CC’s fast-track LPC adds to two-tier fears
Clifford Chance has become the latest firm to launch a fast-track LPC in a move that has heightened student fears of creating a two-tier training system for aspiring lawyers.
The seven-month course, to be introduced in January 2012, will be provided by the College of Law (CoL), which already plans to roll out a similar offering for Linklaters from next year.
The trend towards only offering condensed courses to a select few students with City training contracts has outraged undergraduates.
University of Kent Law Society president Zainul Jussab said: “Just because you join a certain type of firm, why should you finish the LPC more quickly than everyone else?”
CoL’s arch-rival BPP Law School was the first provider to launch an accelerated course for the so-called ’City consortium’ of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Herbert Smith, Lovells, Norton Rose and Slaughter and May. BPP’s fast-track LPC welcomed its third cohort of students last month.
University College
London (UCL) careers secretary Shiva Riahi said: “In the perfect world we should all have the choice to study the LPC for seven months.”
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Readers' comments (15)
Anonymous | 21-Sep-2010 7:54 pm
I think its great to have an accelerated LPC for Magic Circle firms however I did the LPC part-time over 2 years whilst working full time at a City firm. And it worked for me great.
Its up to an individual how they decide to study the LPC.
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lolol | 22-Sep-2010 10:46 am
lolol at@ gangsters paradise!!
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JP | 22-Sep-2010 12:21 pm
Some of us gotta run a little faster, Coz we got a later start, but I'd be a fool to surrender When I know I can be a contender.
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hamesh | 23-Sep-2010 12:08 pm
"Why would anyone actually pay for the LPC in this day and age?
Without sponsorship one will not get a training contract."
@Anonymous who wrote this, you are easily the biggest moron on this website right now.
Even using "one" in order to display your superior grasp of the english language cannot hide the fact that you obviously spend your days justifying your pointless existence by posting your inane tripe on websites.
Please do us all a favour and just take your laptop, and throw it out of the window, maybe dont let go of it first.
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KE | 23-Sep-2010 6:06 pm
! The LPC is a professional qualification. Of course it should be designed for the convenience of the firm rather than the student! The LPC could quite easily be taught full time in 6 months - it just means working 9 to 5 in the classroom, and doing homework each evening, as they do in comparable professions. (Of course, in comparable professions you would be more likely to have a three year training contract in which you go off for a few months each year to complete the qualifications. Which if applied to law would in turn mean that law firms could recruit a year in advance instead of two years, because they would not need to worry about their trainees completing the LPC first.)
I have no sympathy whatsoever for Zainul Jussab's position. There is no question of "fairness" here; I would have thought that an undergraduate who was genuinely committed to a legal career would welcome the opportunity to get the LPC over and done with as quickly as possible. Sounds like a typical university society president trying to justify the position.
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