Editor's weekly: Who is telling the truth?
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Who to believe? The Law Society or the College of Law (Col)? That must have been the question on many of yours minds this morning after reading about the law school’s claims that there’s going to be a shortfall of LPC graduates.
In stark contrast to the Law Society, which has been warning aspiring lawyers about the oversupply of law students, CoL is predicting that next year there could be 14 per cent more training contract vacancies than students passing the LPC, a graduate shortfall of around 550 (read more).
As you would expect critics have rubbished CoL’s research arguing that it is in the LPC provider’s interest to publish such information. But it isn’t just CoL who is making this prediction. Professor Richard Moorhead from Cardiff Law School highlighted the problem in some of his recent blogs.
In one of his blogs Moorhead writes: “Figures for full-time LPC enrolments have dropped by 20 per cent from 7,631 to 6,067… a 75 per cent pass rate would lead to just over 4,500 LPC students graduating first time, and I understand about 4,500 training contracts were registered last year (read more).”
Interestingly, CoL’s chief executive Nigel Savage says that there is so much misinformation being put out by different stakeholders it is deterring even the top candidates from pursuing a legal career.
Nigel – I hate to say this but CoL’s research is unlikely to help and is arguably going to confuse students even further.
I am completely in favour of transparency and believe students need as much information as possible to help them make informed decisions.
The problem is that the Law Society figures deal with LPC places as opposed to students successfully completing the course, which is the figure used by CoL in its projections. So as is the case with almost all statistics it very difficult to decide which set is more credible.
The oversupply problem isn’t really going to be much concern to students who manage to bag a training contract prior to starting the LPC – it’s only an issue for those who have to make the difficult choice of whether to self-fund.
So since the CoL is suddenly so keen to ensure students are sent the correct message perhaps it, along with its rivals, will finally be also willing to disclose the final destinations of its LPC graduates.
Husnara.begum@lawyer2b.com
Readers' comments (5)
Nigel Savage, Chief Executive, The College of Law | 15-Apr-2011 4:04 pm
Your comment piece asks the College to disclose the final destinations of our LPC graduates. We have made this information public before and are very happy to do so again here. The latest available statistics are from the cohort of students who passed the LPC in 2009. Of those whose destinations we know, 93% were in permanent employment, 88% were employed in the legal profession and nearly 70% had a training contract.
These figures reflect the College’s emphasis on boosting students’ employability and developing their professional knowledge and skills, which are much sought after in both the legal industry and in other business areas.
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Anonymous | 19-Apr-2011 4:18 pm
Nearly 70% of CoL graduates find a training contract within 2 years of leaving the LPC?
I am sorry Nigel, I have kept in contact with most of my group from the LPC and would say that, at best, 50% of us have training contracts (probably less).
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Anonymous | 9-May-2011 11:40 am
Mr Savage,
Could you please clarify what you mean by "of those whose destinations we know". Does this include those on courses who already have training contracts? i.e. courses you run for particular firms. How many responded to your survey out of the total number of students who passed the LPC in 2009 at CoL?
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Brian Read, Careers Adviser, LPC students, Univers | 19-May-2011 4:03 pm
Unfortunately not all LPC providers are able to give figures of the destinations of their diplomates after their courses. We provide statistics showing destinations of our diplomates every year up to 3 years after their course - anyone is welcome to them.
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Alex | 19-May-2011 4:54 pm
I would suggest that Nigel's statistics probably automatically include all the firm-specific LPC grads as well as the non-firm-specific people who answered the relevant survey. So in reality the figure with TCs is likely to be a fair bit less than 70%.
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