Post grad law conversions - reality of the usefulness of this?

[BobtheFrog]

One of my DDs is looking to a post grad degree, law conversion in particular - looking for some mumsnet wisdom about this route. Good idea? Concerns / questions we should consider? Does it lead to meaningful work? What kind of work is down this route?

A lot of the firms are still open for applications and so the stats won't be finalised yet. Apparently the number of training contracts available is also down 8% from peak numbers.

Again, this may not be uniform across all types of City firm.

That stat is from across 67 city firms

67 is by definition far, far wider than the Magic Circle, obviously. I'm interested to see which specific firms/ types of firm are seeing the significant increases in applications that you mentioned. Hence my question about which firm you referred to initially.

@2ndClearFoundation Barristers chambers give mini pupillages and they are by application. No person gets one because of who they know. They are competitive and are selected on merit against selection criteria.

OhDear111 that's the position of the Magic Circle firms and McKinsey etc too but according to a poster above, 'insiders' get opportunities which go under the radar, stun with their brilliance and then get waved through the various stages up to and including the offer of whatever it is they're applying for. The published criteria are just a smoke screen to fob off 'outsiders'.

Call me a cynic but this emphasis on mystique is great for drumming up business for the sort of operation that the poster in question runs.

No idea how my own DC managed to apply through the normal channels, as mere 'outsiders', and nevertheless get offered vac schemes, mini pupillages, training contracts and pupillages (followed by tenancies). All without paying anyone to help them pierce the mystique. Must have been a series of flukes, or luck.

Ok well happy researching. This thread is about a far broader topic than this cycle’s application numbers to five specific law firms. I’m sure a trainee can help you once the cycle is closed and all the stats are published.

Oh hang on. You’re not actually a lawyer with knowledge of what is going on at all.

you do realise the fact that your child/children got a training contract easily a few years ago doesn’t mean that the situation re vacancies and the numbers applying doesn’t change over time?

Perhaps some Watson glaser practice would be an idea.

The law conversion is only useful if you DD wants to be a lawyer. It’s not really an academic course in its own right. The course itself isn’t competitive (I’m not aware of anyone who has been turned down for it…) but getting a job afterwards is.

Not entirely correct.

You make a number of assumptions, and so far all have been wrong, including the age of my DC.

@Milmington Well yes. No contacts here either!

@Serafee @Milmington didn’t say it was easy. What does it matter if she’s a lawyer or not? I’m not. I took an interest in DDs route to being a barrister, that’s all. Doesn’t make us wrong though. If dc have got the jobs and tenancies on their own merit, they have. It’s always been a competitive career for the best minds and in some families, there are quite a few “best” minds. I have a more modest output.

The more dc go to uni, the larger the number of applications will be. That’s inevitable but successful applicants will be chosen because they meet the criteria, not because of who they know.

It’s misleading when people make bold assertions such as saying it’s detrimental to an application to include work experience gained through a contact (it isn’t. a competitive scheme holds more weight in some ways - however with a formal scheme the question always remains why did that place in the scheme not get converted to an offer). It is extremely misleading to say that if a candidate is good they will get a vacation scheme place or a training contract with just a few applications. These things are just not true.

The competition is extremely high with more applications per place and fewer places this cycle. This pattern is likely to continue since the number of jobs is down almost ten percent this year. It’s certainly not the case that it’s about who you know anymore and it’s certainly not the case that knowing someone means they can arrange work experience for you. The process is ridiculously tough and kids with excellent profiles are struggling to get through to vs and offer stages.

returning to the OPs question this means that a law conversion is an expensive and risky option and certainly not a good plan for someone without an excellent academic profile. Even those with excellent academic profiles will find the odds stacked against them with less than one percent chance of getting a place on the vacation schemes in some cases.

@Serafee It might be true for a small minority of people. Training contracts are like gold dust, but some people do ace them. DD has friends who did. Everyone knows it’s bloody hard to do that though. In life, some people are just the best so I just take it at face value that they find things just a bit easier! The vast majority won’t but they know that. We know it too.

yes, as I said. 🙄

Yes of course someone has to get the places. My point was that it was misleading to say they will get one by making a couple of applications unless they are not good enough to be a lawyer.

My DS has a VS at one of his top choice firms. His feedback from the AC was amazing. Yet with the 30ish others, he hasn’t even got to AC stage.

My DS is a current first year trainee at a large, niche City firm.

His firm have now switched to recruiting solely from their pool of highly qualified paralegals (my own DS has an Oxbridge law degree but had to work as a paralegal first to secure a training contract).

When he left his paralegal role to begin his TC, there were 250 applications for the paralegal role he was leaving! When he applied for his paralegal role in 2023, there were many fewer applicants. I believe the environment has changed remarkably in the past few years and it is now much harder to enter the legal profession.

UK parents, including some on this thread, have a vested interest in believing and communicating that their own children achieved all their educational and professional goals through their "natural brilliance" rather than via parental strategies. This is not the case at all in other countries/cultures. In England in particular the anti-privilege discourse is extremely strong and people keep their cards very close to their chest about their parental strategies.

@Ceramiq If you mean me, there was NO parental strategy and I take offence that you have said that. My DH is a chartered engineer who ran a successful consultancy. I used to be an educational administrator. I never taught. When DD wanted law, DH and me had absolutely no idea how she should proceed. The most we did was visit an Inner Temple open day with her. Nothing ekse. No contacts or knowledge.

Thankfully (and she’s not brilliant) she worked it out. She also worked out which area of law was best for her and SHE was strategic about what she needed to do to give the best chance of success. She never did want Magic Circle and knew perfectly well where her skills lay. Neither was she brilliant at university or on subsequent courses. She does, though, have other skills and attributes which continue to be recognised.

I have explained why I think so many more grads want the best paying roles. Its inevitable. It’s also interesting that no firm is taking on more than 100 trainees (Legal Cheek) but some run 3 Vac schemes in the summer each year. They don’t take exclusively from these and of course 100% of dc could get amazing feedback. With around 30,000 law grads and very bright non law grads, is it any wonder the competition is fierce? It might well be a bit easier to be a barrister but you need different skills but more varied areas of law are open to you and advocacy matters. So it suits some and not others from what I see.

@OhDear111 Yes, your children went to their local catchment state school and their schools not their parents looked after their UCAS applications. In fact, you know so little about what happened to your children during their HE that you never post about it - we are all in the dark 🙃

She won’t find it easy to get a job afterwards with a 2:2 OP. Is she sure she wants to do this? It’s very demanding and competitive.

@switchname SQE has really changed the landscape in last couple of years. I think unless you are currently recruiting or very recently been through applications you won’t realise how much it has changed.
I’m in a niche none glamorous area of local government and we are absolutely inundated every time we advertise paralegal roles, including quality candidates who wouldn’t have looked looked twice at us in past. Several recent hires have had a first class law degree, also now seeing candidates from top universities like Durham. I had a short term legal admin type role and got an application from a recent Oxford graduate.

Same here @Springisnearlyspring - my paralegal has a red brick 2:1, LLM and distinction in LPC, but she’s been my paralegal since 2021-ish. My CV did not look as good as hers when I was on the hunt for a TC, but I got seven offers from good firms (and a large number of rejections). It’s a different world now and it hasn’t changed for the better.

DH has three paralegals in his team with Firsts from good universities. All hoping they might get a training contract that way and all working for minimum wage. They will probably end up self funding the SQE and qualifying through QWE rather than ever getting a training contract. This is not good at all for the legal profession since the training will not be nearly as robust.

We are hoping and praying that DS's VScheme is converted to a TC but the firm has said it will only take 25% of those attending the VScheme. We have told DS that law is really not a great choice anymore.

The one of our DC still at university is not reading law but regularly gets specialist law firms showing up on campus for recruitment purposes looking for specific skill sets developed by certain non-law degrees.

It certainly is a different world Vinvertebrate, in terms of numbers applying, but the viable pool of applicants is probably much the same size, so the question of competition is relative and not based purely on numbers.

I was taken on for a Training Contract after a series of fairly relaxed interviews at the only Magic Circle firm that I approached (which was arguably the most selective) and was given an offer within an hour of leaving (by phone). No online tests at all, mercifully. I still have my welcome letter ((I found it when clearing out my parents’ house). It lists the names and university attended of the intake. Far fewer women, a smallish intake (maybe twenty) but a very similar spread of universities to the current spread - relatively diverse but with the strongest representation being Oxford and Cambridge, as you’d expect.

Even back then, when the majority of degrees awarded were 2.2s, absolutely no-one had less than a 2.1 and a good number had firsts.

This remains the profile of successful applicants. A financial paper at the time described the people at this firm as being ‘not just brilliant, but interesting too’ (the firm really liked that so it was circulated all around!).