Anyone in the legal profession up for giving some advice?

[LegalEagle931]

DD17 is in her first year of A Levels, hoping to study a combined law degree with LLB with a view to becoming a solicitor or barrister.

She's been offered a place on the 2-year ACCESS programme run by Clifford Chance - a 'magic circle' law firm.

She's also got a place on the Sutton Trust programme. Both courses are for disadvantaged students - I'm a single (divorced) parent and full time family carer.

It appears the initial 4 day intro course is running the same week. Obviously CC is an amazing opportunity but the ST programme is running at her preferred uni.

If anyone's out there that can suggest which might be the better option I'd be grateful for any opinions. I have my own and I know DD will do her homework very thoroughly, but advice from someone in the profession would be really helpful.

TIA!

What do you mean a combined Law degree with LLB? The LLB IS the degree. I have one.

I mean she's looking at doing Law and Politics or Politics, Philosophy & Law, rather than Law on its own...both result in an LLB.

I have no idea of the technicalities but DD is very determined and very thorough! I know she'll research thoroughly before making a decision...my gut feeling is that the Clifford Chance programme would probably be more beneficial but would be interested to hear povs from those in the profession.

If she wants to be a solicitor she would be crazy to turn down the CC offer - guaranteed mentoring and a great accelerated offer at a training contract which would open any door she wanted. Unless she has her heart set on the bar - and the funding issues that go with it - celebrate an amazing achievement to get into the CC scheme.

DB worked for a mc law firm (support role). I think take the CC opportunity, well done her!!

Both/either are going to be beneficial - the difficulty in needing to decide which of them to do is whether or not your DD has much of an idea of what she may want to do with her career. The Clifford Chance programme will look great on her CV, but more so if she is interested in being a solicitor in a corporate/international firm. I don’t know that much about their specific programme and how wide the scope is, but would think it is influenced by their business. If she may be interested in other directions then perhaps the other programme may overall be a better fit??

I have worked with ex Clifford Chance solicitors and one of the trainees in my cohort went to CC as a NQ when we finished our training contracts, cannot deny it’s a great firm and the name itself will open doors, but if it was one of my DDs my hesitation would be if it may narrow down the direction they go down from very early on when there are so many other areas a legal career can take you and may need to work that out for herself, and I’m a corporate law partner!

But well done to her for getting these opportunities!

Literally worked there for years - do the CC course. Opens doors even if you do another type of law later as you can use it to say you tried it and didn’t like it. Office is amazing.

If she decides to train in the MC later then she should make sure she knows what the deal really is though. It is not for the faint hearted.

Echo a PP, well done her.

Thanks so much for all the replies.

Good point about what type of law she's considering @Hophop26 and@Passanotherjaffacake. Originally it was criminal but she's leaning more toward corporate and human rights these days.

She has a great p/t job working for a local charity which she absolutely loves and hopes to set up her own non-profit once she's established in her career, so I can certainly envisage her doing 'corporate' law within that kind of context.