Five top City firms name BPP as sole GDL trainer

BPP Law School has been named as the sole GDL provider for a consortium of five leading City firms.

From September next year, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Herbert Smith, Lovells, Norton Rose and Slaughter and May, which already use BPP as their preferred LPC provider, will send their trainees to the law school’s Leeds, London or Manchester bases for their conversion to law training.

BPP has created what it terms the ‘Distinctive GDL’, which allows students to study core GDL subjects alongside optional mini-programmes, such as evidence and forensics, law in the City and international law, as well as a series of ­lectures in company law.

GDL ;director ;of ­programmes Ben Hughes believes the arrangement will help strengthen the school’s relationship with the consortium of firms.

He told The Lawyer: “We’re happy that the consortium has chosen to send their students to us to study our Distinctive GDL, which we think is the most innovative and flexible course programme in the country.

“We want our students to be fully prepared for the ­professional legal courses and ultimately for when they practice, and we think the extra programmes will strengthen their commercial awareness.”

The consortium has been sending its trainees ­exclusively to BPP for the LPC since 2001, but this is the first GDL deal for the school.

BPP ;has ;a ;strong ­relationship ;with ;the ­consortium firms, which renewed their £15m LPC contract with the school in August last year. This means that BPP will be used as their sole LPC provider until 2012.