the point is how you form a first definition and then refine it.

Another, from a St Anne’s College tutor: if the punishment for parking on double yellow lines were death, and so nobody did it, would that be a just and effective law? The tutor says the candidate who distinguishes between just and effective does best, because the two questions have different answers. A third asks whether it should be illegal to run a red light in the middle of the night on an empty road, which leads to what laws are for and how hard it is to write a rule that works in every case without being too broad.

Oxford also publishes a longer moral problem about a sheriff in a frontier town who could stop a riot by framing an innocent stranger, with variations on the facts, which the tutor uses to discuss what justice means and why the law should punish only the guilty.

The LNAT and written work for 2027 entry

Both universities use the LNAT (the National Admissions Test for Law). For 2027 entry, the LNAT says you register and book between 1 August and 15 September 2026 and must sit it by 15 October 2026. It is a test of two and a quarter hours: 42 multiple choice questions on passages in 95 minutes, then one essay from a choice of three in 40 minutes.

Oxford asks for no written work for law. At Cambridge, the course page says Pembroke asks for two pieces of written work; other colleges do not, so check the college you apply to.

How to prepare

Practise the method rather than the law. Take a short rule, such as “no vehicles in the park”, and ask what it covers: an ambulance, a bicycle, a child’s toy car, a war memorial with a tank on it. State a test, apply it, find the case it gets wrong and improve it. Read a newspaper report of a court case and ask what principle the judge used and whether it would work on slightly different facts.

In the interview, read the material slowly, quote it when you use it and keep to what it says. If the interviewer pushes back, it does not mean you are wrong; Oxford’s tutors say they are seeing how you respond to a challenge, so either defend your answer with a reason or change it and say why.

With an account, cookie’s Interview prep runs a mock Oxford or Cambridge interview in this subject with an AI interviewer. It writes problems in the style of the universities’ published examples, not real interview questions, gives a hint when you go quiet and writes a report at the end. It uses credits, and it is for practising beforehand: Cambridge says using AI during an interview is prohibited.