dd 16 - law

[BodenOrBodum]

Dd wants to do Law at university. She is very academic and predicted excellent GCSEs. I know next to nothing about the law profession but would like to help improve her chances to get a place at a good university. She is a passionate reader, loves politics and history and has a strong sense of social justice. While very academic and high achieving she is going through a quite insecure phase and lacks confidence in herself.

I am aware there is the LNAt test, which she might need to take. When should she start practicing for this, and how does she best prepare for this? Is there an app, books? When does she sign up for the LNAt and how?

Are there any courses to prepare prospective applicants to improve chances of getting a place on a reputable law course as there are for medicine and other subjects? Doing an internships seems impossible, she tried and was turned down in year 10. She will be looking for a part-time job in the summer after her GCSEs, are there any type of jobs altho would be looks at favourably?

I have seen ads for summer schools most of which cost £££ - are there any more affordable type of law summer school courses and are the any good'? We do not qualify for any widening participation type of schemes.

How recent is it, actually? Is it 5 yrs ago, 10 yrs ago or longer? Unfortunately the world moves a lot faster than we can keep up with. 10 yrs old information is next to useless, really.

Are you still not grasping that I also speak to people who are going through the process now?

@Lobbygobbler Do you need to be so patronising? Dd sees applications for pupilage and is a pupil supervisor. So I’m assuming you think she meets no one?

The stats are that over half of young people taking the bar course do it in London. For young people with a 2:1 you have better chance of getting pupillage and that means something to those aspiring barristers. People who have lofty degrees from Oxbridge who come from lawyer families have a big advantage and it matters not one jot where they train but others need to be far more canny. With the vast over supply of great applicants, it should be borne in mind that not everyone with a fist gets pupilage either. There’s lots of things in the mix and candidates need to select the area of law, training route, mini pupillage (only 1.2% get pupilage without a mini) and look at what extra they need to do to be successful. Of course no one can rely on a training provider to get them anything but they need to be aware of stats, pass rates, pupilage gained rates, and costs too! They need to be aware that over 50% of pupils have scholarships. Many have masters etc. In a hugely competitive field each candidate needs to plot a route and some will have a gilded path and others won’t. So many get nowhere! All aspiring barristers must look at what works and where and poor decision might hinder your career. Again chambersstudent.co.uk is brilliant for down to earth advice.

If you are insinuating some sort of advantage borne of money or family background, I’m afraid you are barking up the wrong path. I am state school educated, working class, first in family to attend university. Same is true of DH. The young people I am referring to are stellar because of their academic ability, not because of gilded lives.

Yes, I am grasping that. But if you write mis-information or very much out of date information, you're actually doing a disservice to us mothers who have university aged children.

I notice you avoided answering the question. I suspect your "children" are in their 40s now? so that makes your input even more irrelevant, sadly.

sorry, @Lobbygobbler was responding to oh dear who I think has already admitted she is in her 70s.

No. My dc is 9 years post call. I’ve no idea why there’s this pile on when I’m supplying data.

With the onset of AI many legal jobs will disappear

As has been said un les you are an Oxbridge grad to be a barrister is VERY difficult

There is no pile on. You want to help people and that’s a nice thing. It’s just that people have different experiences and opinions and want to share them too.

@surreygirly It’s possible if you plan and know the area of law that suits you best. Reading the best advice from good research always helps.

Gosh there feels a lot of pressure on dd who finds out if she got into Oxford next week! It feels unfair that a choice like that could determine her future when it might be that she only just missed out.

@Fatsnowflake DD2 is applying for vac schemes at big law firms at the moment and she says most of the firms recruit university blind. That seems to be more and more common these days, which does make one wonder sometimes why so many kids are still so keen to go to Oxbridge!

It’s insanely competitive and the hoops the youth have to jump through even for a two-week placement are tough - usually a battery of computer-based reasoning tests, situational judgement tests etc, pre-recorded interviews, complete list of grades for every module taken at uni, and the latest one wanted a 2,000-word essay on her opinions of social media! - so I do worry what the future holds.

On a positive note, several of her friends have been offered training contracts, usually on the back of a vac sheme, so there is hope! She’s a law student at a good RG uni.

Lawyer here. Agree with this. Lawyers are so bloody arrogant they can’t see it happening - but it will, and quicker than they think.

@BiancaBlank Because university blind makes no difference in terms of who they recruit! There’s still a vast amount of other info about candidates and their performance during internships and interviews. Oxbridge success numbers in recruitment are not dropping.

Okay, we hear this often about many subjects. The questions is what should dc study then?

Something where AI cannot do the job because it involves a tangible, physical element that LLMs can't engage with. Dentist? Interior designer (and yes AI can generate images but it can't manage the project, the client and the workmen)? Montessori teacher? You get the gist...

At the ground floor, jobs are under threat. However individual specialist lawyers will be needed. You cannot get AI to advise on complex family law cases for example. Or probably lots of other cases where it’s complex and there’s a human element. Putting simple advice together is another matter but AI is not foolproof. There’s no conversation with AI looking at nuances and how to run a case.

Actually, Socratic dialogue is one of the things LLMs are particular useful for!

And that has no court knowledge or case knowledge whatsoever.

You feed your AI agent with the court and case knowledge and set it to work!

Very similar scenario with my DD. Did very well at GCSE and A Level, secured very good offers for Law, but missed out on first choice Uni on results day. After a summer of working and thinking seriously about her future, she instead accepted a clearing place for a broader degree course at her preferred uni and is loving it.
My DD had already done paid law work experience in year 12 summer hols. But PP is correct, after the degree, securing training contracts is incredibly competitive.
She will still have the option of doing a conversion year after her degree course finishes if that is the route she decides to go down.

i was not aware of the fierce competition to get into some of the universities to read law. I do worry about my daughter who wants to do law. She did go to a law firm and went to crown court to see law in action, but they are very young to realise the brutality of law careers. Whatever she decides, make sure she does as much as she can to gain insight into law as a career.

@Ceramiq That’s bonkers. I don’t think you know anything about case management! Or dealing with upset clients. It’s not a job that can be done by a computer spewing out “facts”. You probably need to spend a few days in court!