Tag Archives: Solicitors Regulation Authority

EXCLUSIVE: Oxford Brookes To Close Its Legal Practice Course This Summer Leaving Part-Time Students In Limbo

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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...

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Edicts From The Ivory Tower: The Troubling Disconnect Between The SRA’s ‘Sophisticated’ Decision-Makers And Its ‘Over-Zealous’ Prosecutor Foot-Soldiers

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A "wholly unjustified and unreasonable" decision to prosecute a small law firm for supposed failure to comply with the new Code of Conduct has left Andrew Hopper QC of the view that the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is becoming increasingly dysfunctional

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Jobless Graduates Left At Whim Of Law Firms’ Make-It-Up-As-You-Go-Along Recruitment Procedures

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Last month Kearns Solicitors placed an advert in Counsel magazine seeking LPC and BPTC graduates to work as "court advocates". Applicants who got through the CV and cover letter sift were invited to complete a gruelling four-page test – available here – within seven days.

When a Bar graduate (who contacted me anonymously last week) completed the test – and passed – she got this response...

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Solicitors’ Profession Could Face a ‘Lost Generation Of Talent’

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Three weeks on from the scrapping of the trainee minimum wage and the decision looks more ill-thought through than ever, argues Oxford University Bachelor of Civil Laws (BCL) student Richard Ridyard

The thousands of LPC graduates without a training contract have choked off the arteries of confidence in the legal graduate market. We find ourselves at a crossroads. The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has made a bold step by abolishing the minimum wage for trainee solicitors. But now that the dust has settled and we have had a chance to reflect on that decision, was it the right one? Here, I argue that the four reasons Legal Cheek gave to explain why the SRA acted as it did are flawed.
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