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I have just completed the BVC part-time, having studied for my GDL part-time in the two years before that. Throughout the 4 years I have worked at well-paid professional jobs. The reason I started studying part-time was that my employer was helping the fund the course. Even though I changed employers mid-way through, I am happy to have been able to work to fund my studies and am finishing the BVC without any debt at all. Based on my experiences, I can cabsolutely see why some part-time law students feel like second class citizens. Some facilities, particularly careers advice, is not available in the evenings and weekends when part-time students are likely to be available. Mooting and debating club meetings often conflicted with the times part-time students were expected to be in class. Some big national and international mooting competitions are explicitly not open to part-time students (though this is clearly not the fault of the educational providers, but does say something about the culture of legal education). On the BVC in particular, I found the overall quality of the students less impressive on the part-time programme than on the few full-time classes I sat in on. Of my cohort of 30, only 1 has a UK pupillage lined up. Only 2 or 3 of us have even had any interviews for pupillages. I do worry about being tarred with a part-time brush as being less able. My reasons for studying part-time were all about my outside financial commitments (e.g. mortgage) and stage in life, not about a lack of commitment to my job or an inability to secure a training contract or pupillage (besides which almost no one gets pupillage before the GDL and almost no one will pay for the GDL for would-be barristers).

6-Jun-2011

11:54 am