What online law tutoring covers, level by level
A-Level Law (AQA 7162, Eduqas) covers the English legal system, criminal law (offences against the person, theft, fraud, defences), tort law (negligence, occupiers’ liability, nuisance, trespass), and an option module of either contract law or human rights. The exams test factual recall, problem-solving (apply the law to a hypothetical scenario), and essay technique evaluating proposed reforms. Online tutoring drills the IRAC problem-question structure, builds case-name knowledge with mark-scheme-aligned phrasing, and practises essay technique under timed conditions.
LLB undergraduate work is the volume online market. First-year modules typically include contract law, tort law, criminal law, public/constitutional law, English legal system or legal skills. Second year goes into equity and trusts, EU law (still on most syllabi despite Brexit, for comparative purposes), and either land law or jurisprudence. Third year offers options — international, commercial, family, evidence, intellectual property. Online tutoring focuses on either problem-question technique (commercial modules) or essay technique (theory-heavy modules like jurisprudence).
LNAT preparation is the highest-margin online segment. The exam has two sections: 42 multiple-choice reading-comprehension questions in 95 minutes, and a 40-minute essay. Tutoring breaks down argument structure, identifies premise-conclusion patterns, drills logical fallacy spotting, and rehearses essay writing under time pressure. Most students start LNAT prep in August before their October-deadline sit.
LPC, BPC and SQE prep is a smaller postgraduate market. Tutoring usually focuses on specific assessment patterns — wills and probate problem questions, drafting exercises, advocacy preparation. Many LPC and BPC tutors are recent graduates of those courses themselves, charging £65-£100/hour for targeted exam prep.
What an online law session looks like
Sessions run 60-90 minutes. The standard structure varies by topic. A contract law session on consideration might open with 10 minutes of recall on last week’s cases (Williams v Roffey, Stilk v Myrick, Selectmove), spend 30 minutes walking through a fresh problem question on consideration, and close with 20 minutes drafting an IRAC-structured answer in a shared Google Doc. The tutor adds margin comments as the student types.
For LNAT, sessions look different. 60 minutes splits into 30 minutes of reading-comprehension drilling (a fresh LNAT-style passage with the 6-8 multiple-choice questions, walked through together) and 30 minutes of essay practice on a sample LNAT question. The student types the essay live; the tutor reads section by section and flags weak premises, missing counter-arguments, or structural drift.
Tools that work well online: Google Docs for collaborative drafting (the tutor’s margin comments save 30 minutes vs traditional feedback). BAILII for free judgment access. Westlaw or Lexis where the tutor has institutional access and shares the screen. Bramble for whiteboarding case-relationship maps when teaching equity or land law. A shared Drive folder with running case lists, judgment summaries, and essay drafts builds across the term.
What separates a £45 tutor from a £90 tutor
The £45 tutor is typically a current LLB student or recent graduate. They’re often strong on content because they sat the modules within the last year or two. They can walk through a case clearly. What they sometimes lack is exam-technique nuance and structural feedback experience — the difference between knowing the law and teaching how to write it under exam conditions.
The £55-£75 tutor is usually a pupil barrister, NQ solicitor, or BPC/LPC graduate. They’ve sat advanced legal exams in the past 1-3 years and have direct experience with technical legal writing. They charge premium for harder modules (equity, jurisprudence, public law) where the structural challenge is high.
The £75-£150 tutor is the specialist tier. LNAT coaches with documented track records of getting students into Oxford and Cambridge. Ex-examiners with named grade outcomes at LLB. Academics with recent doctoral training in the relevant module. Worth the premium for top-grade pushes — Oxford or Cambridge LNAT prep, first-class LLB outcomes, BCL admission essays.
How a typical engagement runs
A-Level Law: weekly 60-minute sessions from October to May of Year 13, around 28 sessions. At £45/hour: £1,260 total. Most students see grade movement from B/C territory to A within a year of focused tutoring on IRAC and essay structure.
LLB undergraduate: typically a module-specific engagement during term. A student struggling with equity and trusts books 8-10 sessions across the autumn term at £65/hour, total £520-£650. Often repeats the pattern with a different module the following term. Across a full LLB, students engaged with online tutoring spend £2,500-£5,000 over three years — meaningful, but small relative to the £40k+ undergraduate fee outlay and the career upside.
LNAT prep: 8-12 sessions over 8-12 weeks at £100/hour, total £800-£1,200. For a student who moves from a 22 LNAT score to a 28-30 — which a focused tutor and a willing student should achieve — that’s an Oxford or Cambridge offer rather than a near-miss. Outsized return on the investment.
Platform commission — the practical numbers
The platform a law tutor lists on materially affects what the parent pays and what the tutor takes home. For a £75/hour LNAT session:
- TheTutorLink (5%): parent pays £75, tutor keeps £71.25
- Tutorful (20%): parent pays £75, tutor keeps £60
- Superprof (~22%): parent pays £75, tutor keeps £58.50
- MyTutor (~25%): parent pays £75, tutor keeps £56.25
Most tutors on higher-commission platforms quote inflated rates to compensate. So for the same £71-£75 take-home, parents on Tutorful might pay £88-£95 versus the £75 paid on TheTutorLink. Across 10 sessions of LNAT prep that’s £130-£200 of value lost to platform commission rather than going into more tutoring time.
The free first session on TheTutorLink lets a family trial a tutor before committing. For LNAT specifically, where the tutor needs to demonstrate specific exam-technique capability rather than just legal knowledge, the trial session is invaluable. If the trial doesn’t click, swap. The right LNAT tutor for one student isn’t the right one for another — the chemistry and pacing matter more than the credentials. Tutors with patience for the methodical, premise-by-premise breakdown LNAT requires beat tutors with stronger CVs but less structured teaching.
For LLB and A-Level work, the same logic holds. The free trial session is a low-stakes way to confirm that a tutor’s approach to problem questions or essay structure actually works for the student in question. Most law tutoring engagements run 8-30 sessions across a term or year — a poor fit caught in week one saves dozens of hours on both sides.