EPQ Ideas for Law: 30+ Questions on Justice, Rights and Crime

By Michael Thompson · Education Specialist; 10 years teaching the IB at Bromsgrove School · Published 24 October 2026 · Updated 25 October 2026

EPQ ideas for law are a common search among sixth-formers, and for good reason: law is a subject where the gap between A-level content and degree-level thinking is wide, and a well-chosen Extended Project Qualification can bridge it. A strong law EPQ is not a GCSE essay writ large - it is a focused research question that goes beyond the taught syllabus, that can be answered with sources the student can actually reach, and that connects to the degree or career the student has in mind without simply rehearsing it. The OCR moderators' report for summer 2024 is blunt about what separates the best projects from the rest: students who did well 'selected a topic which genuinely interested them' and 'refined a research question which was targeted and focused', while those who did less well 'selected a generic topic' and 'researched broadly and shallowly'. This guide sets out more than thirty law EPQ title ideas, three worked narrowing examples, and practical advice on feasibility, ethics, and using the project in your application.

Key Takeaways

• Focused questions beat broad topics: The OCR moderators' report flags projects that were 'too limited or too large in scope' for 120 guided learning hours as a recurring problem - a question narrow enough to answer properly is more valuable than a vast theme.
• Your centre approves the title: Per the OCR specification, 'Project titles must be approved by centres'; the AQA specification likewise requires students to 'draft a title and aims for formal approval by the centre' before work begins.
• Cases, statutes and official reports are ideal sources: Court judgments, Acts of Parliament, Law Commission reports, and parliamentary select-committee papers are public, citable, and carry the credibility law admissions tutors will recognise.
• Primary research can strengthen a law project: The OCR moderators' report cites interviews and email exchanges with practitioners as effective primary research; a court visit or a structured exchange with a solicitor can add original insight that secondary sources cannot.
• Universities notice the EPQ in applications: The University of Cambridge says it 'welcomes the Extended Project and would encourage applicants to undertake one as it will help to develop independent study and research skills valuable for higher education', as printed in the OCR H857 specification.
• Reference formatting matters as much as content: The OCR moderators' report found many candidates submitted only lists of hyperlinks; properly formatted in-text citations and a bibliography are expected under AO2, and source evaluations covering each source's usefulness, credibility and reliability are required.

In This Article

1. What makes a good EPQ title for law
2. 30+ EPQ ideas for law, grouped by area
3. Three worked examples: from weak topic to focused EPQ title
4. Feasibility, sources and ethics for a law EPQ
5. Using your law EPQ in a UCAS application and at interview
6. What to do next

1. What makes a good EPQ title for law

Good EPQ ideas for law are not hard to find. The harder part is turning a broad interest into a question that is actually answerable in 120 guided learning hours. Law appeals to EPQ candidates partly because the source material is accessible: cases, statutes, official reports and government consultations are all public documents. But that abundance is also a trap. A title like "Is the UK legal system fair?" sounds serious and sounds like law, yet it is so wide that no 5,000-word dissertation could do it justice.

The OCR moderators' report for Summer 2024 is specific about what separates stronger and weaker projects. Candidates who did well "refined a research question... which was targeted and focused", "narrowed and deepened research as they progressed", and produced "well-formatted in-text citations and bibliographies" with "genuine self-reflection and insight". Those who did less well "selected a generic topic", "researched broadly and shallowly", and "omitted in-text citations and bibliographies OR used hyperlinks or URLs instead of formatting references." The report also flags a recurring scope problem: projects that were "too limited or too large" for 120 GLH, and aims that did not "relate to the steps needed to achieve planned outcomes."

The question stem matters more than most students expect. Stems such as "To what extent...", "How far does..." and "Should..." invite argument; "What is..." questions tend to produce descriptive rather than analytical writing, which gives you little to evaluate. A question built around "Should the UK introduce a Victims' Law?" forces you to weigh competing arguments. "What is the Victims' Law?" does not.

Before you settle on a title, check it against these five qualities (a checklist written for this guide):

• Arguable - the question has a genuine yes/no or stronger/weaker answer, not just a factual one.
• Focused - it narrows to one jurisdiction, one statute, one period, or one comparator, not all of them.
• Researchable - you can reach the sources: case law, academic journals, parliamentary reports, practitioner interviews.
• Personally interesting - you will spend months on this; hollow topics show in the final product.
• Course-aligned - it connects to the degree or career you are aiming for without simply rehearsing A-level content.

One procedural fact that catches students out: you cannot just start. Both the OCR specification and the AQA specification require formal centre approval before the project begins. Under OCR, "project titles must be approved by centres"; under AQA, students "draft a title and aims for formal approval by the centre." That approval stage is also your best early checkpoint: if your supervisor struggles to articulate what your argument will be, the question is probably still too broad.

2. 30+ EPQ ideas for law, grouped by area

The epq ideas for law listed below are written for this guide and labelled as such. Each is phrased as a question or a brief rather than a topic, because a topic ("sentencing reform") tells you nothing about what you will argue or conclude. A question forces a position.

One non-obvious point worth knowing: several of the strongest questions below sit at the boundary of two areas, say criminology and human rights, or technology and employment law. That overlap is a feature, not a problem. It gives you more sources to draw on and signals to a reader that you have thought carefully about where the debate actually lives.

Criminal law and sentencing

Ideas written for this guide:

• To what extent does mandatory minimum sentencing in England and Wales reduce judicial discretion without reducing reoffending?
• Should the defence of loss of control under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 be reformed to better protect domestic abuse survivors?
• How far does the sentencing guidelines framework in England and Wales achieve consistency across courts of different sizes?
• Should joint enterprise liability under English law be reformed following the Supreme Court's 2016 ruling in R v Jogee?
• To what extent does the current test for diminished responsibility adequately reflect advances in forensic psychiatry?

Research note: Sentencing Council guidelines, Law Commission reports, and court statistics published by the Ministry of Justice are public and freely available. An email exchange with a criminal barrister or a visit to a Crown Court public gallery could add genuine primary insight; a survey of classmates would not.

Human rights and civil liberties

Ideas written for this guide:

• How far does the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty limit the effectiveness of the Human Rights Act 1998?
• Should the UK introduce a Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act, and what would be lost in the process?
• To what extent do stop-and-search powers under PACE 1984 disproportionately affect Black communities in London?
• How effectively has the Equality Act 2010 protected disabled people from discrimination in employment?
• Should protest rights under the Public Order Act 2023 be rolled back, and on what legal basis?

Research note: Select-committee evidence sessions, Home Office statistical bulletins, and judgments from the European Court of Human Rights are all public. An interview with a civil liberties solicitor or a journalist covering public-order law could add texture that secondary sources alone cannot supply.

Technology, data and the law

Ideas written for this guide:

• Should social media platforms be held criminally liable for content that incites violence?
• Should the UK introduce a legal right to be forgotten equivalent to GDPR Article 17 in all criminal conviction records?
• How far does the Online Safety Act 2023 balance freedom of expression against protection from harmful content?
• To what extent is the current UK legal framework adequate to prosecute deepfake-related offences?
• Should algorithmic decision-making in bail and sentencing decisions be regulated, and if so, how?

Research note: ICO guidance, parliamentary debates, and Law Commission consultation papers are public. Because many cases in this area are ongoing or unreported, an email exchange with a data-protection lawyer or a technology-policy researcher can fill gaps that published case law has not yet addressed.

Family, medical and employment law

Ideas written for this guide:

• Should assisted dying be legalised in England and Wales, and what safeguards would be required?
• How far does the employment status of gig economy workers in the UK reflect their economic reality following the Supreme Court ruling in Uber BV v Aslam [2021]?
• To what extent does the Family Court adequately protect children in private law proceedings involving allegations of domestic abuse?
• Should surrogacy arrangements be made legally enforceable in England and Wales?
• How effectively does the Mental Capacity Act 2005 protect the autonomy of patients with fluctuating capacity?

Research note: The Law Commission's reports on surrogacy (2023) and on mental capacity and deprivation of liberty (2017) are publicly available, as are the parliamentary debates on assisted dying. The student must not give or imply legal advice at any point in the project; the question is analytical, not advisory.

Constitutional questions and the courts

Ideas written for this guide:

• Should the UK codify its constitution, and what problems would codification solve that the current arrangements do not?
• How far did the Supreme Court's ruling in Miller (No 2) [2019] alter the constitutional relationship between Parliament and the executive?
• Should the UK Supreme Court have the power to strike down primary legislation that is incompatible with fundamental rights?
• To what extent does the royal prerogative remain a constitutionally legitimate tool of government?
• How effectively does the doctrine of judicial review hold public bodies to account without trespassing on parliamentary sovereignty?

Research note: Hansard, Constitutional Reform Act 2005, and Supreme Court judgments are publicly accessible. A visit to a Supreme Court public hearing or an email exchange with a constitutional law academic would be an appropriate form of primary research.

Criminology and policing

Ideas written for this guide:

• To what extent does restorative justice reduce reoffending among young offenders in England and Wales?
• How far do UK knife-crime prevention programmes address the structural causes of youth violence?
• Should the use of facial recognition technology by UK police forces be subject to primary legislation?
• To what extent does the criminalisation of drug use in England and Wales reflect public health evidence?
• How effectively does the Independent Office for Police Conduct investigate complaints of excessive force?

Research note: Home Office crime statistics, IOPC annual reports, and youth-justice statistics are public sources well-suited to epq ideas criminology questions. The OCR moderators' report notes that effective primary research has included interviews and email exchanges with experts, and a criminology topic is one where a structured email to a probation officer or a youth-justice practitioner could meaningfully inform the argument.

International and environmental law

Ideas written for this guide:

• Should ecocide be recognised as an international crime under the Rome Statute?
• How effectively does the Paris Agreement's legal architecture hold signatory states to their emissions commitments?
• To what extent does international humanitarian law adequately regulate the use of autonomous weapons systems?
• How far does the UK's withdrawal from the EU affect its obligations under international environmental agreements?
• Should the International Court of Justice have compulsory jurisdiction over state-sponsored cyberattacks?

Research note: UN treaty texts, ICJ judgments, and Law Commission papers are all public. Because state practice evolves quickly in this area, academic journal articles and parliamentary foreign-affairs committee reports are worth prioritising alongside primary sources.

The legal profession and access to justice

Ideas written for this guide:

• To what extent does the cab-rank rule genuinely preserve access to justice in the criminal bar?
• How effectively does the UK's Modern Slavery Act 2015 protect victims of labour exploitation?
• Should the legal aid means test be reformed to restore access to justice for middle-income defendants?
• To what extent do McKenzie Friends undermine, or supplement, access to justice in the family courts?
• Should the route to qualifying as a barrister (the Bar course and pupillage) be reformed to widen entry to the profession, and what would be lost?

Research note: Legal aid statistics from the Ministry of Justice, Bar Standards Board annual reports, and Law Society research are public and well-suited to these questions. An email exchange with a duty solicitor, a barrister's clerk, or a legal-aid caseworker could supply the kind of practitioner perspective that secondary sources tend to flatten.

3. Three worked examples: from weak topic to focused EPQ title

The four-move method below is written for this guide. Apply it to any area of law: ask what specific aspect you are examining, whose experience or which jurisdiction is in focus, which court, country or period sets the boundary, and what comparator or counter-argument gives the question its edge. Each move cuts scope while adding intellectual weight.

Example 1 (criminal law) - written for this guide

Weak topic: Sentencing in the UK

Focused title: "To what extent does the 'two strikes' life sentence for a second listed offence (Sentencing Act 2020, section 283) reduce serious violence in England and Wales, and how does this compare with the evidence from US mandatory minimum regimes?"

Example 2 (human rights) - written for this guide

Weak topic: Human rights and terrorism

Focused title: "Should the UK's Prevent duty on schools and universities be reformed to better protect free expression rights under Article 10 ECHR, and what does the existing case law suggest?"

Example 3 (technology and law) - written for this guide

Weak topic: AI and the law

Focused title: "To what extent is existing English copyright law, as interpreted in cases such as Infopaq International v Danske Dagblades Forening, adequate to protect human authors from AI-generated reproduction of their style?"

Question refinement is the step that most consistently separates stronger projects from weaker ones. The OCR Extended Project H857 moderators' report, Summer 2024 notes that candidates who performed well "refined a research question which was targeted and focused," while those who did less well "selected a generic topic" and stayed with it even when the work was not progressing. Running any draft title through the four moves above before submitting it to your centre for approval is the single most useful thing you can do at the planning stage.

4. Feasibility, sources and ethics for a law EPQ

Sources you can actually reach

The backbone of most law EPQ dissertations is freely available public material. Cases on BAILII, Acts on legislation.gov.uk, Law Commission reports, parliamentary select committee papers and the Office for National Statistics crime statistics are all open-access and carry the kind of credibility that law admissions tutors will recognise immediately. You do not need journal subscriptions to build a credible bibliography, though your school or public library may give you access to subscription legal databases if you want them.

Source evaluations are not optional under OCR AO2. The OCR moderators' report 2024 is clear that evaluations must cover the usefulness of a source for your specific project and an assessment of its credibility and reliability, not just a list of URLs. Many candidates also handed in lists of hyperlinks, which the report notes cannot be followed once the portfolio is printed.

Primary research options

Court visits are more accessible than most students realise. The majority of magistrates' court hearings are open to the public, which means you can observe real proceedings without any formal access request. Interviews and email exchanges with solicitors, barristers, legal academics or policy staff are also viable. The OCR moderators' report 2024 names interviews, email exchanges with experts and visits to appropriate locations as examples of effective primary research.

One counter-intuitive point: if your primary research falls through, that is not automatically a problem. The same report notes that where primary research proves ineffective, you can still demonstrate critical thinking by analysing why it did not work.

What you cannot do

Some research routes are off-limits regardless of topic:

• Research involving clients, patients, children or any participant whose identity or information could be harmful to disclose is not appropriate for an EPQ.
• You must speak to your supervisor before approaching any human participant, including a practitioner you plan to interview.
• The project is a research document, not a legal opinion. You must not give or imply legal advice anywhere in it, including in an artefact such as a public information leaflet.

A note on surveys

The OCR moderators' report 2024 records that ineffective surveys outnumbered effective ones among submitted projects. A survey is only worth including if it can meaningfully add to your outcome, not simply to generate primary data. For most law EPQ questions, case analysis, statutory interpretation and expert interviews will carry more weight than a 20-response online questionnaire.

Artefact and investigation routes

A dissertation is not the only option. Both the OCR and AQA specifications allow artefact and report formats. For students whose interest is applied rather than theoretical, these can be a better fit:

• A policy briefing document on a sentencing reform proposal
• A mock legal argument structured around a decided case
• An annotated case study portfolio examining a line of case law
• A public legal information leaflet on a rights issue (written carefully, with no implied legal advice)

These formats suit epq ideas based on law that involve advocacy, communication or policy analysis rather than pure academic argument, and they may give you a more distinctive piece to discuss at interview.

5. Using your law EPQ in a UCAS application and at interview

The EPQ is one of the few qualifications where the research process itself becomes something to talk about, not just the grade. For law applicants, that matters.

The OCR H857 specification prints statements from universities on exactly this point. The University of Manchester states that students 'can refer to the Extended Project in their UCAS personal statement and at interview to demonstrate some of the qualities that universities are looking for'. The University of Cambridge states: 'We welcome the Extended Project and would encourage applicants to undertake one as it will help to develop independent study and research skills valuable for higher education.'

On offer conditions, the WJEC EPQ student guide 2021 notes: 'Increasingly, universities are including the EPQ in their UCAS offers. Very often an A/A* grade in the EPQ will lead to a lower A Level grade requirement.' That is WJEC's observation, not a universal rule. Offers and how the EPQ is recognised vary by course and institution, so check individual course pages directly.

The practical advantage of a well-chosen law EPQ at interview is specific. Where an interview invites you to discuss something you have read or researched independently, the project is ready-made material. A project on, say, the limits of mandatory sentencing gives you a ready answer: you can describe which sources you evaluated, which arguments you found unconvincing, and what you concluded. That is harder to fake than a personal statement bullet point, and it is evidence of independent research skills in practice rather than as a claim.

One non-obvious point: the topic you choose shapes what you can say at interview. A question that required you to weigh competing legal arguments, evaluate academic commentary and reach a reasoned conclusion is far more discussable than a descriptive survey of a legal area. Choose accordingly.

6. What to do next

This week, draft three possible research questions using the What / Who / Where / Compared with what framework from the worked examples. Aim for questions at different levels of ambition: one that feels almost too narrow, one that feels about right, and one you suspect is too broad. That contrast makes the next conversation far more productive.

Then book a meeting with your supervisor before you commit to any title. This is not optional: per the AQA EPQ specification, students must draft a title and aims for formal centre approval before work begins. Starting research before your centre has signed off the title puts your project at risk.

One practical gotcha worth flagging early: your supervisor will want to see that your question is answerable within 120 guided learning hours. Bring a rough list of the sources you can actually access, not just the ones you hope exist. Book that meeting this week.

FAQ

What makes a good EPQ title for law students?

A good law EPQ title is a focused question that goes beyond the A-level syllabus, can be answered with sources the student can access, and is neither too narrow nor too broad for 120 guided learning hours - the OCR moderators' report for summer 2024 lists a research question that was 'targeted and focused' among the qualities of candidates who did well, and projects 'too limited or too large in scope' among the problems.

Can I do an EPQ on criminology or criminal law?

Yes - criminology, policing, and criminal law are all well-suited EPQ areas; strong titles focus on a specific question (such as the effect of a particular sentencing policy or the disproportionate use of stop-and-search) rather than a broad theme, and can draw on public official statistics, case law, and interviews with practitioners as sources.

Will a law EPQ help my university application?

The University of Manchester states students 'can refer to the Extended Project in their UCAS personal statement and at interview to demonstrate some of the qualities that universities are looking for', and the University of Cambridge says it 'welcomes the Extended Project' as evidence of independent study skills - both statements are printed in the OCR H857 specification; check individual course pages for offer conditions.

What sources should I use for a law EPQ?

Cases, statutes, Law Commission reports, parliamentary select-committee papers and official statistics are public, freely available and carry strong credibility; the OCR moderators' report also identifies interviews and email exchanges with legal practitioners as effective primary research, provided they meaningfully contribute to the project outcome.

Do I need to do primary research for a law EPQ?

No - the OCR moderators' report for summer 2024 says primary research 'is encouraged, but it is not compulsory'; where it worked, the report names interviews, email exchanges with experts and visits to appropriate locations (for a law project, a court), and it notes that ineffective surveys outweighed effective ones.

Who approves my EPQ title?

Your centre approves it: the OCR specification states 'Project titles must be approved by centres', and the AQA specification requires students to 'draft a title and aims for formal approval by the centre' before work begins, so supervisor input at the question-drafting stage is essential.

References

• Cambridge OCR Extended Project H857 Moderators' report - Summer 2024 - https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/727849-moderators-report.pdf
• Cambridge OCR Level 3 Extended Project Qualification H857 Specification v2.2 (October 2026) - Assessment, PPR, marking criteria bands, overlap with other qualifications - https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/414382-specification.pdf
• AQA Level 3 Extended Project Qualification (7993) Specification v1.4 - 2.5.1 Assessment evidence and project product - https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-W-7993-SP-19.PDF