Magdalen College Oxford Law Interview

Magdalen College has a distinguished tradition in Law, and its Law interviews are designed to identify students who think with genuine precision about legal and moral reasoning. Law at Oxford is academically rigorous in a way that can surprise candidates who approach it as primarily a professional qualification. Oxford Law tutors are legal academics, and they are looking for students who find the philosophical and analytical dimensions of law genuinely fascinating — not just students who want to be solicitors or barristers. The interview is designed to test whether you can engage with legal problems as intellectual puzzles, reason carefully about what rules should cover, and hold a position under sustained questioning without either collapsing or becoming defensive.

The LNAT (Law National Admissions Test) is your first significant hurdle. Oxford uses LNAT scores to shortlist Law candidates, and a strong score — particularly on the essay section — is important for securing a Magdalen interview. The LNAT essay tests exactly the skills Magdalen Law tutors assess at interview: argument construction, precision of language, and the ability to engage with a contentious claim without oversimplifying it.

The Magdalen Law Interview Format

Most Oxford Law applicants have two interviews. Magdalen Law interviews are typically conducted by one or two tutors and last between 25 and 35 minutes. Interviews usually begin with a question or scenario designed to probe your ability to reason about legal and moral problems. You may be presented with a hypothetical legal situation and asked to reason through it: who has rights, what obligations arise, what the law should do, and why. You may also be asked to evaluate a legal principle, consider the limits of a rule, or engage with a philosophical question about the nature of law itself.

Magdalen Law interviews frequently involve questions about justice, fairness, and the relationship between law and morality. Tutors are not looking for you to recite legal doctrine — most candidates will not have studied law formally before applying — but for your ability to reason carefully about what the law should do and why. The best performances come from candidates who can construct a clear argument, acknowledge its weaknesses, and engage with objections without losing track of their central point.

How to Prepare for Magdalen Law Interviews

Prepare systematically for the LNAT. Work through past papers, practise the multiple choice section under timed conditions, and write LNAT essays on a wide variety of prompts. Focus particularly on developing the habit of identifying the strongest objection to your own argument and addressing it directly — this is the skill that separates strong from average LNAT essays and, equally, strong from average Law interview performances.

Engage seriously with legal and moral philosophy at an accessible level. Introductory texts such as Jonathan Herring’s Great Debates in Jurisprudence or Michael Sandel’s Justice provide genuinely useful frameworks for thinking about the kinds of questions Oxford Law tutors ask. You do not need to have studied jurisprudence formally, but arriving with some familiarity with the main positions in debates about justice, rights, and the basis of law gives you more to work with at interview.

Our Oxford Law interview preparation service provides LNAT preparation and mock interview coaching from Oxford Law graduates, including legal scenario analysis and argument development.

Example Magdalen Law Interview Questions

• Should a person who breaks into a car to save a child locked inside on a hot day be guilty of criminal damage?
• What is the difference between a law and a moral rule, and does the distinction matter?
• If Parliament passed a law requiring all citizens to vote, would it be legitimate?
• Can you think of a situation in which it would be right to break a law? What does your answer tell us about the relationship between law and morality?
• A person signs a contract under duress. Should the contract be enforceable? What considerations are relevant?
• What is meant by the “rule of law”, and is it always a good thing?

For free practice material, see our Oxford Law interview questions resource.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to have studied Law before applying to Oxford?

No. Oxford Law does not require any prior study of law, and many successful applicants have not taken Law at A-level. What you need is the ability to reason carefully about legal and moral problems, a genuine interest in law as an intellectual discipline, and strong analytical and written skills as demonstrated by your A-level results and LNAT performance.

How important is the LNAT for Magdalen Law?

Very important. Magdalen uses LNAT scores as a primary shortlisting tool, and a weak LNAT performance — particularly a poor essay — will significantly reduce your chances of receiving an interview invitation. The LNAT essay is especially important because it directly tests the argumentative skills that the interview assesses. Practise writing LNAT essays on a wide range of prompts well before the test date.

What if I take a position in the interview that the tutor disagrees with?

That is entirely normal and nothing to worry about. Magdalen Law tutors deliberately take challenging positions or advocate for counterintuitive conclusions to see how you respond under pressure. Engage with their objections seriously, acknowledge what is compelling in them, and either defend your position with better reasoning or revise it genuinely. Do not pretend to agree if you do not — tutors can tell the difference between genuine intellectual engagement and performance.

How much philosophy do I need to know for a Law interview?

You do not need a formal background in philosophy, but having engaged with some philosophical thinking about law, justice, and rights is genuinely useful. Reading something accessible — a chapter of Sandel’s Justice, Hart and Fuller’s famous debate about law and morality — gives you frameworks for thinking about the kinds of questions you will encounter. More important than having read specific texts is having genuinely thought about the questions yourself.