Law at which?

[stubiff]

Any recommendations for Law from (only) these.
They all have the same tariff, that's why they are grouped.
City/campus doesn't matter.

University of Nottingham
University of York
University of Sheffield
University of Exeter
Cardiff University
University of Birmingham
Newcastle University
University of Southampton
University of Liverpool

Thanks, in advance.

Are there any figures about the independent/ maintained sector divide for recent entrants to the Bar?

What funding/ loans are available for the SQE?

If you do prep for SQE as part of LLM then normal student finance applies its around £12,000 for postgraduate fees and maintenance. University of Law or BPP are popular providers.
Barbri offer lots of flexible options around £3000 for prep course (online) for each part. So with exam fees probably £11,000 all in for SQE1 & 2.
No need to do any course in theory you can just sit SQE1 and 2 and just pay exam fees.

Thanks for the reply; appreciated.

@Cakeandusername Where is the evidence the newer barristers are mostly private school? Not that anyone doing the job cares! The tenancy bias is far more Oxbridge! And the majority at those are not independent school educated.

When DC started a law degree 4 years ago at Durham, being a paralegal would not have been what was expected as the outcome. Certainly not with a first. It would have been considered a consolation prize. It still is unless your firm takes ALL paralegals on after they qualify. If they qualify of course. The new route doesn’t mean there’s jobs for all. It just means they are trainees with no guarantee of a job. Or solicitors with no job. Like all
the wannabee qualified barristers with no job. Barristers do exactly the same if they don’t get pupillage. All this does is push selection down the road to post qualification (and further expense). The city firms are recruiting as before and paying for everything.

Stats are for bar as whole but so few pupillages you can see on LinkedIn or chambers pages - they have profiles of the barristers.
Market is so oversubscribed that even a first from Durham doesn’t guarantee a tc straight out of uni. If they keep trying and work as paralegal they’ll still qualify as Solicitors in all likelihood by their mid 20s. It’s not be all and end all getting a TC anymore with SQE you can piece together qualifying work experience.

Not seen how market will play out re NQ solicitors yet. It’s potentially shifting things but will take a few years to see impact.
A barrister without a pupillage is not able to practice.
Whereas pass sqe1 & 2 and 2 years work experience and you are a fully qualified solicitor. There are areas of law where virtually impossible to recruit solicitors so I suspect most NQ can get work albeit lower paid.
City are still are following model similar to old system and paying for SQE. But many solicitors don’t train in city.
Just checked two regional firms near me who are currently advertising for trainees. One is recruiting requiring law degree and Sqe1 pass - so will fund sqe2. Other is advertising as an apprenticeship so only requiring law degree/conversion and will fund sqe1&2.

@Cakeandusername The Chambers cvs do not state school though so you have no idea. I don’t believe you have trawled through hundreds of Linked In pages on barristers! Tell me you haven’t! So you simply don’t know where barristers went to school.

They might qualify as a solicitor but it doesn’t mean they will get paid as one! 2000 qualify as barristers every year now. Bizarrely when DD qualified it was circa 1500 and this was considered to be outrageous as so few got pupillage and even fewer get a tenancy a year later. So what is the point of having all these qualified people but no jobs for many of them? Basically outside the City, cheap paralegals are being taken on but some won’t ever be solicitors. It’s the same for barristers. Pupils taken in for a year and spat out. It’s common now, even with £70,000 pupillage award Chambers. Essentially it’s competitive. They look at 3, and take 1 or 2. It’s a system that’s gone backwards for solicitors .

Not hundreds but I’m a solicitor of many years who regularly instructs. I’ll often look at new barristers/chambers offer training and I will look sometimes out of interest. The newly qualified barristers list everything on LinkedIn.
I’d be surprised if an NQ solicitor couldn’t get work somewhere currently - crime, local government are awash with vacancies but yes potentially the NQ stage will be the pinch point instead of tc stage.
Paralegals used to to held back as they needed a tc. Now they can work and self fund sqe 1 &2 so in theory any paralegal can qualify.

But 21,000 get a law degree every year. Even if half want to practice it’s a vast over supply. As DD is a barrister, she has solicitors who instruct but not a vast number as it’s a bespoke service. It changes as barristers charge more too. Some clients don’t have the money. So I’m not sure your sample is very big in the circumstances. In effect, there’s no reliable evidence collected regarding schools. Just a bit of bias!

Work snd self fund! Do these paralegals have no rent to pay? Or bills? Do you assume they all live at home rent free whilst working full time and studying? It’s a backwards step offering false hope and an invitation to spend money they might not have or get mum and dad to do it. It’s a gamble. If there are vacancies, recruit offering the paid training.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out With SQE impact won’t be seen for a few years.
As for self funding with a law degree and master finance you are looking at funding exam fees only up front so £5000.
SQE pass rate is only around 50% though (varies widely by demographic) so it’s not an automatic a para will be capable of qualification.

It doesn't seem especially scientific, your assertion about independent/ maintained sector divide at the Bar I have to say Cakeandusername....

Tizer's DD went to a boarding school. I would assume that that made more of a difference to paid job at school/ no paid job than any broader educational divide at the Bar. Boarders don't have the same scope to get paid work as their day school peers.

Well there were holidays but she had her own ideas about them! Most dc end up doing something useful towards their career but serving food doesn’t really enhance the cv. When dc live rurally, there is a limit regarding what they can get and where. No buses here. Or employment.

@Cakeandusername I completely agree regarding having some actual paid work for building life skills in general. Learning the basic skills of dealing with people, expectations in the workplace, team work etc. A 21 year old who has never worked a day in their lives would v someone who has for example had a part time job in the summers or through uni would have the edge for me.

I still maintain unusual not to work at all until 21/22. Most students need to work to supplement their loan - they are only in uni 40 weeks max. There’s uni holidays and uni term time, most universities are city based or campus opportunities working for the uni.
Serving food/retail translates well to skill set my solicitor team need, definitely enhances cv as part of the role is dealing with disgruntled members of public. One of my trainees used an example of dealing with people fighting over bread during Covid and needing to challenge kids with fake ID in her retail job and she’s totally unfazed and professional when people challenge her. If the role involves juggling work and study then evidence they have already successfully done that is a huge advantage - my colleague’s daughter secured a competitive solicitor apprenticeship at 19 as she had that on her cv.
Solicitors are employed versus self employed bar. A yp who has worked every Sunday at a garden centre cafe for 5 years indicates she’ll be reliable and understand basic work etiquette - turn up on time etc.
I’ll stop as I appreciate I’m derailing thread here.

@Cakeandusername It isn’t. DD didn’t have friends who worked either. Definitely not people at Oxbridge. Working didn’t matter if they had all the skills from other activities. As they did, they are all pretty successful in their chosen fields. Why is paid work the only activity that develops interpersonal skills? Clearly it’s not. DD was a ball Chair at uni. She sand in a choir and performed in public. She chaired a Society. Being a ball chair is far more demanding and says more about her organising, financial, negotiating, decision-making, team work and work-juggling abilities than a few hours in a cafe on a Saturday. I don’t get the obsession with paid work. I do though believe every DC should do something for their cv beyond study but what they do should be up to them. Employers should know how to look for skills and not rank or show prejudice on how they were gained.

Definitely not people at Oxbridge

Tizer I very much beg to differ. My DD (barrister/ Oxbridge) worked from Y9 in our local tearoom incl stints around mini pupillages in the uni holidays when the boss needed an extra pair of hands and she was available.

Plenty of her Oxbridge friends did similar.

I think your DD may actually be unusual at the Bar but I put that down to boarding rather than to aspiring barristers thinking that they're above paid work and 'don't need it'.

My DC needed the money. They weren't actually working to enhance their CV. They were focussed exclusively on wanting to earn money to buy clothes, go out, save for driving lessons etc.

Some of it’s de-railing but there are some good points. Work experience in the Bar is not relevant to DS’s situation. And, in Tizer’s words, there’ll be no evidence of what people have!
I think, from the two lists, there may be some favourites/more likely candidates.
But, if those are more or less the same, then grade and extras is what will get someone past the first filter.
I agree with those that think, averagely, that having some customer facing work experience will help. It becomes more of a major criteria if everyone has a first from a solid+ Uni and the usual uni/law extras.

Being a ball chair is far more demanding ..... than a few hours in a cafe on a Saturday

I suggest you try doing an 8 hour shift in a supermarket, bar, cafe, restaurant etc. so you can see exactly how wrong you are

Dealing with the public, as a 16 to 20 year old, especially when they're complaining/being aggressive etc. is demanding.

Having to start a shift at 6am or not finish until midnight, and fit your shifts around your studies/sports commitments is demanding.

Doing menial, repetitive work is demanding.

But it teaches our DC a lot of experiences that, in most careers, are beneficial.

Yes, being a ball chair is hard work (I did it myself 30 years ago) but it's something you volunteer to do (not something you need to do to get money), the people you're working with are generally compliant, and you're normally the customer when it comes to negotiations etc, not the supplier. Plus it's usually a 6 month gig at the very most.

I think people need downtime from demanding uni courses and as I said, not one of Dads friends did that. It’s simply not necessary and the OPs DS would be better off getting a first and working strategically to fulfill aims. Very few law employers filter by supermarket work.

I’ve never said I filter by paid work. They need to meet a long list of essential criteria. But invariably they all have 1st or 2.1 in law and a host of very impressive work experience/volunteer roles. I’m not city law. I’m just sharing my experience as someone who recruits trainee solicitors/paralegals that it is something that I look for.
All my 3 most recent have 1st class law degrees. One yp has the most impressive cv I’ve probably ever seen for a 22 yr old - lots of mini pupillages, law prizes, mooting competitions, paid work in a position of responsibility, representation of uni at sport, uni law society position of responsibility etc. It’s so competitive out there for youngsters trying to get foot in legal market.
My sibling and partner are Oxbridge/magic circle and worked uni hols, they had about 25 weeks a year hols at Oxbridge.
Back to OP’s question i’d encourage your yp to visit as many open days as possible in yr12/start yr13. Good luck.

@AsTearsGoBy Yes. I know. But she didn’t work in term time did she? If it’s skills people want, then there’s more than one way of getting them. You are lucky to have a cafe. We don’t. Just farms.

She worked during school term time Tizer incl before GCSEs and A levels but not during Oxford terms. Yes, we were very lucky with the cafe. It was frequently incredibly busy with some incredibly demanding customers so lots of skills there for the honing. I think that those of my DC who've been on the ball committee have only done it for the enjoyment - I can't think that either have put it on their CV.

Cakeandusername would you be willing to share your essential criteria? That could be helpful to OP, and I'm just curious to see what the criteria are and how they can be/ are likely to be evidenced.