I was invited to attend the@BPPLawSchool, to do the Q&A session from a student’s perspective. Despite the fact the front row was empty, I’d say there were about 60 students there.
Ivan, a current tutor on the LPC, explained that the course was very practical, with an emphasis on providing real-life solutions for the client.
Bernadette wished to outline the services you can expect to receive at BPP. BPP Careers service offers individual guidance, including planning of a legal career – including self-awareness – and making applications. Individual guidance is also offered through e-mail advice and telephone service. On e-mail, a lot of time is spent reviewing applications, and the emphasis on preparing for practice. The full mock interview service takes through an hour long interview, focused on you constructively improving your interview focus. If you have an interview with a law firm, the ‘buddy scheme’ will enable you to discuss what the law firm is like with a current trainee, to go ‘underneath the website’.
Through the BPP Careers Service, there are also smaller group sessions, including researching firms and chambers, legal CVs and cover letters, training contract applications, pupillage applications, successful interviews, mock assessment centre, and feedback during sessions. At the moment, BPP is delivering a range of summer workshops – which are small group interactive sessions held in June-August. Events include weekly employer talks, and panel discussions. A weekly careers newsletter covers all vacancies. There is furthermore a range of different schemes, including law firm, paralegal and alternatives fair, career coaching programme, access to practice scheme, and diversity access scheme (for example, some are run with co-operation from Reynolds Porter Chamberlain). For part-time students, telephone appointments may be particularly useful. Bernadette explained the need to start researching the profession, vacation schemes, work shadowing, work experience, and pro bono work, commercial awareness, and joining an Inn and getting involved, mooting, debating, and other public speaking (if you wished to train to be a Barrister). Top tips overall included researching the professions, and getting as much experience as possible. In summary, the BPP Careers Service across all of the BPP sites nationally is very committed in demonstrating that you are preparing yourself for practice.
Laura, a supervising solicitor at Waterloo, gave an introduction to pro bono. It’s a fantastic opportunity to get involved in volunteering in a legal centre, and is free for people who are trying to access justice. Pro bono improves employability as well. When you get involved in pro bono work, BPP is able to offer more than 20 projects. You will be able to gain so many different skills – whilst you are not qualified to give legal advice, your transferable skills are very useful in pro bono, and you will be honing your practical skills (such as researching cases, interviewing clients, producing an attendance note). Society as a whole is looking increasingly at pro bono to help them against the new backdrop of the Legal Aid and Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act; there are so many different projects including Streetlaw, the Housing Clinic (if you enjoy(ed) land law or property, undertaking research and drafting the first letter of advice under supervision), the Environmental Pro Bono Group (this includes a highly successful telephone advice line, referred to a bank of volunteering practising solicitors in London) or the Intellectual Property Pro Bono Group (ad hoc notes or research to help people, flexible, and can be done in your own time), the Human Rights Unit and Liberty letters, speaker series and research, and a legal translation service. There are loads more projects. To join as a student, you can register online through the VLE (no commitment is assessed, and is entirely voluntary). You can have a look at the Facebook page, or email to: probono@bpp.com.
Nicola, from Barlow Robbins, now 3 years’ qualified, came to talk briefly about how she entered law. She had had, in fact, a previous career in climate change. When Nicola was deciding her career, she chose BPP not just because of the quality of the teaching, but also for the “added extras”. Nicola felt that this was a big boost to her professionally; she got involved when she joined BPP, getting involved in Liberty Letters, attending various talks such as with Shami Chakrabarti. When Nicola came to BPP she did not have a training contract, but she used all the facilities available from pro bono and careers. The most valuable bit of advice she received was to focus really hard on the type of firm you wish to work for, and once you become enthusiastic about a type of firm the application process would become very clear; it had previously been a “scattergun” approach for her. In the year that she was doing the LPC, Nicola whittled down the 50 training contract applications that she would normally make down to 5, and received 3 offers. After BPP, Nicola bought into ‘urban myths’ about life as a trainee, but ‘none of that happened’ and “it was a good two years”. You may be told which electives you do by your firm, but the electives which you do can often have no relation to what you do in practice. It’s not easy doing the training contract, as effectively every six months you start a new job, but once you get into your stride it’s a constant learning curve; as a lawyer you are constantly learning all-the-time as the law is very dynamic. It can be exhausting, but it is definitely worth it. Trainees were given their own files to run, and their own clients. The best thing is to have an open mind, and keep flexible about what you want to qualify into. What I love about my job is the relationship I have with clients, but I really enjoyed my year of dealing with private clients. Some people are very lucky in knowing what they want to do, but nine out of trainees that Nicola knows are doing something different to what they had intended; it’s really important to show ‘willing’, and to build a solid base in your career to expose yourself to as many things as possible whilst remaining focused.
What about the LPC itself? It’s the vocational training programme for those intending to practise as solicitors. It is not an academic qualification, but if you do not intend to practise it is not useful. The course consists of two stages (core practice areas and key skills, as well as your choice of electives). The core practice areas constitute the bulk of what you spend your time in (business law and practice, civil litigation, criminal litigation, property law and practice). The course concentrates on the practical mechanisms, as opposed to the academic course. What sets out a trainee in Ivan’s experience is the ability to do practice-focused research – if it is a skill that you can do well, it is a skill which law firms really value; drafting and writing are clearly essential skills too! You might be told by your firm which electives to do – they’re shorter than the core practice areas, and you get to choose them early on in the course. You should attempt to do three electives which are consistent with one another (certain electives are more fitting for a corporate law; certain are more fitting for a high street setting). Ivan also explained the difference between the marking (competent vs not yet competent) for core skills, as opposed to the core practice areas and electives.
Why BPP? BPP is an exclusive provider to 27 firms – the law firms trust us, and the course is taught by professionals. A lot of instructors have trained at the law firms students ultimately go to. Other aspects include – a great library, other additional content (you are allowed to study a fourth online, which is not assessed, the ‘law firm as a business’ a module which looks at the law firm as a business, an opportunity to look at how a law firm earns it money, and steps a law firm might take to improve its business model), learning materials including actual case transactions (the course models itself very closely on what trainees might expect in reality, based on ‘simulated client portfolios’ i.e. a client which has a range of different issues and problems during the entirety of the course), small class sizes (a typical class size is 18, but can vary from 12-20, allowing for a personal tutor who is approachable and contactable), and “High Street Extra” (fast track and small claims in the County Court, bespoke High Street careers provision, across a range of different practice areas, looking at practical issues such as good file management and how to generate work). There are various forms of the course – a traditional course, a “fast track” or “accelerated” course, with different start dates, part-time or full-time (Saturday only, weekend only – Holborn only, evening only, day only), locations in eight prime city centre locations, virtual learning environment, online content for every LPC session, and free Mandarin language lessons.
And finally – I enjoyed very much talking with students in the refreshments session afterwards. I was able to provide details about what the business intelligence project in the MA (Law with business) involves, from having done one in the MBA, the importance of pro bono (from my experience myself doing pro bono) and the relevance of doing ‘High Street Extra’, and that old favourite ‘how to develop commercial awareness’. I was also able to explain what the international student advisors do at BPP, and how multilingual students are also supported from a learning support perspective. As usual, the prospective students were a very enthusiastic, focused bunch! They were very enthusiastic about my society’s blog (this one) and our Twitter account (@legalaware) which engages with other students, QCs, legal journalists, law firms, law schools, and other stakeholders.
This is an independent blogpost, a student’s perspective, by @legalaware and CANNOT be taken as representative of the views of any of the staff or employees of BPP.
