Lawyers or Law educators please; GDL, CPE, SQE soup

[Battleax]

Does anyone have insights they can share about the coming changes.

DC1 is due to graduate in 2019 (non law) and has been starting to apply training contracts for 2020 that include sponsorship for the GDL the year before. He assumed that he’d then segue onto the SQE route when he started the training period.

He’s been having a reasonable degree of success with this; invited to interview twice.

Today he’s had a moment of confusion/worry and is wondering whether mixed route is even a thing. (None of the employer websites are specifying which training route will be operative for that cohort.)

So now he’s frantically reading and wondering whether he would be better of applying for ‘20 or ‘21, which training route will apply to which cohort and whether there is a concrete advantage in either he should be considering.

So I thought I’d ask MN while he’s engrossed in reading law and career websites. Any tips or steers?

Better off ^

Anyone?

In my view he should stick with the traditional route for now. I suspect the SQE will be delayed but I might be wrong. I suspect the better law firms who provide sponsorship (of the kind my daughter had) will not rush to change a system that works very well and gets all your exams over with before you start your work but if they are forced to then even so I suspect they will be sponsoring students to take the SQE, sending them out on to the course etc. I would just press on in the traditional way for now.

Thanks. The wording around the timescale certainly does sound hedgey.

I might have missed something, but why does it matter? If he has a training contract, he will get sponsored through the GDL/LPC and have a training contract at the end of it... so why would it matter if the LPC is then scrapped for the SQE? Genuine question...

It’s because, paradoxically, if he wants to stick with the old scheme, he doesn’t need to apply until next summer (for most employers) at which point they’ll be recruiting for training contracts starting in ‘21 which also entails two years of pre-start study (2019-21).

Whereas, many of the schemes recruiting now seem to be for a training contract start date of Sept 2020 and just one year’s pre-start training (2019-2020) as per the new scheme.

So he’s been applying now for those and also planning to apply next year for the old-scheme type as his graduation year is 2019 and so theoretically he could seamlessly join either.

But then he had a minor panic that he’d misunderstood it all. So he was explaining the whole thing to me and also speculating about parity of esteem between the two, possible delays at introducing the new scheme etc.

So, being frazzled and busy yesterday, I thought I’d ask here rather than replicate his lengthy research.

Eg a firm I used to work at says for non law graduates

"If you are studying a non-law subject at university, you should apply [ for a training contract] from October during the final year of your degree. We would advise you to apply as early as possible as we will begin interviewing in November."

If he graduates non law in 2019 then under the existing route presumably he does the GDL 2019/20 and then the LPC 202/21 and starts his trianing contract in Sept 2021. He would apply have applied Nov 2018 I think or ideally as early as that unless he wants a gap year or might have it wrong. It is always so complicated.

Yes, he’s non-law.

Complicated is the word. If nothing else, the old style scheme is also clearer and not subject to last minute revision of the SQE introduction causing disruption, I suppose.

Thanks for the help.