CoL slammed for refusal to repay non-starter fees
Complaints about ’unfair’ treatment of transfer students as college holds onto payments
Nigel Savage
The College of Law (CoL) has entered into a major spat with several of Kaplan Law School’s LPC clients after refusing to refund thousands of pounds of course fees to the firms’ future trainees.
The dispute with Bird & Bird, Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW), Nabarro and Trowers & Hamlins arose after the firms, all of which send their future trainees to Kaplan, offered training contracts to students who had already paid their first instalments to CoL, which in many cases amounted to £5,890.
The college’s terms and conditions state that if a student wishes to withdraw from a course these payments, which must be made by 31 July, are non-refundable. The students affected all secured training contracts after the payment deadline.
CoL’s refusal to offer refunds to enable students to transfer to Kaplan prompted Nabarro, FFW, Trowers and BPP Law School client Taylor Wessing to write a joint letter appealing to the college to waive its rules. The college, which is likely to be forced to write off £450,000 of debt owed to it by defunct firm Halliwells, rejected the appeal.
CoL chief executive Nigel Savage said: “The reality is the firms have selected a law school that the students didn’t want to go to. We might be a charity, but we aren’t a charity for law firms. If it were a genuine case of hardship then of course we’d reconsider.”
Bird & Bird and Hammonds, which has recently appointed BPP as its sole LPC and GDL provider, are dealing with the problem individually.
FFW senior HR manager Sonia Cochet claimed: “We wrote to the college to express our concerns because we thought it was unfair for those students to attend a different law school to the rest of their intake.
“As far as I know the college is the only provider to expect the first instalment of fees to still be paid if a student changes their mind.”
Head of Kaplan Giles Proctor said: “This is particularly unfair now that there are so many more firm-specific LPCs. Students are being denied the chance to work with the provider and their firm before starting their training contracts.”
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Readers' comments (35)
Chris | 5-Oct-2010 8:45 pm
So why can the College of Law afford to write off the £450,000 of unpaid fees that Halliwells owed, but refuse to do the decent thing here and pay back the individual students. This is not acceptable. One rule for big business and one for individuals. Welcome students to the horrible, unfair world of capitalism. Reach for a copy of the Communist Manifesto - it will be the most important thing you ever read and much more relevant to life than anything you'll ever learn on the LPC. Get your own back against this rotten system.
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Jo | 5-Oct-2010 8:57 pm
Re Anonymous 27 Sep @4:29pm, I sincerely hope that you are not really a student with this vomit- inducing pro CoL PR rubbish. However, if you are a student you really need to get a life! Oh, you did make me laugh with your...."Yes you have guessed correctly I chose the CoL". Do you think anyone actually cares?!
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Scep Tick | 6-Oct-2010 10:01 am
"So why can the College of Law afford to write off the £450,000 of unpaid fees that Halliwells owed, but refuse to do the decent thing here and pay back the individual students. "
Maybe it's BECAUSE it has had to write off the £450k from Halliwells that it WON'T refund the students?
Or maybe it's because it wants to teach its students and law firms that refuse to use it a lesson that contracts are there for a reason?
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Anonymous | 6-Oct-2010 12:15 pm
Re Scep Tick at 6 Oct 10:01, I think you have too much faith in the whole system! There's no good reason behind why the College are refusing to pay back money to the individuals. The College bosses are just greedy - Savage won't be prepared to take any less than his ridiculous £450,000 salary this year. It is just plain wrong. If the College is a charity (as all those PR people on this thread and the last one keep telling us), you would think that they would want to be seen assisting young students on their path into the profession, not screwing them over. I think this has been a terrible decision by the CoL, especially in the light of what has gone on with Halliwells. Why should these students be expected to pay for the mistakes of Savage in allowing huge credit to build up when Halliwells was clearly sinking? If Savage was a salaried lawyer in private practice - he'd be out. Nevermind that, if he was working as a trainee in McDonalds flipping burgers, he'd be out.
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Anonymous | 7-Oct-2010 9:46 am
Re Scep Tick | 6-Oct-2010 10:01 am
"Maybe it's BECAUSE it has had to write off the £450k from Halliwells that it WON'T refund the students?"
Absolutely not true. The COL has millions of pounds of retained income.
You should research what you saying before making silly comments.
The fact that it has so much retained income indicates that it is charging students far too much money.
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