CoL, Kaplan lift lid on LPC graduate success rates
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The College of Law (CoL) and Kaplan Law School have bowed to market pressure and disclosed statistics on the final destinations of their LPC students.
Nigel Savage
CoL revealed that 84 per cent of its full-time LPC students who graduated in July 2010 secured work in the legal profession. Sixty two per cent obtained training contracts while 22 per cent were working as paralegals or in other law-related roles.
CoL added that overall 91 per cent of its LPC graduates were in permanent employment and only 1 per cent described themselves as unemployed. Eighty-one per cent of the cohort, or 1,925 students, took part in the survey.
CoL chief executive Nigel Savage said: “To have such extremely positive employment figures is all the more impressive considering that the 2010 graduates were the worst affected by the recession across all industry sectors.
“In the legal sector specifically, the deferral by law firms of substantial numbers of training contracts from the previous years into the 2010 trainee intake made it particularly challenging for this cohort to secure jobs.”
Kaplan Law School said that 82 per cent of its 2010 LPC graduates had work lined up in the legal sector, with 71 per cent bagging training contracts and 11 per cent becoming paralegals.
CoL’s arch-rival BPP Law School was unable to provide comparable figures because until now it has not collected such data.
“We welcome the fact that providers such as Kaplan and CoL are able to demonstrate high levels of employability of their graduates, which is positive news for the profession,” said BPP dean Peter Crisp. “BPP’s recently implemented a dedicated research resource, and we’re in the process of conducting a comprehensive survey on employability across all our programmes.”
The results follow conflicting claims last month concerning the ratio of LPC students and training contracts. The Law Society’s latest statistics, published in early April, found that 14,510 LPC places were available across two modes of study in 2009-10, but only 4,874 training contracts were registered from 1 August 2009 to 31 July 2010.
This situation, according to the society, was expected to be exacerbated, with the number of LPC places set to rise by 5 per cent to 15,166 during the current academic year (2011-12) - 12,142 full-time and 3,024 part-time places.
Two weeks later CoL warned of a shortfall of LPC graduates. It claimed that a drought could arise as early as 2011-12, with 14 per cent more available training contracts than students passing the LPC in the period (Lawyer2B.com, 14 April).
Using figures published by the Law Society, CoL forecast the number of full- and part-time students passing the LPC in 2010-11 will be around 4,405, 28 per cent lower than in 2009-10.
This, argued the law school, is based on the percentage decline in full-time enrolments this year compared with last, using Central Applications Board figures, and takes into account an historical average LPC pass rate across all institutions of 74 per cent.
But CoL predicted that the number of trainees registered in 2010-11 would fall by just 5.8 per cent compared with last year, based on data for the first six months of the year from the Solicitors Regulation Authority. This means there will be around 4,591 training contracts - more than the number of new LPC graduates.
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Readers' comments (12)
Anonymous | 23-May-2011 11:53 am
Surely an important question is how many of the 62%/71% (of the 74% who graduate) who secured training contracts had already secured them before they started the LPC? That would give a better indication of the prospects of obtaining a training contract if you start the LPC without one.
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Anonymous | 23-May-2011 12:31 pm
Okay, so does this 84% include those students who already had training contracts before arriving at the College of Law?
Future trainees of A&O, Linklaters and Clifford Chance HAVE to take the LPC there, for example. It's misleading to imply that they got a training contract because they went to the CoL - in fact it's the other way round: the College of Law is taking them because they already have a training contract to go to.
A more useful statistic for those thinking of applying to law school would be the answer to: "What percentage of students who didn't have a training contract when starting the LPC did within a year of finishing the course?"
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Ex Kaplan | 23-May-2011 1:59 pm
I finished up Kaplan in 2010 and no one has ever asked me what I am up to after finishing - so where did they get these figures from? Perhaps, only asking a selection of students i.e. the ones that they knew had a training contract or paralegal role?
Also, I would say that 60% of the students already had a training contract lined up before starting so in terms of helping people who did not have one the figures are pretty poor really.
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Anonymous | 23-May-2011 2:03 pm
It would also be interesting to see these figures compared against the number of people on the full time LPC and also compare this against others courses such as the part time LPC.
It is wholly irresponsible for the CoL and other providers such as KAPLAN to publish statistics that mislead customers i.e. students to take the LPC on the basis that they will get a TC. Institutions need to start taking their responsibilities more seriously rather than looking to increase their business profits.
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Anonymous | 23-May-2011 5:17 pm
I have a training contract and my firm makes me complete the LPC at the College of Law, as do many other City firms. It would be interesting to see the statistics in relation to how many training contracts were actually secured by students prior to starting at the College. I suspect there was a reason this information wasn't published.
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Threadneedles | 24-May-2011 10:56 am
What would be equally interesting, in addition to those comments aired above, would be to see the percentage of GDL students at such 'law schools' that (a) continue onto the LPC and (b) manage to secure a training contract, not having previously acquired one.
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Anonymous | 24-May-2011 5:26 pm
I studied the GDL and LPC at the College of Law between 2007 and 2009. I had already secyured a training contract at a Magic Circle form prior to commencing the GDL. Of those I met who did not already have a training contract when starting the GDL(about 30- 50%) a very small percentage managed to subsequently secure one. Of those who did not have a TC at the start ofthe LPC (slightly skewed as it was based on people I met socially rather than in class- I was on a firm-specific course and so only had classesd with future trainees at other firms) a tiny percentage ended up getting interviews, let alone TCs.
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Anonymous | 26-May-2011 11:33 am
I also think the article's use of the phrase "secured work in the legal profession" is also misleading and very deliberate as this can mean anything from TC/paralegal to working for a legal body in a non-law role or working for a legal training provider which is not actually using the LPC after having completed it. I think this is Kaplan's attempt to put a positive spin on declining confidence in the LPC.
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Anonymous | 26-May-2011 1:45 pm
Does anyone enrol on the LPC wanting to become a paralegal - I doubt it! In some places, getting a job as a paralegal will actually mean that you can't apply for a TC at that firm.
And the Institute of Paralegals is putting in place training towards a separate career path for paras so if you wanted to become a paralegal you wouldn't need to spend upwards of £12K for the LPC.
As a recruiter, I can honestly say that having an LPC from the COL (or anywhere else) will not sway me in any way. If a candidate has an interesting and varied CV (as well as reasonable A levels and degree), I will want to talk to them. We give no credit for an LPC grade in our scoring system.
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Anonymous | 26-May-2011 4:10 pm
The fact that in the comment above a recruiter gives no credit to a candidate with an LPC from a leading provider is a great shame and testimony that you would not want such a person handling your career. An LPC is what it says on the tin - a practical course and that is why many law firms are happy to take paralegals with an LPC and then offer them training contracts as a result of the work they do.
A different outcome to a recruiter who simply screens people out on the basis of academic results.
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