oxford/Cambridge/Durham/lse

[MommyOfATeen]

Hi
Dd is interested in studying law and then wants a career in politics.
She has being researching lately about alevels and what's best to choose as she will be entering for cheltenham ladies college scholarship exam.
Dd has being researching the law courses and can't seem to answer these questions she has
Why should you study law
What qualities are best suited to law
What books/articles can she read to read around law
And finally..
The colleges at Oxford does it matter which one you go to?

molio I have no issue wit you, significant or otherwise. Honest.

I find your MO funny. Mrs Bucket meets Livia Soprano .

Word I think you need to get back to your fiction writing and stop fantasizing about the lives and characters of other MNers before you look a complete and utter dick. This is yet another de-rail, and wholly one-sided. OP asked about law degrees, not about other posters' hang ups. Access to the Bar may well be highly relevant, your stuff about me is not.

I haven't read all 5 pages but I am a lawyer and my daughters recently qualified (on £65k and £100k in London) so don't be put off by anyone on the thread. If you are good you can do well particularly if you work very hard and are pretty stoic , strong and fit. Don't neglect sport.

The best law firms and chambers take 50% law and non law graduates. If you want to avoid an extra year of exams/study read law IF but only if you can go to a very good university and get a 2/1 or higher. Eg my daughter went to Bristol and is not sure she'd have got in there had she read law there so in a sense her choice of university subject and institution were tactical. A law firm paid her 2 years at law school. I read law and loved it and am very supportive of people who want to read law at university. One of my teenagers is thinking of law but may not read it at university first as everyone except me seems to be putting him off which is fine.

I don't think the Oxbridge college will matter too much. My daughters went to Bristol and Nottingham U and have done fine. They think they would not have got into Oxbridge and did not try but who knows. My siblings went to Oxbridge and I didn't - I did try and went to Manchester and it was fine too.

However you do have to be good. Presumably if your daughter is changing schools for A level she is about to sit her GCSEs like my sons. As for A levels try to do two facilitating subjects (i.e harder ones - a web search will show you want they are - so they are basically not PE, art, drama and photography etc). My 5 children at fee paying schools have all done or will do 2 - 4 facilitating subjects in LVI.

LotusLight please could I ask how you get into a law firm to put you through Law School ?
My DD has done everything you have advised purely accidentally as the subjects she studied at AS and now A level are all predominantly facilitating subjects just happened to be subjects she enjoyed most.
She did History, French , Maths and Government & Politics at As level then continued on with History , French and Government & Politics to A level.
She plans to go to good RG University this year to read History providing she gets her grades - AAA. She also chose not to try for Oxbridge she just felt it was not for her -she is very level headed weighs up all her decisions carefully before she goes ahead with them.
Should she try and make some contacts with law firms whilst at University?
Is History a good degree to read to go onto a career in Law ?
She does not know what she wants to do yet career wise - law has been thought of but so has journalism and teaching but your advice on here seemed excellent , very clear and straightforward and reassuring that Oxbridge is not the be all and end all.

Hi busymummy3..is it rude if I jump in?

DS (PPE degree not Oxford, graduated last summer) is being put through law school by a law firm. Most (all?) the big City firms will do this if you apply (as a non law graduate) two years before your training contract is due to begin and are accepted. The law firms have very clear windows for applying - usually October to January in your final (third)year as a non law student. The forms are very detailed and seem to take forever to complete and are then followed up by one or more of an online aptitude test, a group assessment day, an interview. However it is worth knowing that most law firms also offer vacation scheme placements in the holiday (usually summer) for students at uni. These are usually two or three weeks long, are paid and for non law students generally run in the summer after the final year, but there are some firms who have vacation schemes for the end of the second year too even for non law students. The bigger firms have two or three vacation schemes with different start dates through the summer. The benefit of these is of course huge - some work experience, a real insight into life in a law firm and they are often in effect an "extended interview" with the chance to do some research, take part in mock negotiations etc. Some firms ONLY take their trainees from their vacation scheme places. The application process is done on the same form as the training contract but its worth the effort.

DS applied for several vacation schemes in his second year and managed to get offered one. The rejections were a little soul destroying but it did mean he worked out where he was going wrong with his application. The placement was with a smaller (in City terms) firm with a very UK corporate emphasis which did not really appeal. So in his third year he went through the process again and clearly his efforts of the previous year paid off as he secured a vacation scheme with a firm he really liked the look of, loved his time there and at the end of the two weeks had an interview and group assessment and was offered a training contract a few days later. The firm funds his GDL this year ( with a £7000 maintenance grant, not means tested on top) ( which he could do wherever he liked) and will pay next years LPC fees (plus a further maintenance grant) ( which has to be done in London) before he starts his training contract in 2016.

As well as vacation schemes the firms offer Open Days ( some you have to apply for formally) and work shops and visit a lot of universities for Law fairs. Students reading law have opportunities such as these from their first year onwards and their vacation schemes are generally in their second year because of course they only have one year of post uni law school to do.

I'm speaking only for London firms here....I guess the situation is broadly the same for the larger regional firms too.

Chambers Student guide gives an "inside" view of most of the big firms and is available online....that might be a useful starting point for your daughter at the start of her second year.

busy some law firms (usually large, international, commercial practices) offer to pay for law school (including the conversion course for non-law graduates) as part of their training contract.

Obviously, that is worth a lot of dosh!

I can't do you a link, but if you look up, say, Slaughter and May (where I trained ) it should set out very clearly the pathway to getting a training contract and what cash offers are on the table.

Usually anyone interested would apply for a TC whilst still an undergraduate. Check the timings on each firm's website. From memory you apply at the end of second year for a law student and slightly later for a non-law UG (like I say, check this). However, it might be worth anyone interested in a TC checking out vacation placements before that point. DH's firm (large US practice) uses its vacation scheme to screen potential trainees. I'd assume other firms do this too. Even if you don't get a TC off the back of it, it's something to put on your CV and they pay!

Tantalising and Word thank you so much for all your advice it is much appreciated x

Well Lotus I think given what you've said previously about your own background in law and your own very strong financial position and contacts your DC would have a relatively easy ride in. Not that they're not talented - I'm sure they're hugely talented, given their genes, and very savvy - but your contacts and your ability and willingness to support them financially will put them in a very different position to most students attempting to enter the profession. Only a fool or someone very naïve would think that your DCs' experience is average. So buyers beware! Lotus is very rich and very well connected in legal circles: it helps.

As far as Training Contracts go my DDs had the firms come to them at uni offering suppers and drinks as these firms do at most good unis and then they applied to firms for vac schemes and then they did vac schemes and then the firms who offered Training Contracts also offered a large whack for maintenance. I only had to help DD1 out for one months rent when she was over generous at Christmas.

Why Family Law then Word? S&M isn't known for it. Also, I didn't realise we had this many connections :) Did you end up hating Commercial?

I think GentlyBenevolent makes some very good points.

What I have found odd in this thread is that, in discussing a teen who wishes to make it in politics, there has been little mention of politics. I think there are too many of our current political class who have gone down exactly this route: PPE at Oxford-prestigious law firm-Parliament. And the really depressing thing is that some of them only decide quite far on in the process which party their allegiances lie with.

I'd rather a return to people who have wider experience standing for election because they are passionate about political issues, and have a solid track record of trying to make a difference in those issues.

Agree Archery. The thing is, the thread has turned legal because that was the first suggested step towards the desired career. The Bar is more obvious for politics, hence the discussion about fees. It's not a training ground though as you say, but the fact is that lawyers at the sharp end are likely to be political creatures.

busymummy you apply in Jan of your second year for vac schemes, do them in the Easter or summer vac, interview, then get the result at the start of September. A year later if you're converting.

As the Word and Tant say it is very important to get the timing right. Some students apply so late they miss the boat. The law firms who pay are the better ones with the highest pay and most students fail to get a place there. So you need to be one of the better ones although I do not think there is much of a difference between my daughters and one did and the other did not so obviously some luck in it/timing/recessions etc except the Oxbridge double firsts with stellar CVs when your chances are bound to be better.

I very much support politicians having a proper career first. PPE and then non jobs like many of the current lot have is not great for the UK. Much better they practise at the bar or in a law firm or run a business for 15 years and then go into politics.

Yes, solicitors' firms tend to recruit from students on their vacation schemes -0 although my daughter by the way did not do one as she wanted to work in the Caribbean in the summers which I must say was probably more fun and better experience in some senses although would not have been my advice, not that they ever listen to my advice.

She did a bit of work experience in the sixth form - just a week; has a pretty good CV; got a 2/1; quite good at talking. getting on with people which always helps in interviews; only person on her interview day - a day's assessment with exercises who was not from Oxford or Cambridge I think but must have said the right things. She's happy so is her sister (and indeed so is their graduate brother who is currently a post man by the way). There is always Royal Mail post men for our children - let us not be blinkered in career choices, laughing as I type.... The ingredients for happiness are exercise, fresh air, sunshine and lifting weights and moving/walking which is actually all encapsulated in the career of post man or woman although I doubt he'll be featuring in careers our old boys have pursued in his school's brochure any time soon.

Lifting weights isn't my idea of happiness LL, although admittedly all my postmen are great, and very sunny. Much less grouchy than a lot of politicians appear to be anyhow.

Re the vacation scheme thing, most firms say it doesn't matter whether you do one or not but I don't know how true that is in reality.

DH says his firm definitely use the vac scheme as first sift (that said I don't think they would turn down a brilliant applicant just because they didn't do a vac scheme - t'would be daft).

So I guess what I'm saying is if it were me I'd do a vac scheme.

molio I freely admit that I never had any interest in commercial law. But I sold my soul to the devil for them to pay for me through law school and to earn some good wedge during training .

I enjoyed my pro bono work in Camden Law Centre far more!

When I qualified I stayed on while I tried to work out what to do. I think I could easily have ended up doing it forever as I didn't hate it, I wasn't bad at it and boy, the money was fabulous! But then I met GP (whose book I mentioned upthread) and took the plunge into crime/human rights.

I ended up with a large client list of children in care of the LA, which crossed over into the family courts so often that I became experienced enough in it to move to a firm that specialised in it.

And now I'm a writer and lecturer and own some businesses...

Which just goes to show that there are many ways to skin a cat!!!!

US professional services firms routinely use internships and vacation placements as a protracted interview process before making an offer of employment. This explains why getting on such schemes is so competitive.

DSS1 is in his second year of university and regaling us with horror stories of applicant:interviewee:places ratios of the internship schemes his friends are applying for!

It's a whole industry these days Bonsoir and I find it very hard indeed to believe that any applicant can miss the date. Law undergrads will all know exactly what's what, certainly at places like Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Bristol and Durham because apart from anything else, the various top firms are all jostling to court them with posh drinks receptions and expensive meals. Some vac schemes are Easter but most are during the summer and certainly all the vac schemes my DDs did involved very clearly being assessed throughout the whole period (including the lavish evening entertainment periods no doubt!) and then having a lengthy interview at the end of the scheme. With some you can do part abroad, so at one firm DD opted for Hong Kong but there are lots of options which can jolly things up. Then all those firms give out their answers in early September, on a particular day. Very different from my time when I did no vac scheme (I don't think they existed) and had an interview with three senior partners (about woodlice and jazz from what I recall) and got a phone call home before I'd even managed to get back from their office (about 45 mins). Very flattering of course but I think the vac schemes serve a purpose, given how very unsuited I was to that sort of law .

The American Investment Banks are a whole different story. Their placements can eat up whole summers.

Mini pupillages are different again, and for those students do need to be much more vigilant, with dates dotted here and there and not all chambers doing them in any event. It would be a bit odd these days not to do any mini pupillages though - but again competition is fierce for the big name chambers. The real application has to be a multi-pronged assault with applications for the BPVC, applications for Inns Scholarships and applications for pupillage itself all having different deadlines. And very different from the relatively safe haven of soliciting, where you have your life mapped out by the September of second year (or third, if you're converting). Applicants for the Bar in almost all cases (there are a tiny number of exceptions) won't even have their pupillage interviews until June of the year in which they start the BPVC - very difficult for those without a rich mummy and daddy and a ready to move into London flat. However talented they are and however many hurdles they've overcome to get into a top university and secure an excellent degree.

I've been thinking about our ambitions for our children - perhaps because of my own daughter's age - and some lines from a half-remembered poem began niggling at the back of my mind. I've now looked it up. Here's the whole thing. It's by Larkin and was written to mark the birth of his friend Kingsley Amis's daughter.

Tightly-folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love -
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you're a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn't, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not good-looking,
Nothing uncustomary
To pull you off your balance,
That, unworkable itself,
Stops all the rest from working.
In fact, may you be dull -
If that is what a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasised, enthralled
Catching of happiness is called.

Going back to the OP's original post, I do think trying to map out what your 15/16 year old will do post degree is very difficult. One of my DDs was dead set on History and Politics and even work shadowed our MP and attended a women in politics day at Oxford University. Changed her mind during A levels and did something completely different.

Also the best way to get into Politics is to get involved during your student years, or before, give time to your chosen party, try and stand for a local election and make sure you are well educated, in whatever field takes your fancy. Politics is about conviction that your party is correct (about everything), sticking to the party line and defending the indefensible, talking to people, getting through huge amounts of correspondence and being super organised and staying on message. The difficult hurdle is actually getting chosen to contest a seat. Local politics is the best start. With diligence you can rise to be a big fish. Otherwise it is contacts, contacts, contacts. Nadine Dorries was a nurse by the way.

I agree with the internships and vacation schemes serving a useful filtering purpose for those incredibly intensive career paths.

host I'm not sure Larkin is the best person to wax lyrical about womanhood and what best makes women happy.

I think that

.....a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasised, enthralled
Catching of happiness

is what I'd wish for my daughter and two stepchildren. I find the poem rather a moving piece of writing. Larkin does tenderness very well at times. He's a complex figure and a wonderful poet.

(I'm leaving my daughter's career choices up to her for the time being.)

You can be all those things and an ambitious, successful, and yes, beautiful woman. Not mutually exclusive.

Not entirely surprised that Larkin has reservations about that though .

The thing is, I don't think anyone is mapping out their child's future. It's not the OP who is plotting, it's her DD! OP is just trying to figure out how any or all of that might happen.

The reality is that for some very competitive fields, parental support is hugely helpful, if not vital. And information is power.

I don't think Larkin's voice is tender. I think it's disparaging. Condescending.

Mapping out vs figuring out! Not a lot of difference really. Once you have figured it out, you probably map it out......

Parental support is, of course, a massive boost for any young person. For anyone entering very competitive fields of work it is great to get advice but ultimately a lot needs to fall into place to reach where you want to be and parents cannot always help with that because they cannot control what the competition does!

Very true legal.

And it may be that one of the things we can't control is that our own DC just aint as hot as the competition. Or that they just don't want it enough.

A friend of mine has had an awful time coming to terms with this in respect of her son. Uber talented but the drive isn't there!

It doesn't matter how much effort she puts in, he is the sticking point!