Bristol Law vs Oxbridge Arts Degree

[brentlondon]

This is an imaginary situation.

For becoming a city lawyer, would it be best to study Law at a strong russell group such as Bristol, or to study an arts degree (english,geo,history etc) at Oxbridge.

Which would get the edge in tc applications?

goodbyestranger, is it that I did not answer your question or that I did not give you the right answer, i.e. that your dcs have the right congenial personality fit?

I would love to say all trainees are congenial and are bright and sparky. Erm, they are not. As for hiring people in the same mould as you, well, there is currently a lot of unconscious bias training going on in the City. I have worked in 2 magic circle firms and 2 US firms in the City and seen trainees come and go up to partnership or go off somewhere else. The lawyers have different personalities - some cannot look me in the eye and others talk the hind legs off a donkey. The quality they all share is they are fiercely bright and very hardworking.

I would go for the Oxbridge place but as people say it's not essential. i read law not at Oxbridge. I was by chance looking at my university and early career days diaries recently. In my first job the person I shared a room with had been to Cambridge and the man in the room next to us was Oxford. thsoe of my off spring who are lawyers weren't at Oxbridge and seem to have done okay (they didn't try and indeed may not have got in).

As people say above a lot of the recruitment is from vacation schemes though. Someone sent me a really good CV yesterday (she wants to work for me for nothing) and her biggest issue as far as I can see is she just missed all the usual timing for things which is presumably why she doesn't have a TC. Some of them just have to get out their diaries years in advance and go on line and look at what the dates are to apply for things by.

Also get good A level results and good results generally that is probably why I got my TC, prizes and stuff like that.

Someone who has missed a load of deadlines would worry me. Surely success as a lawyer depends on being organised - therefore knowing about deadlines and adhering to them? It wouldn’t encourage me to employ her and I assume someone else is paying for her food and home. So lucky that she can “work” for nothing. If that wasn’t an option, maybe she would have got her act together like everyone else who was successful?

blueshoes my DC evidently have whatever it takes and I'm not concerned about their personality - they certainly don't lack in that department!

No, you simply didn't answer the question: if excellent academic ability and doing well in the interview are a given, as you claim, then what is the deciding factor? You failed to reply in any meaningful way, merely saying that applicants do vac schemes (most successful ones do, others don't, in fact and plenty do vac schemes and are rejected).

goodbye have you ever interviewed a candidate for anything? There is no deciding factor as there is no perfect candidate. Often, it is a range of candidates who fit the bill. The firm offers and only some accept.

It is a balance. I did not answer your question, as you insist, in the way you insist, because it is based on a false premise.

I didn't insist blueshoes, I merely observed that you didn't answer the question.

And yes, I regularly interview and have done so regularly for many years.

In that case, you must know it is a dumb question

Not in the context - which was that you said that excellent academic ability and a good interview were a given!

May be she hadn't missed deadlines but she had been rejected from vacation schemes or only just decided to do go into the profession late on her degree. It was a really good CV. The working for nothinhg was just for a week or two in a university holiday and they had been to a state school.

DD has got a TC at an American Law firm in the city commencing Sept 2019 (providing she gets min 2.1 degree and passes her sponsored LPC)

When DD did her 3 vac schemes last summer she said it was a 50/50 split between law and non law students. A majority of students on her vac schemes were from Oxbridge, Bristol, Durham and St Andrews and LSE.

UCL is usually a good bet too.