A lot of my education latterly has been at Masters level in business and in the law.

We can argue til the cows come home about the relative merits of the Graduate Diploma in Law in offering a necessary and sufficient education in law for non-law graduates like me. This will, I have no doubt, rumble on in the next few years, against a complex backdrop of private vs public education, tuition fees, the Legal Education and Training Review, whether we need a ‘law curriculum’ and if so what should be in it.

We can also argue relentlessly about the Legal Practice Course. I personally feel that it strikes a right balance in its core subjects, civil and criminal litigation, business law and practice, and property law and practice. We also receive an education in accounts and professional conduct (in comparison to the undergraduate assessment requirements of the General Medical Council, to my knowledge), practical legal research, advocacy, interviewing and assessing.

Latterly, however, I did an excellent Masters course at the College of Law, which I’m well known to be fond of. I thought that the way in which their programme is delivered through distance learning is extremely well organised, and gave me a brilliant education in practical training as well as academic perspectives of specialised domains of international commercial law (such as equity finance, share acquisitions or intellectual property).

I am currently studying at BPP Law School, having trained thus far virtually completely at Cambridge (apart from 30 months at the College of Law). I would say that the pastoral care which I have received is second-to-none. For example, I unexpectedly went into a six week coma (due to acute meningitis) during my GDL. Fiona (the Learning Support Officer) and my late father, while I was on a life support machine, communicated endlessly – so I was told by my father – to ensure I could stay on the course. I did complete this course in September 2008, even ‘upgrading’ to a LLB(Hons). I have some friends from the weekends when I attended for classes, with my father. I was in a wheelchair at the time, and Michelle and Gill (from BPP at Waterloo reception and the common room at Holborn respectively) offer reminisce about this period in my life with me.

That however is not where I think the source of the competitive advantage of BPP is. I think, fundamentally, it would be very hard for the College of Law to build up a formidable reputation in finance, accountancy, tax, business and marketing overnight. These happily co-exist in the BPP Business Schools, with BPP achieving every year some of the best CIMA professional accountancy exam results in the country. I cannot even begin to explain how the MBA which I completed earlier this year for a two-week overlap with my LPC has fundamentally improved my understanding of management accounting, markets and marketing, organisations and leadership, international marketing, strategy and operations management, advanced strategy implementation, and innovation. I have the opportunity to pass this on with new and old friends of mine at the BPP Legal Awareness Society, a society based in Holborn, but which is open and inclusive for all BPP students of all disciplines.

I look forward to seeing BPP excel in a very harsh international competitive climate. I feel BPP is second-to-none in terms of offering a holistic business law education, though people who know me will know I am also extremely loyal to Cambridge and the College of Law where I also trained.