Just wondered how important surroundings are to you? Of course with Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge, one of the key attributes is that they are highly rated academically and aesthetically pleasing on the eye as places to study.

Against this, however,colleges such as LSE and King's are based in buildings which could never measure up to Oxbridge or Harvard. Though both LSE and King's offer high calibre LL.M. degrees, the lecture halls/halls of residence and libraries are uninspiring in architectural terms. But the presence of both institutions in London makes them sufficiently attractive to aspiring LL.M. students in terms of their cosmopolitan surroundings.

The same would be true, for example, of the University of New South Wales in Australia. Large, modern buildings which do not contribute greatly to a sense of academic atmosphere. Against this, however, the University of Sydney is downtown and the building have a much more hallowed resonance to them. In the final analysis, however, most people are happy just to spend a year studying in a city as beautiful as sydney.

Contrast this with Trinity College Dublin which is more than four hundred years old. Founded by Queen Elizabeth back in 1592, it houses the most valuable illuminated manuscript in the world, the Book of Kells. And the "Long Room" library (several hundred years of age) was used as the model for one of the buildings in the "Star Wars" series. And the Law School in Trinity (in House 39, New Square) was originally home to Samuel Beckett (the famous playwright who was also a Scholar of Trinity). Intriquingly the last two Irish Presidents were also Reid Professors of Criminal Law in the Trinity Law School. And Kader Asmal of the Trinity Law School later went on to become a Minister in Nelson Mandela's first democratic government in South Africa.

Then there are the universities which are not so highly rated either in terms of academic strength or location. But it would be unfair of me to list them here...

Isn't King's Law moving to Somerset House in the summer? Looks pretty impressive to me

Pic here:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/law/index.aspx

Yes, KCL is moving to Somerset House - the whole of the east wing will be the law school I believe. KCL's Maughan Library is also a very grand building.

LSE's law department is housed in a beautiful, modern building. http://www2.lse.ac.uk/supportingLSE/images/newAca1.jpg

UCL definitely has an inspiring campus (especially the quad). But the law school itself is a miserable building in a grim corner of Bloomsbury.

My favourite locations in terms of university campus/general location are Cambridge and Edinburgh.

Frankly, I'm finding it hard to think of any university that qualifies as a truly idyllic location though! Perhaps the EUI in Florence.

The University of Bristol school of law is inside one of the most amazing buildings in the country!!

Have a look.!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wills_Memorial_Building

I had a tour of the department and it is beautiful!.

so far as oxbridge is concerned you can't generalise. it entirely depends on your college. trinity cambridge is idyllic, but not hughes hall. likewise magdalen oxford is idyllic, but not st catz..

In 2010, Forbes, the business magazine, asked a panel of experts and campus designers to nominate their picks for the most beautiful universities in the world. There are 14 universities on the list, 10 of which are from the U.S., with one each from England, Italy, Ireland and China. In order of preference, they are as follows:

1. Kenyon College, Ohio
2. Oxford, England
3. Princeton, New Jersey
4. Scripps College, California
5. Stanford University, California
6. Trinity College Dublin
7. Tsighua University, BJ, China
8. US Air Force Academy, Colarado
9. University of Bologna, Italy
10. University of California, Santa Cruz
11. University of Cincinatti, Ohio
12. University of Virginia
13. Willoughby College, Massachusetts
14. Yale University, Connecticut

There is no doubt that this list is skewed in favour of American universities. And it truly strange to discover that Cambridge and Harvard have been omitted from this list. I was chuffed to learn, however, that my old alma mater (Trinity College Dublin) was chosen as sixth overall, and the second most architecturally pleasing university in Europe.
(after Oxford).

I've visited the University of Virginia a few years ago. It's an attractive campus. But it's really stretching it to state that it is number 12 of all campuses.

Sorry, mistake in my last post. Forbes appointed a panel of leading architects (as opposed to experts) to advise them on this issue.

Also apologies to Chinese readers of this website. Tsinghua is spelt with an 'n' in it.