The inside line on the seven core subjects at the heart of the LLB and the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL)/Common Professional Examination (CPE).

Ambulance chasing (Tort)

You invite me over to dinner. I eat your carefully prepared, delicious food. Then, while pulling an unlikely pose in front of your bathroom mirror during a visit to the toilet, I slip over, breaking my arm. I successfully sue you for thousands of pounds, which I split with my sniggering lawyer.

The public perception of tort is pretty dire. However, after a few weeks of study, it becomes clear that there are also loads of worthy cases where the law of tort allows genuinely deserving defendants to receive life-changing damages. Admittedly, many of the cases are gory and depressing, but the focus is on balancing public policy issues rather than figuring out the best way to rake in wads of cash from other people's misfortune. Plus there is a large human interest/thank-God-that's-not-me element to it that keeps everyone nice and awake.

European Community (EC) law

The cover of my EC law textbook contained a collage of chic Gitane smoke-filled cafes, suave looking metrosexuals perusing Le Monde and elaborate Ferrero Rochet-sponsored banquets. Disappointingly, the reality of studying EC law is rather more mundane. No international travel. No pain au chocolats or paella brought in by the lecturer to get everyone into the Euro spirit. Just Brussels Regulation number a million and something, after Directive on Standard Banana Size 4851/2. In short, EC can be quite a dry area.

On the bright side, there are some colourful cases. Highlights include the famous Factortame case, where a motley bunch of Spanish fishermen scored a shock David and Goliath victory against the British Establishment over their right to fish in UK waters. And if you opt to practise in this area, who knows? Some day you may just find yourself in a strangely familiar real life version of one of those glamorous textbook cover scenes.

The big picture (Public)

This is the part of the course that demonstrates how the various aspects of law fit together in a wider context. If you are broadly interested in politics but actually have very little idea how things like Parliament, the Government, the Human Rights Act and the judiciary all fit together, you will find public law especially illuminating.

On the down side, constantly having to feign prior knowledge of basic stuff like the role of the House of Lords can be rather stressful. But once you latch on to the fact that everyone else also spent the first few weeks of the course under the mistaken impression that 'the executive' was a mysterious business man, things become much more enjoyable.

Show me the money (Contract)

Contract is the rules of the commercial game: what constitutes an offer, what equates to acceptance and more complicated stuff that I never fully grasped.

Although it is an undeniably difficult area, you are kept conscious by the fact that most things taught in the module have a relevance to everyday life – buying a coffee, having the MOT done on your car, finding yourself locked into an extortionate 18-month mobile phone deal. There is a contract in virtually everything.

And before you know it, you will be putting a strain on multiple friendships and blood ties as you find yourself dishing out quasi-lawyerly, generally incorrect advice on a range of important matters.

Insomniacs dream (Equity and Trusts)

At the close of the first equity lecture, do not panic when you are engulfed in a stampede of students rushing back home to dig out the piece of correspondence indicating the percentage of course fees refundable if they bail out in week one.

But if you stick at it, you will find that although equity rarely inspires feelings of joy, it has its moments. Not least the story of how this area of law came into existence as a faster, fairer alternative to the common law, the centuries-long tensions between the two competing legal systems and their subsequent fusion under the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875. Unfortunately, this quaint little tale is not much consolation when you are attempting to get your head around which trustee owes a fiduciary duty to the beneficiary of some imaginary will.

Never a dull moment…well, not many (Crime)

Some may assume that watching a few episodes of Kavanagh QC is sufficient grounding to practise criminal law more or less effectively. However, getting to grips with the mountain of statutes and case precedents, which are constantly being spawned in the battle to cover the infinitely weird manifestations of human behaviour, is a big job.

Still, the cases are great! Husbands branding their initials onto wives' bottoms, hitchhikers jumping out of moving cars and big-money bank heists. Just don't forget, in order to pass you need to pay some attention to the legal element behind all the adrenalin-fuelled action.

Legal Sudoku (Land)

Land is like a freakishly cryptic jigsaw that makes no sense until you have slotted in the last few pieces.

Despite the odd titbit of property-related trivia that students are thrown periodically throughout the course, keeping your spirits up as you slog through the increasingly mystifying lectures is not easy. Especially as the professional incarnation of land law is conveyancing – an area inextricably associated in most law students' minds with tweed jackets and market towns.

However, like most good puzzles, land law has a compulsive element to it. And there is a lot of satisfaction (or is it relief?) from seeing it all – at last – fall into place in the final days before the exam.