Law choices

[Laundryandtoil]

Could someone who knows anything about law please advise whether my Y12 daughter is choosing realistic unis? Her choices are:

1. Cambridge - Downing, Magdalene or Selwin (not sure which)
2. Durham
3. Bristol
4. Exeter
5. Nottingham

She says she needs to sit an exam for the first three. She is likely to be predicted all A stars but reckons she will end up with A star, A star or A and A as actual results.

I would be very grateful as I don’t feel able to advise although she will run her choices past school (state grammar). Thank you MN

I disagree. I think that most of those going to law school know which direction they prefer and where their abilities lie - the two branches are enormously different after all.

But actually my hunch is that it's simply that more posters on MN are solicitors (no surprises) and want to announce their credentials and then try to boss :)

I suspect most going to law school do know which route they want to take. Many in sixth form barely understand the difference.

@Cakeandusername Having looked again, the age band up to 34 has decent pass rates and both younger groups are around 2/3. 31% not at school in uk is interesting too.

I’m also struck by the Ethics pass rate. Before DD took the BPTC, there was an outcry as the Ethics paper was altered and over 60% failed it. None of those could then be classed as Outstanding as they needed to retake. DD took the exam a year later and everyone was very anxious.

As ever on a law thread they morphe into a more general discussion. The dc here is 16 or 17 and ‘thinking’ of bar. Some will change direction. Not an attempt to discourage at all. At sixth form age they probably don’t appreciate there are options like solicitor then doing additional qualification for higher rights of audience.

This is really quite a patronising attitude given that the DC in question has the GCSE and predicted A level grades to try for Cambridge.

My own DC who is a London barrister was clear from around Y9 that the Bar was going to be her thing. She would have given fairly short shrift to any solicitor trying to explain options for qualifying as a solicitor. I certainly never encouraged her down that route.

My other DC who went to Magic Circle firms equally had no thoughts of the Bar.

Really when it gets to midway through sixth form these young people should be accorded some respect for knowing their own minds.

@TizerorFizz I think some of the older demographic will be foreign lawyers having an attempt and also people who have worked in legal practice for years attempting to qualify.
There’s no requirement for any legal qualification like a law degree or law conversion to sit SQE1 nor any requirement to do a postgraduate prep course before sitting SQE. You can just pay fee of approximately £2500 and sit exam.
They release this report after each sitting.
I wish they would drill down the ‘at least an undergraduate degree’ into who has law degree, degree + postgraduate law conversion & none law degree - no legal qualification.

@Auchencar Some may be very set but lots aren’t in my experience.
I’ve a young employee in my team who initially was aiming for bar - her cv is extremely impressive - mooting competitions, 1st class law degree, lots of mini pupillages but for various reasons mainly financial made decision to go down SQE not bar course route.
Another acquaintance changed tack when his then girlfriend fell pregnant and he needed a steady job not the risk of being self employed as a newly minted barrister.
My husband did his higher rights when older, no thought of advocacy as a teen.

Even so Cakeansusername it's just a bit dreary that on any thread on MN where a young person expresses a wish to read Law with a view to going to the Bar, posters immediately swoop down and read the bog standard riot act about non law degrees and conversions, alongside being told how competitive it is to secure a training contract.

I always actually think it’s great how many lawyers are prepared to give advice to young people coming into the profession. Particularly on a thread like this which was just about studying law in generally for someone at a very early stage in their academic career. It’s a shame parents who have lawyer children find it dreary.

DD did some work experience at a solicitor’s firm and they said they didn’t really like their job and from then on DD didn’t want to work with people like them. So it had to be the Bar! Since then she’s worked with ace solicitors and they seem to enjoy their jobs. I think she was at university when she did the work experience and had already thought the Bar was what she wanted though. WE just confirmed it. Sometimes DC just need to think things through and that’s ok.

People also are Barristers and walk away from that too. DD has worked hard to establish her practice and being self employed has never caused problems. She’s not a worrier though - except at Ethics exams.

@Auchencar There are some young people who don’t always realise there are two routes into law. Sometimes not doing law at university does make sense. She’s probably not studying law at school and some people do like to keep going with what they know. In life it’s also possible to have more than one passion. Many interesting people do I find. No one says the DD should not read law either! I have certainly said the universities chosen are great for law . It’s purely a conversation about possible alternatives.

The initial post doesn’t mention bar. The universities/uni law societies put lots of talks and employment events on to help students decide. Lots will try for both solicitor vacation schemes and mini pupillages at university age, it’s perfect time to get work experience and see what appeals or confirm that a certain route is absolutely for them. You can’t do proper mini pupillages at 16/17 so whilst they may be drawn to the bar they haven’t got any work experience.
The none law/conversion route is a valid discussion for someone aiming for bar. Around 50% of barristers have a none law degree.
It’s not just Op who will be reading and the general discussion may prove helpful.

Dannexe it's the I'm-a-solicitor-of many-years-standing so I'm going to talk about solicitor stuff and ignore the OP's posts that I find a bit dreary. It's always very one way and very anti aspirational.

OP's second post and post number four overall mentioned that the London Bar was the aim. No digging required Cakeandusername, indeed your first post came after the mention of the London Bar.

Anti aspirational in the sense that for example the suggestion of reading a subject other than Law is almost always in the context of other subjects being less competitive to get a uni offer for. TizerorFizz is the honorable exception here. It's curious that so much on MN is about avoiding competition rather than about having the confidence to enter headlong into the fray even where a DC appears to have the ability/ grades.

It’s personal. If you are one of those insanely intelligent/ pick everything up super quickly types then conversion is probably a good idea and likely you will want to aim for the Bar.

If (like me) you are just an averagely clever person who takes time to digest information and wants to be a solicitor with a broad practice then a law degree is probably better. Don’t forget you can do “Law and” which is what I did and dd is also doing - law and a language in her case.

I wanted a job that was to do with people but wasn’t terribly badly paid or horrendous like teaching or social work. Reaching end of my career and it’s been a great choice. Definite downsides but my advice would be don’t stay anywhere if you are unhappy. What’s good about law is if you have the nerve it is flexible. Long hours in the City in your twenties in house / self employed as you get older and have a family.

I actually do a different legal role which is not even vaguely “anti aspirational”. It’s about as “aspirational” as it gets. I am prepared to stick my neck out and say I know far more about legal careers than either your daughter as a junior barrister or you as her mum. I work alongside a very large number of both barristers and solicitors every single day and to refer to a career as a solicitor as anti aspirational is frankly ridiculous.

the OPs child is in the lower sixth. She therefore has very limited experience of law. My post talked about having to look carefully at law degree content now due to changes to legal education at undergraduate level. I did this specifically because some universities (because most of their students will become solicitors rather than barristers and are no longer required to study the old “qualifying” modules), now offer “tracks” on their law degrees eg criminal law focussed or human rights focussed etc which can catch out students wanting to become barristers. EU is the important module to look out for. I talk to a fair number of sixth formers and their parents since I am often asked to talk about the legal profession (both branches) and the judicial system at my children’s school. I also sometimes do guest speak slots at colleges and universities. The vast majority have watched a bit of Suits and don’t really understand the distinction between the roles. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked whether a barrister is a “senior” solicitor (from parents and kids) and have often had to explain that not all barristers are KCs when told that a child wants to go to university and then get a job as a KC/QC

Your daughter was clearly the “exception” given that at year 9 stage you say she’d have given short shift to a solicitor talking to her about law. Interesting approach from a very young teen but anyway..

if you’re not interested in my “dreary” posts do skip over them. It’s no skin off my nose.

@TheaBrandt1 The top London firms used to take a lot of conversion lawyers. Mainly I would guess for a spread of skills and what they can bring to the company. I think being quick on the uptake is what they all have. Years ago our neighbours DS studied MFLs at Cambridge but did the conversion and went to S&M. They have a Brussels office so his MFLs came in handy there. It will be interesting to see if fewer do the conversion route. However S&M are still paying PGDL fees so I guess they are still ok with non law grads.

Dannexe obviously you have a very good career yourself but if you read more carefully - as any good lawyer should - you'll see that it's the general approach which always seems to be anti aspirational on MN, nowhere did I imply it was the solicitor route itself. Much more the do another subject type approach and the dire warnings of competition. My two other Magic Circle DC would be more than a little irritated if I suggested that their careers were less ambitious.

My daughter won a national mooting competition open to all state schools in Y9 and as far as I know three of the four 'lawyers' in her school team went on to have law careers subsequently. The two who read Law at Oxford two are now barristers in London and doing extremely well. The entire point of the competition was to encourage young people into law; so it seems to have worked for our team at least.

If a DC wants to read Law and wants to have straightforward modules not ones with a skew then I hope that you recommend Oxford and Cambridge and Durham etc. Because then they can't really go wrong. I was asked for help the other day by a parent whose DC is reading Law at a not so well ranked uni and was stunned by how many modules were taken in each year and the titles of the modules, so I get where you're coming from on that.

*The two who read Law at Oxford are both now barristers in London and doing extremely well.

Yes TizerorFizz it's not the subject studied which is the deal maker at Slaughter and May and that remains the case still.

Based on the data we have about who is called to the Bar, there presently appear to be two types of aspirational routes and one of them involves an Oxbridge pathway.

In that sense exploring the possibility of applying for a complementary subject now at Oxbridge, getting the most out of the tutorial system (which will be excellent implicit training for the Bar), and doing a conversion course is sensible.

I’ve already said that if a consuming interest in Law is the DD’s intellectual driver this is less sensible.

Years of experience of my own highly intelligent personal tutees as well as numerous posts here show that the extent to which YP have undeviating intellectual and career foci is quite variable.

Your daughter was clearly the “exception” given that at year 9 stage you say she’d have given short shift to a solicitor talking to her about law. Interesting approach from a very young teen but anyway

I didn't say this. I said that since this DD was set on the Bar, she'd have given short shrift to anyone explaining the options for becoming a solicitor, as she wasn't interested and would have felt it patronising and irrelevant (well, probably thought short shrift in her mind, since she has manners - but same net result).