Update – Thursday 7 March 2:30pm: Oxford Brookes students issue open letter describing decision to discontinue LPC as "irresponsible" and urging uni to delay closure (see below).
Angry students at Oxford Brookes' Institute of Legal Practice (OXILP) – which is ditching its Legal Practice Course (LPC) from September, leaving part-time students stranded – have launched a "guerilla" group on Facebook to battle the institution's management...
Oxford Brookes University is shutting down its Legal Practice Course (LPC) this summer, with no 2013-2014 course from September. The decision means that students mid-way through the two year part-time Oxford Brookes LPC will be left in limbo. The law school's head, Meryll Dean, says that she is in discussion with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) about ways to enable those students to complete the course. Her email to students, which was leaked to Legal Cheek this morning, is paraphrased below...
From Baby Barristers: a top London law firm seeks a paralegal for its clinical negligence team.
Candidates should have strong academics. LPC or BPTC graduates with previous paralegal experience are preferred, but candidates' wider qualities will be taken into account.
The role will involve, amongst other things, attending meetings with trusts, the General Medical Council (GMC) or HM Coroner, investigating complex medicolegal matters, and drafting instructions to solicitors and experts. The contract, which commences at the beginning of February, is for a fixed term of six months, paid at £24,500 per year pro rata.
Thanks to the trebling of undergraduate fees, the cost of legal education has reached new highs this year – with the fees for a three-year LLB, plus an LPC or BPTC, now approaching a combined £50,000. But growing numbers believe this will prove to be a blip as academics begin to offer ‘massive open online courses’ (MOOCs) for free.
A few days ago I met up with Apple’s former head of education, Alan Greenberg, who recently moved to direct MediaCore’s education team, and asked him about his views on MOOCs in respect of law school.
Will it soon cost nothing to qualify as a solicitor or barrister via the internet, with advocacy taught by YouTube tutorials, and Inns of Court dinners replaced with ready meals and webcams? Or will the traditional model prove more resilient than many expect?
Ed note: This is the first in a regular series of job alerts we'll be running for paralegal and junior lawyer positions.
From Baby Barristers: a London law firm seeks a paralegal to work on a six-month fixed-term contract in its criminal litigation team.
LPC or BPTC graduates are preferred.
Candidates should ideally possess a minimum of six months previous experience working as a paralegal or legal assistant in a criminal law department, preferably with experience of Crown Court trials. Experience of working within a very busy environment where deadlines are clearly defined is also valuable.
The role will include legal research, document management, client meetings, and liaising with the police, prosecution and court.
To request more details, or to submit an immediate application, email [email protected], quoting 'Legal Cheek Job Alert' in the subject line.
In comparison to our odd system of legal education – which sprawls haphazardly from the undergraduate law degree to the CILEX apprenticeship option, via the super-condensed GDL, multiple breeds of LPC and the career graveyard that is the BPTC – the US way of doing things is alluringly simple.
In America, you can only study law as a three-year postgraduate degree. At which point you sit a Bar exam. Then you’re a lawyer. The downside is the inflexibility, slow pace and high cost (over £30,000 a year in fees alone at the top US law schools)...
Last month, BPP Law School Legal Practice Course (LPC) graduate Victoria Lawson admitted stealing more than £8,000 from John Lewis, where she was working part-time having failed to net a training contract.
The expectation was that 25 year-old Lawson – who stole the sizeable sum from the Peterborough branch of the store via a fake refund scam – would be sent to jail when she was sentenced on Friday at Peterborough Magistrates Court.
But for District Judge Andrew Jones, the fact that Lawson’s crime will prevent her from ever practising as a solicitor was punishment enough. As such, he decided to take what he termed an "unusual course" and hand Lawson a community order with supervision instead...
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