Guildford Law School

[ZebraGiraffe]

DD is considering applying, she has not got any sponsorship yet but still has a few months.
Just wondering if anyone has any advice? Is it better to wait until you have sponsorship (for career chances as well as cost?) or are you more likely to get sponsorship once you start the course? Other issue is we have no contacts in law, many people DD knows have parents working in the field and it seems to have helped with getting into firms. Is it still one of those fields where you need contacts?

DD is at Law School in London and the big London firms sponsor but hardly anyone else. Seems a career where people in the know Have a better chance of getting jobs. Law runs in families like Doctors. DD has spent a lot of time doing work for the CAB and now a Women Crisis charity. She wants to be a Barrister and it is tough, tough, tough! If your DD can get sponsorship,then well done. We have no connections either but DD is committed. There are probably bursaries available but we didn't qualify for anything. If our DD does the barristers course we are in for £18,000 course fees. I think you DD must start applying for graduate jobs with law firms and try and get an internship first. They mostly choose from these interns apparently. No idea about local solicititors. No-one sponsors around us.

Harsh reality time.

Yes contacts matter, as does experience.

Did she do a law degree or is this for conversion course plus LPC? Did she get at least a 2:1 in her degree (less than this and she will seriously struggle)

There are many many more law students than jobs. Personally unless you can afford to pay fees without a second thought I feel it would be reckless to undertake the course without anything to go to afterwards. An example: I know of a prospective trainee solicitor who runs a coffee bar and uses his annual leave to work unpaid in local solicitors' offices to "keep his hand in". This for 5 years......

Your DD may well be better off applying to firms for internships or paralegal work (does she know which specialisation - roughly - she wants to head for? City work, criminal, high street generalist?) and generally doing whatever she can, calling on any contacts she or you have (ie she may not know any actual lawyers but you may know someone with their own business who uses a lawyer and who might be able to make an introduction) in order to get her foot in the door somewhere.

There are other routes into being a solicitor - has she considered that?

Not more likely to get sponsorship when start course, in fact less likely. She needs to do some work experience, vacation scheme etc etc as much as possible. She may well get a job in legal field on finishing but more likely as paralegal rather than trainee solicitor.

Good luck

Do you mean actual sponsorship or do you mean a training contract? She will only qualify as a solicitor after completing her LPC and training contract (unless she is exempt for some reason such as 5 years qualifying employment). Many people do LPC and t/c without any financial sponsorship as this is very unusual these days other than at top London or regionals. The competition for training contracts is very fierce with many people not obtaining them. However my understanding is that there are more available now than a couple of years back. At my husband's firm there are 300 applicants for 6 training contracts per year so they do look for applicants with a 2.1 from a good uni and then back to As at A level and even back to GCSEs because even then that leaves them a pool of over 100 applicants to chose to interview from.

With this in mind if she looks as though she might not meet that criteria she might be better off trying to get in somewhere as a paralegal or as an intern and then when they know her seeing if there is a possibility of a training contract. That said the competition for this is also very competitive. Has her uni not been able to advise her regarding placement? My husband's current pa has a law degree and came to the firm as a secretary just to get in!

Contacts help but only insofar as the criteria the firms set are met too unless it's a smaller high street practice/family firm.

We I considered the lack of TCs when DS graduated and decided to defer his LPC while he got some experience. He's now doing the ILEX course part-time, while working as a glorified admin, and still hopes to do the LPC afterwards without needing a TC to qualify. With hindsight he wishes he'd applied for a legal exec apprenticeship at 18 instead of wasting spending 3 years at uni.

I studied law at the University of Surrey in Guildford and had a place at the law school afterwards. I had a similar dilemma as your daughter; no contacts, no prior sponsorship, no money . I decided to defer for a year while I did some legal work experience/made contacts/saved money. In my year 'off' I carried on looking for other opportunities and ended up getting a place on a graduate scheme in finance which I accepted. I definitely think it was the right decision for me in the long run. I have friends who did go on to the law school, the ones who have managed to forge successful careers in law are the ones who had parents etc as lawyers. It's not impossible without the contacts but it's much more difficult.