Programme Director Dr John Zerilli answers key questions about the online Digital Law LLM, covering what the course offers, why it matters today, and how it supports career growth in the digital age.
As technology continues to reshape society, legal professionals need the knowledge to address new and complex challenges. The Digital Law LLM, delivered online by The Dickson Poon School of Law, offers focused study in areas such as Data Protection, Financial Technology Law, Artificial Intelligence Law, and Electronic Democracy, all while allowing you to maintain your current commitments.
In this Q&A, Programme Director Dr John Zerilli explains what the programme covers, why it matters today, and how it can support your career in the evolving legal landscape.
John: The LLM in Digital Law is a step change in master’s-level education in law. For starters, the online element of the degree doesn’t mean, as you might think, that you’ll be logging onto a Teams call every week. Rather, the content of the degree is something you work through via King’s dedicated learning environment, KEATS.
In KEATS, you’ll find the material for each module takes a step-by-step format. You read through material to learn basic principles, and answer frequent summary questions, quizzes, and multiple-choice questions along the way. Then, you complete the assigned readings for that week.
Once a fortnight, we’ll come together for a live webinar to work through legal problems. We discuss the policy behind the law and whether it works.
This design offers excellent flexibility. It lets students manage study time around work or other commitments, while still benefitting from structured guidance and regular interaction.
John: Law has never been immune from technology. When I was in law school 25 years ago, the first wave of digital transformation — word processing, email, and electronic databases — completely changed the pace of legal practice.
You no longer needed to visit a law library. Legislation and casebooks became instantly accessible as searchable PDFs. But what lawyers actually did remained largely the same. The real shift was in pace and scale.
With email replacing post, correspondence in commercial cases exploded. And case law that hadn’t yet made it into the official reports could be cited in court the very day it was handed down. So, it gained precedential weight almost immediately.
But this current round of technological acceleration is different. The nature of legal work in the mid-to-late 2020s is changing just as profoundly as the role of the bank teller changed once ATMs became ubiquitous.
That’s why this programme matters. It addresses the real and pressing changes in legal work and gives students the tools they need to thrive in this new environment.
John: The programme is structured around four core pairs of modules, and each pair covers a crucial domain in digital law.
The first pair of modules deals with FinTech and crypto. The second pair focuses on data protection, and the third on intellectual property. Then the final pair focuses on digital platform governance.
This last one looks at governance from a private law perspective, examining challenges like distance selling and e-commerce. But it also looks at it from a public law perspective, where we explore issues like disinformation in democratic politics and regulatory options for platform governance.
These thematic pairs ensure students gain depth as well as breadth in their knowledge. They offer a highly tailored and coherent learning journey through the most critical areas in digital legal practice.
John: Assessments are designed to support both academic and professional growth. Each module will be assessed by a research essay and participation in online discussion boards. The research essay will likely be a blend of problem-solving and policy analysis.
The programme overall has an excellent mix of teachers drawn from academia, legal practice, industry, and the civil service. They also come from bodies such as the AI Security Institute.
Importantly, students are encouraged to tailor their essays to their own professional goals and legal interests. This makes the assessments both highly relevant and personally meaningful.
John: The online LLM student body at King’s is wonderfully diverse. It includes recent graduates, early-career professionals with little experience of legal practice, and busy seasoned practitioners.
We also have students joining us from around the world, including China, India, Europe, and the US. This variety brings richness to the discussions and creates a truly global learning environment. The flexible structure of the programme supports this diversity, allowing students to engage meaningfully around their own schedules.
John: The programme supports career development through hands-on, forward-facing projects. It’s very much about training forward with a view to what lies ahead. It teaches students what they need to know not just for the next 2-5 years, but the next 10 years and beyond.
The capstone event will be a practice-based generative AI project. You’ll use your prompt engineering skills to solve a real-life problem, ideally one you can present to a law firm.
This experience, which goes beyond the theoretical, can go straight on your CV. It will make you attractive as a new or lateral hire, whether you're keen on joining a traditional law firm or a LegalTech start-up.
John: The energy and commitment that online students bring. Many are working professionals or balancing other responsibilities, so they bring real-world experience and thoughtful perspectives into our sessions.
John: This programme is about “training forward”. That’s the motto I’d use. We’re trying to instil relevant legal knowledge in the lawyers of today. At the same time, we’re casting an eye to the kind of lawyers we all need to be in 10- and 20-years’ time.
It’s exciting to help shape the future of the profession, especially one that is technologically agile and ethically grounded.
John: My advice is to come ready to engage and think ahead. Ask yourself if you’re intellectually curious, professionally motivated, and ready to grapple with the big legal and policy challenges of the digital age. If the answer is ‘yes’, this programme will be a strong fit for you.
Bring your perspective, your questions, and your ambition. Because that’s what makes this learning community thrive.
Thank you to John for sharing your insights into the programme!
Find out how the Digital Law LLM can equip you with the legal skills needed for a tech-driven world: