Skip to content

Studies & Degrees in Public Law

Public law is the part of the law that governs the state and its relations with citizens and with other states. It is usually set against private law, which governs relations between individuals and companies. The main branches are constitutional law, administrative law, tax and public finance law, criminal law, procedural law, public international law and the law of the European Union.

Students learn how public powers are organised and limited: how laws are made, how fundamental rights are protected, how the administration takes decisions and how citizens can challenge them in court, how taxes are imposed, and how states are held responsible under international law. The work is based on reading constitutions, statutes and court rulings, and on writing reasoned legal arguments.

Qualifications and levels

Public law is rarely a first degree in its own right. Most students meet it as a large block of a law degree and specialise afterwards.

  • Bachelor's degree in Spain (grado). The Grado en Derecho has 240 ECTS credits and takes four years. It covers both public and private law. The Universidad de Alcalá, for example, teaches it in Spanish and English, and the Universidad de León teaches it in Spanish on its León campus.
  • Master's degrees in Spain. Official master's degrees have 60, 90 or 120 ECTS credits. The Máster Universitario en Estudios Avanzados de Derecho Público of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid has 60 ECTS credits, is taught in Spanish on the Madrid-Puerta de Toledo campus and is oriented to legal research. It gives direct access to the doctoral programme and includes placements in public or non-profit institutions. Optional courses include administrative and judicial review procedures, international responsibility and the democratic principle in the EU. The university states that 80% of its students come from abroad.
  • Master's degrees abroad. The LLM in Public International Law of Utrecht University in the Netherlands is a one-year programme taught in English that starts in September, with three tracks: Conflict and Security; Human Rights; and Oceans, the Environment and Sustainability.
  • Doctorate. In Spain, access to a doctorate requires 300 ECTS credits across the bachelor's and master's stages.
  • United States. Law is a graduate degree. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, becoming a lawyer usually takes seven years of full-time study after high school, and accredited law programmes include constitutional law among their core courses.

Short courses also exist, such as legal English courses for lawyers who work in more than one language.

Where to study it

Our directory lists 12 schools for public law. Nine are in Spain, and there is one each in the Netherlands, the United States and Ireland. The Spanish entries are mainly public universities with a law faculty, together with a business and law school and a university institute for public policy.

The language matters because public law is national law. A Spanish programme teaches the Spanish constitution, administration and courts, mostly in Spanish. Programmes on international and European law are more often taught in English. A student who plans to practise in another country should check how much of the programme is specific to the country where it is taught.

Admission to a master's degree in Spain requires a university degree that gives access to postgraduate study in the country that issued it. Universities set their own selection criteria. At the Carlos III master's, the academic record counts for 50% of the assessment.

Careers

Public law leads to work in and around the state. Typical roles are civil servant or legal adviser in a public administration, judge or prosecutor, lawyer in administrative, tax or constitutional cases, legal officer in an international organisation or a non-governmental organisation, and university researcher. Utrecht University lists government and other public institutions, international organisations including courts and tribunals, NGOs, academia and law firms as the areas where its graduates work.

Access to these professions is regulated in each country. In Spain, the law degree gives access to the Máster de Abogacía, which qualifies graduates to practise as a lawyer (abogado) or court representative (procurador), as the Universidad de Alcalá explains. Posts in the public administration are filled through competitive examinations.

In the United States, local, state and federal government together employed about 20% of lawyers in 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which projects that employment of lawyers will grow 5 percent from 2025 to 2035.

Frequently asked questions

Is public law a degree of its own?

Usually not. It is a core part of a law degree, and a specialisation at master's or doctoral level.

How long does a master's degree in public law take?

Official master's degrees in Spain have 60, 90 or 120 ECTS credits. The two examples on this page, at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and Utrecht University, are one-year programmes.

Can public law be studied in English?

Yes, mainly in international and European law. The LLM in Public International Law of Utrecht University is taught in English. Programmes on national public law are normally taught in the language of the country.

Does a master's degree in public law allow someone to practise as a lawyer?

Not by itself. Each country sets its own route into the legal profession. In Spain it is the law degree followed by the Máster de Abogacía.