Kaplan launches New York Bar Course
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The New York Bar course has emerged as the latest programme for legal education providers to squabble over, with Kaplan Law School launching its own version of the American qualification.
Hot on the heels of College of Law’s (CoL) announcement that it would be offering the New York Bar qualification to non-law graduates last week, Kaplan has confirmed that it too will be offering an on-line version of the programme.
Kaplan course director Chris Sweetman said: “This is about giving choice to students as well as lawyers who want to qualify to practise as an attorney in New York. We want the programme to be as flexible as possible for them.”
The course is being run by the school’s sister groups Kaplan Altior in association with Kaplan PMBR, which has been running the programme in the US for the over 30 years.
The new version of the programme has been designed for students who have a UK law degree and those who have already qualified as a solicitor or barrister.
The course is aimed at preparing candidates for the bar exams, which are traditionally held in New York in February and July each year.
Students will be able to access a range of study materials online, including pre-recorded lectures and practice tests for just over 22-weeks before each exam.
The news comes after CoL announced that it would also be offering a 22-week New York Bar programme to its full-time Graduate Diploma of Law students who go on to complete its Legal Practice Course or Bar Professional Training Course.
Those who successfully complete the extended course will be awarded a US-style CoL Juris Doctor (JD) professional degree in law.
In a related move CoL has also announced a partnership with Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago.
Northwestern is assisting CoL in designing and ultimately delivering the additional electives that are required to enable students to sit the New York Bar Exam.
CoL has not yet set the price for the new programme.
Meanwhile BPP Law School has been running its own New York bar programme for the past three years.
The course, which costs around £3,095, is principally aimed at qualified lawyers who want a certificate to practice in the US but is also open to law students fresh out of university.
Students opting to study at BPP can do so in its Leeds, London or Manchester branches and can choose between a two-month full time programme or six-month part time course.
Readers' comments (6)
IHateBPP | 18-Mar-2010 4:29 pm
It seems BPP was at the forefront of this scam a few years ago, took surprisingly long for their fellow travellers to catch on.
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A College of Law spokesperson | 19-Mar-2010 12:23 pm
To avoid any confusion it is important to point out that in comparing The College of Law’s recently-announced New York Bar programme with the courses offered by Kaplan and BPP you are not comparing like with like.
What BPP and Kaplan are offering is very different to what the College is offering. Their courses to prepare candidates for the New York Bar Exam are for people with a UK LL.B law degree or those who are already qualified solicitors/barristers.
This is because, prior to The College of Law agreement with the New York Bar, only LL.B graduates or fully qualified lawyers were eligible to sit for the NYB Exam without undertaking any further study - under the rules of eligibility administered by the New York State Board of Law Examiners.
GDL students, on the other hand, traditionally had to follow a much more convoluted route and take a one-year full-time LL.M programme in the USA before being eligible to sit the exam.
However the new College of Law Juris Doctor (JD) programme, which is exclusive to the College, enables full-time GDL students at the College, who go on to complete the College's LPC or BPTC course, to sit for the NYB Exam following an additional 22-week study programme.
It is the first and only in the UK to provide non-law graduates with the option to follow an alternative, and much more direct route to the NYB Exam and therefore to qualification as a lawyer in New York.
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Anonymous | 19-Mar-2010 9:54 pm
What of the 100's of part-time College of Law students studying the same GDL and LPC course as the full-timers, are they excluded from this opportunity?
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Anonymous | 26-Mar-2010 4:23 pm
Is it really feasible to enrol on this now and sit the July 2010 exam...?
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Anonymous | 25-Sep-2010 0:29 am
I cannot see how the college of law can depart so radically from the British way of inclusiveness in legal education ( with full recognition for part-time/distance learning). This is poodle behaviour, there is no reason why part-time GDL and LPC students should be excluded. Surely arrangements could be made for such students to complete the JD programme over a more extended period. This mantra of exclusion read 'exclusive' only benefits the very wealthy. One appreciates the prevailing criteria for sitting the new york bar exam, however unenlightened. Surely, the law for the market should nonetheless grant the right to part-time GDL LPC students to take the JD and not sit the New York bar. The California Bar is far more flexible and they may well decide to try their luck there.
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Anonymous | 15-Oct-2010 0:44 am
Surely by agreeing with the NY Bar Association's definition, the College is only undermining it's own distance learning/part time courses. Presumably the part-time GDL certificate I have been awarded by the College of Law is not worth the paper it is on.
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