Law at the University of Wrocław – The most difficult subjects, exams and realities

Civil Law – “Mount Everest” of the third year

If you survive the first year, you will enter a period of relative calm that ends brutally in the third year. Civil law at the University of Wrocław (general, material and liabilities) is the most extensive subject in the entire university.

What exactly are you learning?

The range of material is gigantic. You have to master the entire Civil Code and numerous non-code acts.

1. General part: Legal capacity, defects in the declaration of intent, statute of limitations on claims.
2. Property law: Ownership, perpetual usufruct, limited rights in rem (mortgage, pledge).
3. Commitments: This is where the real difficulty begins. You learn about contracts (sale, rental, leasing, work), unjust enrichment and torts (damages).

What do students have the biggest problems with?

• Civil cases: WPAE exams are based on solving complex facts. You need to know whether the contract was effectively concluded in a given situation, who bears the risk of accidental loss of the item and what claims the parties are entitled to.
• Interdisciplinarity* A civilian requires combining knowledge from different departments. You will not solve the problem of obligations if you do not know the rules of representation of legal persons in the general part.
• Jurisprudence of the Supreme Court: At the University of Wrocław, knowledge of the code alone is not enough for a good grade. You need to know the lines of case law that change the interpretation of dead provisions of the Act.

Why and when do they fail?

Most people fail their obligations. This is the moment when the material ceases to be intuitive. Students often “swim” in terms of limitation and liability rules (fault vs. risk). Oral exams with professors with high requirements make the third year statistically the year with the highest number of resignations and “conditions”.

Criminal Law – Theory of Guilt and Stadial Forms of Crime

Criminal law in the second year is a subject that teaches rigor in qualifying human acts. This is where a student of the University of Wrocław must become a precise analyst.

What exactly are you learning?

This is divided into a general part (rules of liability, punishment, punitive measures) and a specific part (specific crimes: murder, theft, fraud). The most important is the theory of crime: you need to know when an act is unlawful, reprehensible and culpable.

What are the biggest problems?

• Stadial and phenomenal forms: Distinguishing between an attempt to prepare or to assist from incitement in complicated cases can be a breakneck.
• Countertypes: Necessary defence, a state of higher necessity, an error as to the circumstance excluding illegality. These are the departments in which students get lost most often, because the line between necessary defense and its crossing is very thin in cases.
• Rules for sentencing: Counting the coincidences of regulations and the concurrence of crimes requires proficiency in the operation of the Criminal Code.

Why do students drop out?

Criminal at the University of Wrocław does not forgive mistakes in legal qualification. If you omit one important element in the case case (e.g. instead of a possible one, you take a direct intention), the whole task is evaluated at zero. Students often cannot cope with the logical rigor imposed by penitentiary departments in Wrocław.

Administrative Law and Procedure – Formalism that kills passion

Administration at the University of Wrocław (second and third year) is a clash with the largest number of dispersed acts. This is where students feel the greatest fatigue of the material.

What exactly are you learning?

The structure of state bodies, local government and, worst of all , the procedure (KPA). You must know the time limits, types of decisions, appeal procedures and extraordinary procedures for revoking decisions (nullity, renewal).

What are the biggest problems?

There is no single, coherent “logic” as in civilian or criminal cases. Administrative law is thousands of small regulations concerning everything: from spatial development to water law. The biggest nightmare is the KPA (Code of Administrative Procedure) – learning deadlines and procedures that seem to students to be pure bureaucracy.

Why do students drop out?

Out of boredom and a sense of being overwhelmed by the chaos of regulations. Administration at the University of Wrocław is a “heavy” subject due to its substantive unattractiveness for people who dream of a courtroom, and at the same time rigorously tested during exams.

Legal Logic – The Silent Killer of the First Semester

Many humanists go to the law because they “don’t like mathematics”. Logic in the first semester quickly verifies this approach.

What exactly are you learning?

Calculus, names, definitions, syllogisms, errors in argumentation and logic of norms. It’s pure mathematics on symbols, only dressed in words.

What do students not cope with?

• Truth tables and assumption evidence: For people with a humanistic profile, understanding the implications or equivalence of sentences can be a barrier.
• Language Precision: Logic teaches that “or” and “or” are two completely different things. In law, this is of colossal importance, and students often neglect these nuances, which ends up with a failed colloquium.

When do they fall off?

This is often the first subject that a student “fails” in college. Failure in logic in the winter session undermines self-confidence and makes students already approach the summer session from Rome and history with a huge baggage of stress.

Histories of Law (HPPP and HPP) – Memory Marathon

The History of the State and Polish Law and the Universal History are subjects that require mastering hundreds of pages of text about old legal systems.

What do they learn?

The evolution of systems from tribal to state monarchies to parliamentary systems. You need to know the content of dozens of constitutions, statutes and ordinances.

Problems and reasons for spills:

The main problem is detail. During the exams in Wrocław, there are questions about the specific competences of the bodies that existed for 10 years in the eighteenth century. Students fail because they are not able to assimilate such a huge number of dates and names combined with legal analysis of documents in a short time.

Why do students drop out or drop out of college en masse?

Analyzing the situation at WPAE UWr, four main causes of systemic screening can be distinguished:

1. Volumetric shock: The number of pages to be read per session often exceeds 3-4 thousand. People who cannot read quickly and select knowledge simply “sink”.
2. Oral exams: This is the specificity of the law at the University of Wrocław. Direct contact with a professor who evaluates not only knowledge, but also the precision of speech, is paralyzing. Students with social anxiety or low resistance to stress often give up after the first confrontation.
3. Costs of “conditions”: Hardly anyone talks about it, but repeating a subject in law is very expensive. If you do not pass the civil exam (a lot of ECTS credits), the cost of repetition may be over 1200 PLN. The accumulation of two such items is a financial barrier that many do not want or cannot jump over.
4. Imposter syndrome: Law in Wrocław is studied by the leaders themselves. When you suddenly find yourself in a group where everyone was the best in school, and you get the first two in your life from the penalty spot, there is a breakdown and a decision to change direction.

How not to drop out of Law at the University of Wrocław?

• Start with the “stock market”: In Wrocław, each subject has its own “exchange” – sets of questions from the previous 10-15 years. They are not used to forge answers, but to understand what a given professor is emphasizing. Without analyzing the stock market, your chances of passing Rome or a civilian drop by half.
• Read codices, not just textbooks: The most common mistake is to read bulky comments without knowing the content of the act itself. Examiners at the University of Wrocław love to ask about specific paragraphs.
• Study in groups: Law is a team sport. Solving cases in 3-4 people in the library on Kuźnicza Street is the best way to catch mistakes in your way of thinking.
• Don’t let go of exercise: During civil or criminal exercises, you will learn the logic of solving cases. If you ignore them, the exam will crush you, even if you know the theory.
• Take care of your mental health:
• A law session is a marathon that lasts 4-5 weeks without a break. If you don’t schedule a rest, your operating memory will refuse to obey the most important exam.

Student internships at the University of Wrocław law – formality or a real start to a career

At the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics of the University of Wrocław (WPAE), internships are a mandatory part of the study program, usually completed after the fourth semester. You need to know that the university sets specific formal requirements for you, but it depends on your proactivity whether these few weeks will be just “signing a paper” or a real entry into the Wrocław legal community.

Where do law students in Wrocław do their internships?

Wroclaw, as the capital of the region, offers a full cross-section of institutions where you can gain experience. The most popular destinations are:

• District and Regional Courts: The most frequently chosen path. As an intern at the Regional Court in Wrocław (Sądowa Street), you will take minutes at hearings, organize files and prepare drafts of simple pleadings. This is the best way to get to know the procedure “from the inside”.
• Prosecutor’s offices: An option for people targeting criminal law. Internships in district prosecutor’s offices (e.g. Wrocław-Old Town) allow you to see the preparatory process and cooperation with the Police.
• Law Firms and Legal Advisors: Wrocław law offices (located mainly in the vicinity of Świdnicka, Podwala and Market Squares) are happy to accept students, but they require specific skills. Here you will learn how to write lawsuits, applications for security and analyze commercial contracts.
• Student Legal Clinic (SPP): It is a unique unit operating at the WPAE UWr. You can do internships there, providing free legal advice under the supervision of scientific supervisors. This is the most demanding form, because you work on a living organism and real human problems.

WPAE Internship Credit Procedure

In order for the internship to be recognized by the internship supervisor at the University of Wrocław, you must complete strict formalities:

1. Agreement/referral: You must have a signed agreement between the university and the host institution.
2. Internship diary: This is your most important document. You must describe in detail each action performed on a given day (e.g. “analysis of Article 415 of the Civil Code in the context of personal injury”).
3. Number of hours: Typically, the program requires 120-160 hours of internships. You can’t “make up” on the weekend – you have to physically appear at the workplace.

Costs of studying law in Wroclaw

Although full-time studies at the University of Wrocław are free of charge, the law generates costs that can surprise a student who is not prepared for the specifics of this field. When planning your budget, you need to factor in literature expenses, administrative fees, and specific “rescue” costs.

Expenditure on Legal Information Manuals and Systems (SIP)

Law is a study based on the written word. Each of the subjects-filters (civil, criminal, rome) requires an up-to-date textbook and code.

• Current regulations: You can’t learn from a textbook from two years ago. Amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure or the Criminal Code happen in Wrocław faster than you can buy a book. The annual cost of literature is an expense of 600–1200 PLN.
• SIP (Lex, Legalis): As a student of the University of Wrocław, you have free access to the Lex and Legalis databases through the university network. However, if you want to use them at home to write your master’s thesis, you need to learn how to use a remote desktop or use the library version in building D.

The costs of “conditions” and corrections – the hard economics of failure

While the first retake of the exam is free of charge, failure to pass a subject in a given academic year triggers the conditional enrolment procedure.

• ECTS rates: At the University of Wrocław, the price of the condition depends on the number of ECTS credits assigned to the course. For civil law (8-10 ECTS) you can pay up to 1000-1500 PLN.
• Repeating the year: If you accumulate too many revisions, the university will force you to repeat the year, which incurs a fee for each subject you repeat. For many people, this is the barrier that ends their adventure with WPAE.

Part-time (evening) studies

If you are studying law part-time at the University of Wrocław, you need to prepare for tuition fees. In 2024 and 2025, the annual fee oscillates between PLN 6000–8500. Remember that despite the fees, the exam requirements for professors are identical to those for full-time studies – you do not buy a diploma here, but only the opportunity to attend classes at other times.

Work tools of a law student in Wrocław – what does everyday life look like in buildings A and D?

Everyday life at WPAE is not only a lecture hall, it is a specific logistics of moving between the buildings at Uniwersytecka and Kuźnicza Streets.

Building D – the heart of the faculty and the library

Building D is a modern building where you will spend most of your time.

• Faculty Library: This is where the fight for tables with access to sockets during the session takes place. You need to learn how to use the online catalog, because key comments (e.g. Osajda or Gutowski) are sought after a few minutes after opening the library.
• Exercise rooms: Your activity counts during exercises in building D. In Wrocław, the grades from exercises often determine the possibility of taking the exam in the zero term.

IT infrastructure and USOSweb

The University Study Service System (USOS) is your main administrative tool.

• Subscription exchange: Registration for master’s seminars and language courses is reminiscent of hunting at the University of Wrocław. Servers often crash under load for thousands of students, and your supervisor can be decided by the speed of your internet connection.
• Online materials: Most departments (especially the Department of Criminal Law) make case cases and databases of judgments available on e-learning platforms. Not keeping track of these updates are guaranteed problems for the colloquium.

Casual work and law studies in Wrocław

Wrocław is a huge job market, but the law at the University of Wrocław rarely forgives full-time work before the fourth year of study.

Work in the industry (In-house / Law Firms)

From the 3rd or 4th year, many students start working as legal assistants.

• Earnings: At the start, you can count on a rate within the minimum wage (on a mandate contract).
• Pros: You gain experience that counts when recruiting for an application.
• Cons: The accumulation of work and education to civilian life or procedures often ends with a “condition”. There is no reduced tariff for working people at WPAE – the examiner will not ask you if you had time to study after 8 hours at the office.

How to survive internships and not go bankrupt at university?

• Choose internships with a master’s degree in mind: If you want to write a thesis in commercial law, go to a law firm that provides company services. This will make it easier for you to access files and real legal problems.
• Buy used codices (but wisely): You can buy a used textbook, but never buy a used codex. The law changes too quickly. One mistake in the article about the statute of limitations on the civil exam costs a year of studies.
• Use a photocopier in your library: Instead of buying a commentary for 400 PLN that you read once, photocopy the chapters you need. This is a common and legal practice on WPAE.
• Sign up for ELSA Wrocław: The European Law Students’ Association ELSA organises free training, career days and helps you find paid internships. This is a powerful injection of professional contacts.

FAQ – The most difficult questions about Law at the University of Wrocław

Is it true that Roman Law is the most difficult exam in college?

Civilian, is more difficult in terms of content, but psychologically Rome, because it is the first. It is here that students see for the first time that studying the night before the exam is a simple way to retake in September in Wrocław.

How many people actually graduate from law at the University of Wrocław?

From a year of about 500-600 people, about 60-70% of the graduates usually receive their diploma on time. The rest either take dean’s leave to make up for arrears, or change their field of study.

Are there “unpassable subjects” in the law in Wrocław?

There are no such subjects, but there are some teachers. Each department has its own specificity – some focus on tests, others on oral tests. The key is to adapt the learning method to the specific examiner.

What if I fail the third exam date?

You will be placed conditionally on the next year. You then have to pay for the repetition of the subject and complete it in parallel with the new year. This is a huge burden that often leads to further failures.

Is it worth going to part-time law at the University of Wrocław if it is easier?

It’s a myth. The exams and lecturers are the same. The only difference is in the mode of classes. The grading standards at WPAE are identical for all students.

Law at the University of Wrocław is a study for the elites – not in terms of finances, but in terms of intellectual and character. If you are ready for the fact that for the next few years your best friend will be the Civil Code, and each session will be a test of your endurance, then WPAE will give you the best education in Poland. Remember that every judge or lawyer in Wrocław went through the same thing – through Rome with strict professors and through sleepless nights over obligations.

Don’t wait until the session. Go to student groups now, download the databases of questions and start analyzing the case reports. Success at Kuźnicza Street is built through daily, arduous work, not spurts before the exam. The UWr Law Index is a privilege that you have to earn every day in the library.