Postgraduate courses

The LPC forms the vocational stage of your training to qualify as a solicitor. The compulsory year-long course is designed to equip you for practice.

The LPC is not assessed centrally, so to apply you must go through the Central Applications Board (CAB) (www.lawcabs.ac.uk). You need to submit your application in the autumn prior to the September in which you wish to start your LPC. You are permitted to apply to three law schools and the closing date is usually in early December.

Despite the fact that you will have to pay thousands of pounds to take the course, having the cash does not guarantee you a place. Providers usually expect a 2:1 degree (although it is not impossible to get a place with a lesser degree class). So you will have to sell yourself and do not forget that you will also be asked to provide an academic reference.

The LPC consists of:

Compulsory subjects: business law and practice; property law and practice; civil and criminal litigation.

Core areas: ethics context (professional conduct and client care); skills context (advocacy, interviewing and advising, writing and drafting and practical legal research); taxation context; principles of EU law; probates and administration.

Pervasive subjects: professional conduct and client care; the Human Rights Act; accounts; EU law; revenue law.

Elective (optional) subjects: students are required to choose three electives from a range of subjects. The electives on offer vary from one law school to another, so make sure you choose an institution that teaches the subjects related to the area of law you want to practise.

Teaching methods usually include small classes and larger lectures and tutorials, although many providers, most notably the College of Law, are increasingly making use of web-based learning.

Another trend that is sweeping the postgraduate legal education market is topping the LPC up into a Masters in Law. This is being offered by a number of law schools, including the College of Law, the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice and London Metropolitan University.

The College of Law and BPP Law School now have the power to award students who complete their law conversion course LPC with an LLB.

Choosing a law school

The LPC is run by a number of dedicated law schools and universities throughout England and Wales. As with qualifying law degrees, the course varies from one institution to the next. Teaching methods, class sizes and the range of electives will differ. Therefore it is important to find an institution offering electives that fit your career interests.

It is also important to think about location. Although studying the LPC in London is inevitably going to be more expensive, there are certain advantages to being closer to the City especially if you need to look for a training contract while on the course.

Some law firms specify which institution you should attend or have preferred LPC providers. For example, the College of Law is the choice LPC provider for a string of law firms, including Allen & Overy, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Clifford Chance, Linklaters and Weil Gotshal & Manges. Meanwhile, BPP provides the LPC for the so-called City LPC consortium, which comprises Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Herbert Smith, Lovells, Norton Rose and Slaughter and May, as well as many others.

Nottingham at Kaplan Law School, which launched a new London campus in September 2007, has a contract with Chicago-based Mayer Brown. Such agreements enable institutions to tailor their courses to make them more relevant to the types of work the law firms clients focus on.

How much will it all cost?

Course fees for the LPC vary enormously depending on where you choose to study, and can be more than 11,000. Unless you are lucky enough to have wealthy parents willing to fund you, the chances are that, after completing your degree, you will not have this kind of money in your bank account and so will be unable to pay these fees yourself.

Thankfully there is a number of options available. The most attractive is undoubtedly to persuade a law firm to shell out the cash for you. But this will only happen if you secure a training contract in advance.

Sponsorship typically includes payment of the LPC fee itself plus a maintenance grant of up to 10,000 to cover living costs.