Unmarked exam sat in tutor’s pigeon hole for three weeks before part of it was accidentally thrown out
A University of Law (ULaw) student has gone public with her anger after part of her Legal Practice Course (LPC) company law exam was lost.
Laura Will (pictured above) reports that she has been told to retake the exam next June if she wants her marks to count — after a crucial piece of paper was accidentally thrown away while sitting in a tutor’s pigeon hole for three weeks.
In such situations, grades are usually calculated on the basis of the percentage of the exam paper that remains in markers’ possession. But according to the Law Society’s Gazette magazine, Will seems to claim that she wouldn’t be getting any marks at all in the exam in which the paper was lost.
The only alternative she was offered, says Will, was to resit the paper next June.
Will is currently studying the combined Legal Practice Course (LPC) and LLM part-time at ULaw’s Birmingham branch while working as a paralegal at national outfit Shoosmiths alongside her studies. She sat the two-part exam in her international public companies module this summer — and went on to obtain a merit in the module despite the cock-up.
Speaking to the Gazette, the aspiring lawyer claimed that if it hadn’t been for ULaw’s error she would have bagged a distinction.
With competition for training contracts fierce among law students, graduate recruiters will often scrutinise wannabe lawyers’ individual module results. We reached out to Shoosmiths this afternoon to ask whether the difference in grades could hit Will’s hopes of gaining a training contract with the firm but have not yet received a response.
Legal Cheek understands that some of Will’s allegations are contested at ULaw, but the law school has a policy of not commenting on its students. ULaw has issued this statement:
We do not discuss private matters relating to individual students.