2017 seems so long ago, now .....

[Xenia]

Continuation of our previous thread.

WispaWhisper, er. your question on the Legal Practice Course, my twins did those same core exams (in their case with BPP) a year ago. Those core subjects are about 63% of the year's marks and probably the most important exams of the LPC course.

If your son attended the group sessions / seminars and did the work set since he started the course and particularly if he did well in A levels and at university (and is at either BPP or UoL - 80% of LPC students are at one or the other) he will almost certainly have passed in my view. My daughters both did the same course too and did fine over 10 years ago.

I have a 45 page pdf of the marks of everyone with no names (just numbers) from last July where everyone could look up their own results (as each person knows their number). I just had a quick look at it but it is so vast that it would not be easy to check how many people failed a particular January exam. There are definitely some failures on the list and some absent from the exam and failed, a 36% e.g. I just saw on page 1, but the vast majority seem to be getting good marks or at least passing. My twins worked fairly hard and gained 70% or over in just about everything and they are not Oxbridge genii. In fact they found the law conversion course harder than the LPC, which was also the case with my daughters.

For anyone else reading though most new trainee solicitors will not be doing the LPC as it is being phased out and will have to do the new SQE exams instead - there is a cut off date for whether someone must do SQE1 or LPC.

Good luck to everyone applying for solicitor training contracts. It is very hard. Even in my day I applied for 139 firms in London in the last year of my law degree and had 25 interviews before finally getting an offer in about Feb of the last year of my law degree whch was such a relief. I thought I was never going to get anything. I am probably the worst person at writing applications and doing interviews in the country. So although I know a fair bit about the system being a lawyer with 4 lawyer children I certainly I don't know the magic formula of what to write on application forms and say at assessments and interviews to get the jobs.

Law is new to us as a family , she did law at Oxford as an undergraduate and the a masters in trinity Dublin. She did not apply for vacation schemes which was a mistake as the big firms sometimes solely recruit from them

However , she applied for a vac scheme for this summer in Dublin and the firm offers her a training contract interview instead which is great .

Good luck with the interview @Carriemac it's an exciting time for her.

@Needmoresleep That is very disappointing. Would it be worth waiting for the rota to come out? DD’s has usually started on a Wednesday & the first couple of days have always been online inductions so might be some leeway?

Wipsa I am sure he will pass the LPC absolutely fine. I don't think my twins did every task set. They worked out what worked for them and learned that way which for them seemed to be based around the weekly seminar things. Also with BPP the exams are open book and mine did them online (proctored with webcam) whereas their sisters' back in the day were not, so as long as you have done the work you are allowed materials out in front of you and it is not too bad. My twins did what your son is doing - the model answers etc are what the examiners want so it definitely makes sense to look at that in each case. In fact I think one did the exams round our massive table with pile after pile of those kinds of things - 12 different piles even in arm's reach and permitted for the online exams. Of course if you don't know the material it is not necessarily easier to have written materials in front of you but it certainly is easier than learning it all off by heart as I had to do in the Finals exams (what was there before the LPC) across 6 days of exams in late July one day after enough with a weekend in the middle, with no materials for the full year's course starting the September before.

Your son has done very well to get the training contract with the US law firm.

I have never got to know so much about children's exams as the last 2 years since the twins were sent home due to covid laws just before university finals and then did the what was then completely new PGDL course which due to covid was 100% online from home and then the LPC in person but a lot done and exams at home and I work from home. So it has felt like running an exam centre at times. I have worked from home as a lawyer since 1994 so they were kind of born in a law firm. (One twin was born upstairs even).

"Did your children find the elective exams as difficult?" No. They were easier. One even twin got 99% in one of them. The Sklls exams done across this Spring term with BPP were a complete mixture of all kinds of things from research to advocacy so there seemed to be constant exams and tests for those but it was all okay in the end.

Pleased to report DD got offered a four week paid internship / vac scheme with a training contract interview guaranteed at the end . It's with the firm she really likes so fingers crossed 🤞

That is wonderful news - well done to her to get the vac scheme. We are looking for a secondment for the twins at present - hopefully progressing one of those later this week.

And DD is now through to a second interview for a training contract with another firm, they only take 3 trainees so she thinks it may not be a great for for her

Fingers crossed ut works our for her.

That's bad about her graduation @needmoresleep.

Congratulations @Carriemac 🎉 I am hoping something comes through for my DS

Wow great to see the lawyers doing so well. Fingers crossed they get what they want.

The graduation saga rattles on. It looks as if the University are not budging, so the medical school have sent out a questionnaire. Options include a ‘promise’ ceremony at the end of term, a sort of pseudo graduation, though presumably without gowns. Or a later ceremony, most probably on a weekend. The latter sounds fun as it will be a chance for them to meet up and compare notes on F1 experiences. I mentioned it to a couple of Consultant friends, who were appalled. Graduating as a Doctor was a big thing for them. (Thinking about it though typically London, neither were born in the UK though one was brought up here after her mother had to flee her homeland with nothing but her baby. The other’s family made real sacrifices for her to attend University here, as the racial quotas at medical schools in her homeland prevented her from studying there.) They found it amazing that the University/medical school failed to understand the importance students and their families place on a graduation ceremony.

I hope things go well for BTM’s son.

@Needmoresleep Dd finished in 2020 so no graduations that summer but the uni did something to make gowns available so lots of them went into campus & took photos. There was an actual graduation last year but of course many could not make it because of work.

There was supposed to have been a graduation ball/weekend away in 2020 too but that also got cancelled. It is a shame for your Dd, not just to celebrate her achievements but because they often hadn’t seen much of their classmates during the clinical years because of the different rotations.

Covid was pretty tough on our young people. DDs group faced it right in the middle of their course. She finally met 'her people' at the start of her second year. Then got sent home half way though her third and stayed there through intercalation. 18 months later and they were pretty scattered on different placements, and it took about six months to get back into the swing. She is really enjoying this year, and is making new friends on her current placement.

It will have been much harder for those on those on three year degrees who missed a larger proportion of their University experience. DD was home last weekend, invited to give a talk at her old school and DH commented that she still hasn't really left home. She will when she starts F1, where she is almost certain to get her first choice, deliberately some distance from London and the home counties. In many ways we have gained as a family as we have enjoyed the chance to spend time with her as an adult, but this Covid generation lost out on a lot on student experience.

Which is why the decision on graduation is so unfair.

Need, that is a nice positive way to look at it. I suppose I have also had children home an awful lots more than had there been no pandemic too - although I am not sure as I come up in 2024 to 40 years a mother - that I regard that as all gain and no loss (lovely though the children are).

It has certainly been hard for those in the covid years at university. My twins lost their last term (which of course you never get back ever). one lost his gap year abroad and went straight into his law conversion instead and that can never happen again because those friends he would have travelled with are in jobs now so those kinds of experiences were lost forever, neverm ind doing university finals in a normal way. their law conversion year during covid was 100% online too - did not meet a single person on the course. Year studying after that was pretty much back to normal I suppose although I have been hosting their exams here at home since graduation in Summer 2020 so I feel like an exam centre at times (last ones now all done).

Anyway most of those of us our children who started university in 2017 on the thread seem to have done okay and at least my 2 got their 2020 graduations in April 2022 at very long last (delayed due to the pandemic).

My 2 are doing fine and qualify next year (as solicitors). One has a secondment interview in house this week (and had stage 1 last week). I am not 100% sure he wants this one so in a sense he cannot lose whetjher he gets it or does not. He will have had in total 4 interviews (off and online) (5 if we include the one I had to do first with this place) . If he gets it good, if he doesn't he is not sure it is right for him anyway so might be relieved. I think he should take it if offered not least to get him off my hands for half a year. His twin is in a court for the next 2 weeks which will be good experience but a lot of travel time.

I hope everyone's children are well. Perhaps given they went to university in 2017 we are coming to the end of the line with this thread now but anyway..... mine did get his 6 month secondment after all the interviews, which starts later this month when he is back from a holiday abroad so I am very pleased.

Everything else is fine. The twins' time as trainee solicitors is racing by.

That's good, @Xenia

We went to a family wedding fairly near where DD lives, so we had a couple of nights with her.DH had a futon and I had a mattress and sleeping bag as they don't have spare beds as such - they're lucky to have space for parents at least. Though chances are they'll need to move at the end of this years tenancy, likely not to find somewhere as nice and rents are going up. But she's thriving on her work and hobby, and we've got a yacht sailing course booked with her in May so that will hopefully be fun and if it goes well maybe we'll be able to sail in the med next year.

That's great @Xenia , well done him. @ErrolTheDragon when we visit DD we let her have the dog and we stay with nearby friends - I'm too old for her single bed / floor with DJ

Errol, that sounds lovely. We did a yacht course on one holiday in week 1 and in week 2 then took out the yacht with the 3 older children (before twins were born years ago) for the week on a flotilla. That and other sailing holidays meant one of our daughters then decided to get a university holiday job with that company and was a big part of her life for a while - just because we had that first sailing holiday. You can never quite predict what things to which you expose them as children will end up being such a big thing.

I am not sure when no children will be living here again (they weren't in 2017 when the twins went to university, other than holidays) - probably at least 3 or 4 years.

Our original plan was to do the 1 week course, then one week flotilla in the med... but DH is a reader of fine print and discovered that the Greeks changed things last year so that an ICC is required and that's impossible to acquire with that scheme - the paperwork takes time. So we're going to do the relevant RYA courses in the U.K.
We've done lots of dinghy sailing holidays with Nielsen etc in the past and have always been very impressed by the young instructors.

In the flotilla week for the first time in decades there was a massive storm in the med in Greece (completely unexpected). Luckily my husband was very good at these thigns and got our sail down right away and went on to the motor. The children were down in the hold saying Hail Mary's (it was very very rough storm yet the Med is usually like a pond). We made it to the port for the night on the motor but quite a few boats ended up with ripped sails all over the local coast although no one was hurt. That is very unlikely to apply to anyone else again ever as it was a fluke storm but quite a baptism by fire for our first sailing holiday in charge of a yacht and the 3 children were too little to be of help in the way teenagers can be on boats. (It got better after that).

Ds is now 1/3 of his way through his IT grad scheme and had very good feedback ( and an unexpected bonus/pay rise!) his manager has said they'd like to offer him a permanent position in this particular department if he was still interested at the end of the 2 year programme ....he's delighted and definitely will give it consideration but as he's not yet sure where he's headed for next placement he's keeping all options open
He's currently working from home and also got some annual leave so has come home for a long weekend to catch up with his old school friends

That's great, @Stopyourhavering64 !