College of Law bags A&O, Links GDL contracts

Readers' comments (12)

• Anonymous | 19-Feb-2009 4:02 pm

  Taking over
  
  Is it me or has CoL literally taken over the market here?

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• Anonymous | 19-Feb-2009 4:31 pm

  level pegging
  
  "In September, CoL arch-rival BPP Law School was named as the sole GDL provider for a consortium of five leading City firms made up of the remaining magic circle firm, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, plus Herbert Smith, Lovells, Norton Rose and Slaughter and May (15 September)."
  
  ........no

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• Anonymous | 20-Feb-2009 8:11 am

  Magic Cirlce
  
  This article suggests Slaughter and May are no longer considered "Magic Circle" is this right?

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• Gavin | 20-Feb-2009 3:40 pm

  Slaughter and May as MC
  
  Who cares?
  
  As for the article, who would want to be a traine with AO and Linklaters after how they've handled their redundancies?

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• City lawyer | 20-Feb-2009 3:49 pm

  What's the point?
  
  What's the point of these firms signing up contracts with Law colleges? Firms are already making trainees defer their TCs and its only a matter of time before these firms come to their senses and stop paying for their trainees' GDL and LPC courses. LPC I can understand but GDL???
  
  There are many highly competent law students with LLB degrees from top universities who don't have TCs. Firms, the SRA and the Law Society should start opening their eyes to the atrocities of taking students who have studied other courses at uni with 2:is and 1sts and offering them TCs. It is about time that law students are prioritised again. No other commonwealth jurisdiction offers a more idiotic deal! What you learn in 3 years cannot be learnt in a year! The variety may be there but the quality is simply not the same.

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• Better Than You | 20-Feb-2009 11:52 pm

  Just not good enough...
  
  City lawyer - you sound like a bitter silver circle lawyer with a redbrick law degree who didn't make the magic circle (unlike me).

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• Blue | 21-Feb-2009 12:14 pm

  How's it going to work?
  
  How's the 'preferred GDL provider' thing going to work? I'd suggest the vast majority of GDL candidates are only recruited the summer immediately before starting the course, by which time they may well have signed up with a different provider and even signed an accommodation contract in a different city.
  Also, for those recruited earlier, it's a sad loss of valuable flexibility as to where to study. And what's the point? I doubt the GDL can be tailored in a meaningful way.
  

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• Gavin | 23-Feb-2009 11:09 pm

  City lawyer
  
  Good to see another person speaking sense. People posting on this site can be as militant as they want about how a GDL is better than a law degree but in reality it isn't. If someone didn't get the grades to study law or didn't want to spend three years on a difficult course then they aren't cut out to be lawyers. Having said that, the magic circle doesn't want black letter lawyers, just business advisors.

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• hellokitty | 24-Feb-2009 9:41 am

  The gay diploma in law
  
  City lawyer, I completely agree with you! The GDL is a pile of nonsense. It is very very basic. I got a 2.1 law degree from a red brick university and want to do the LPC but as I studied in Northern Ireland, and our land law is very different, I have to do the land law module on the GDL, so I have experience of LL.B and GDL. It goes without saying that you cannot compare a 3 year LL.B with a one year GDL course, and without a doubt, firms should give priority to LL.B students. Don't get me wrong, I am glad its there so that I can do english land law and It is nothing to do with bitterness, 'Just not good enough'. It is just common sense. How could somebody who has done a law degree in a year have the understanding of law as somebody who has studied it over three years. I think firms need to get this sorted and gove priority to LL.B students. Also, 'just not good enough', not everybody wants to work for a magic circle law firm', I have a LL.B and LL.M and I have no desire whatsoever to work for them!! However, with two REAL law degrees and paralegal experience, I would like to hope that the firms I apply for will realize that my commitment to law is much greater than GDL types.

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• SC | 26-Feb-2009 7:26 pm

  Pompous nonsense
  
  I haven't read such pompous and arrogant comments for a long time. There is nothing wrong with having a 2:1 degree from a red brick university. Nor is there anything wrong with completing the GDL. The reason for funding the GDL is plainly obvious: money is a barrier for many and why would a law firm limit the pool of talent or make themselves less appealing when competing for the cream of graduates. I imagine law firms 'came to their senses' when realising that by offering to fund the GDL they opened themselves up to a wider pool of quality candidates even ones from, dare I say it, redbrick universities.
  
  Not everyone at the age of 17 already knows their golden path is in the law when applying for uni. Nor does everyone have a pushy middle-class parent or a lawyer for a dad. A successful law firm shouldn't necessarily prioritise a law degree student but simply pick the candidate they deem most able... and if that means forking out an additional 4-7k and having a 'GDL type' then so be it

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