Farewell: Final Results and PgDip Award

Tuesday 29 July 2014 marked the final results day for me and my comrades. Needless to say I was at work so my usual hoohah of winding myself up at exactly 2pm and opening and then closing the results page did not happen. Instead I sat at my desk doing my work, and between the hours of 2 and 5 pm, feeling like my stomach was going to jump out my mouth or fall out the other end. 

Work finished and I practically ran to the door. I had already seen that my friends had passed and that at least two had achieved an overall Distinction. Pressure was on. I had also seen that the girl who managed to wangle FOUR WEEKS off work for study leave (the same girl who called the employment exam commotion last year and proceeded to get a 76 and who has also only achieved distinctions thus far) had gotten a 66 in International Commercial Law. You know, International Commercial Law the one exam that I felt like I knew just about nothing in. 

Anyway, I finally opened my results. No opening and closing this time, I had had enough mental torture throughout the afternoon. I opened the email which gave our final award first, thinking that if I had a Commendation or above I knew that I had at least passed ICL (if you fail one of your core modules or electives you are limited to only a Pass in your final award regardless of your average mark).

I opened the email and found I had been awarded a DISTINCTION in the PgDip (fancy way of saying LPC) with an overall average of 76. 

Absolute relief and joy and, yes, mainly relief! I now had the courage to check the final exam results.

PRIVATE CLIENT                                                    80%

INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL LAW           66%

As you can imagine I was completely over the moon with Private Client. A little disappointed with ICL but when you think you may have failed something a solid Commendation is not to be looked down upon. 

So thats it folks, law school is now over for me. I started this course full of nerves, knowing that I wanted to get a Distinction but not believing I was good enough. Unlike on the LLB I can honestly say I have followed the course materials rigorously, I haven't missed a single piece of required reading or I-Tutorial. And that would of course be my only advice in approaching the LPC - do everything required of you. And more if you have the time!

The future is looking bright for me. I landed that paralegal job that I interviewed for and which has a Training Contract interview attached commencing 2015. I have all my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, I didn't get any further with the CPS. That case study assessment was just too damn hard!

I want to thank each and every one of my readers for their support - some of your Twitter messages and emails have been amazing. Please do continue your support for the blog and to my successor who is starting the GDL this September. 

Good luck in all your studies and legal careers you lovely lovely people. Farewell!

CPS - Case Study Assessment

So apologies for the delay in this blog. Today, as promised, I am talking about the case study assessment I attended on Monday 30 June 2014 for the Crown Prosecution Service. 

First off, to get to this point you had to submit an application which consisted of the usual information form filling bits and then three competency based questions. Following this there was supposed to be a Situational Judgment Test (very similar to the Government Legal Service which I interviewed for last year), however, the date for these tests to be emailed to successful candidates came and went. I eventually received an email to say they would not be conducting the SJT and instead would be moving to the next stage - the case study assessment. 

I was emailed the date and time of the assessment (non-negotiable - all the assessments took place on one day), as well as a link to the Code for Crown Prosecutors, and told to familiarise ourselves with this in particular part 4. My assessment was to be in London and on 30 June. 

I arrived just ten minutes before the time we had to be there, having got slightly lost (damn you Google maps!). The irony in this is that I had actually arrived in London over an hour early! Anyway, I certainly wasn't the last one there. We had our photos taken and given a Visitor badge and led into a room with about seven tables each with three places marked. I took a seat, we were given brief instructions and then the forty five minutes began. 

I was initially struck by the sheer amount of reading that was required in the forty five minutes. We had one witness statement, a narrative of what had happened, legal reference pages (burglary, perverting the course of justice and meaning of circumstantial evidence) and then extracts from the Code we were asked to read beforehand. 

There were two questions, basically asking us to assess the strength of the case using the Code tests and make conclusions. It was not horrifically bad but, as most people agreed, I could have done with another thirty minutes! I am guessing that is the point though - time pressures and all that jazz!

Afterwards the assistant sat and had a chat with us about the next steps etc. and we should hear the outcome within the next two weeks. She said that there were around twenty positions and that they were down to the find two hundred candidates (around 800 having applied). In the meantime I have an interview for a paralegal position. Things are definitely looking positive at the moment - life without the LPC aint so bad!

Private Client exam - and the last exam of the LPC

Well what can I say, the LPC is over! Last Thursday saw me take the final of my LPC exams in beautiful sunshine and boy did it feel good. 

The PC exam is just like all the others -  three hour paper made up of 20% MCQs (multiple choice questions) and 80% written questions. This translated into ten MCQs at two marks each and five written questions with varying marks, totalling eighty. I did the usual - and would recommend this to anyone else - took thirty minutes off the three hour time limit and then divided the remaining minutes by  eighty giving me the average minutes per mark. Then multiplying all the questions marks by the average and writing how long I have for each (always rounding down!). This should only take two or three minutes to do and is INVALUABLE in time keeping. I have particularly found on the LPC that sometimes you really do have to wind up what you are saying and move on. On some questions I feel as though I could write forever! 

I digress. My time keeping worked a treat and I finished with five minutes to spare. All in all I was really happy with the exam. As expected the written questions were quite tax heavy, whether you were actually doing tax calculations or explaining the tax implications of a variety of options to a client, there certainly was a lot of tax. This was heaven for me! As nerdy as it may sound I would happily sit that exam ten times over - such a relief to end the course on a high. Especially in comparison to the Commercial exam which, in light of PC, was pretty damn horrendous. 

RESULT PREDICTIONS:

International Commercial Law:            60%

Private Client:                                          70%

After the exam there was a real sense of finality. Although there were still two more exams to go on the following day it seemed that most people in that room had just sat their last LPC exam. I must admit in my final five minutes I sat and had a little look around the room, took it all in. 

The LPC really has been a roller coaster. I went into it quite terrified of public speaking and not at all confident in my ability to one day be a solicitor. I am leaving having conquered my fear and feeling like a legal career was made for me. When I remember how absolutely petrified I was of both the interviewing and advocacy exams I am now so incredibly proud that I managed to do the exams and pass them first time (and even enjoy them a little!). 

In terms of friendships, I have definitely made a few of those. It really has been eye opening the different people you meet and from all kinds of walks of life. The camaraderie has been second to none, everyone is willing to lend a hand and support you when needed. For this reason I am excited for the future generation of lawyers - a kind, intelligent and extremely determined bunch. 

So now I await exams and the classification of my Legal Practice Course, and that will be my final blog post on the LPC *sniff sniff*. 

….. BUT don't abandon the blog just yet dear readers! I will still be popping in to post about the search for training contracts. Indeed, Monday 30th June will see me attending an assessment day so hold out of for the results of that. And in even more exciting news, the blog will be fully taken over by a new student in September. I will let him introduce himself in his own blog post but he is an English Literature graduate and will be documenting his journey on the Graduate Diploma in Law. 

So for now, enjoy whatever summer you may have and good luck in your TC applications!

International Commercial Law exam

Yesterday was the first of my two elective examinations and was on ICL. The course itself has been so incredibly structured that I assumed the exam would be straightforward enough. If you are currently in the UK you will be aware of the ridiculously hot weather we are experiencing at the moment - and I don't do heat! Give me a log cabin in the snow any day! On top of this my new car has (a) manual windows (yes, they do still exist!) and (b) no air conditioning. So my multiple hour long journey to uni was less than comfortable. Nevertheless it was lovely to see the campus full of summery looking students all revising in the sunshine and I enjoyed a pre-exam salad with my friends on the grass before we went to our doom.

First of all, the room was SWELTERING. Genuinely, I walked in and instantly felt a little sick at the thought of spending the next three hours in that stuffy heat, trying not to drink so I could avoid a time-wasting toilet break and doing my best to maintain peak concentration. Luckily, we were all in the same boat. 

The exam began and in usual fashion it was ten multiple choice questions worth two marks each followed by the written questions worth the remaining 80% of the paper. As someone who generally struggles with the MCQs on the papers, I was sooo relieved to find that they were all unusually similar to the practice questions we are required to do for each workshop (and which I had run through that morning!). Hoorah!!! There were not many that I was not confident about. 

The written questions were a bit more tricky. There were four and they were all styled on "read the email and write your response in a report". Annoyingly unnecessary when you don't want to waste precious time faffing and just want to answer the question! Because of this slight set back my timing was a bit off. Each "report" had specified subtitles but it wasn't clear how many marks were allotted under each subtitle, only under the whole question. This meant I was unsure how much was required in each bit. 

I did finish the exam and do all the questions. One of my friends missed the last question but then it was only worth six marks so not necessarily catastrophic. Now I am preparing myself for my final ever exam on Thursday for Private Client. I cannot wait!

The Last of the Last Days

Wednesday marked the very last day at university for me and many others in my classes. Amidst the teachers handing out review forms and giving us vital last minute exam information/tips there wasn't a lot of time to get nostalgic. I did bring in cake though, and cake always marks a special occasion. 

I can now officially say that I have completed all of the learning on the Legal Practice Course. I have been reflecting on the past two years and whether I feel I have achieved everything that I set out to achieve on the LPC. I am obviously disappointed that I won't be starting a training contract this coming September as I began the course in high confidence that I would be able to secure a TC starting in 2014. Things don't always go to plan. I do, however, have a promising job in a firm that have invited me to apply for their 2015 training contract, so it is not all bad. 

In addition, I have really concerted my efforts into succeeding on the LPC - more so than on the LLB. I am of course aware that the LLB is regarded much higher than the LPC but I am still proud that I have gone from averaging mid sixties to mid seventies, showing my dedication and the amount of time I have invested into this course. I am genuinely proud of my achievements (and I don't say that very often!). 

For now, it is revision for me in preparation of my final exams. They are  a week apart too which makes me feel far more relaxed about the whole affair. We are also arranging a large group meal for all my lovely form mates so that is something to look forward to! 

For those of you coming to the end of courses, whether they be the LLB, GDL, LPC or BPTC, I hope your last days and exams  went well :)

Results: Litigation, Property, Writing and Conduct

Although a little late, I am here to talk about results day last Thursday. The strangest thing about getting results is that no matter how well you feel you did during and directly after the exams, the more time spent waiting for your grades, the more you begin to self-doubt. With ten long weeks to wait between the final exam and results day, self-doubt was in abundance among my friends in the last couple of weeks. Most of us were working on that Thursday and, if I'm honest, it is a bit of a relief to have an excuse not to be able to have the pointer hovering over the "open" button at 13:59. By 15:00 I had mustered the courage to open results after finally accepting the realisation that not opening the results didn't change their outcome! 

I logged in to elite. And then received a text from a close friend to say she had opened hers and got distinctions in both. My stomach sank and I closed elite down. It took me twenty minutes to get back to the page and I finally checked my results:

Litigation                            85%

(civil litigation                     65/80)

(criminal litigation              20/20)

Property                             76%

Conduct                              90%

Writing                                Competent

Needless to say I was completely overwhelmed by the grades and have been the given the boost I need for the final push. We now have only one (YES ONE!) teaching week left at university before more exams and then the end. Commercial is going really really well, and although there is a lot of prep for the workshops I am definitely enjoying it. We have now done workshops on competition law and online sales contracts. This module is, unsurprisingly, heavily based in EU law (being International Commercial Law) so is not for the person wishing to forget all those wonderful EU regulations learned on the LLB/GDL. Private client is also going well but I am surprised about the sheer volume of tax work in this elective. Not that this is a bad thing from my tax-loving point of view, but I can see how some people are beginning to feel a little grumpy at the prospect of doing another exam on tax!

Now, off to prep for the final week. I hope you have all been enjoying the wonderful sunshine.

Failing the LPC

I feel that, with exam results looming and due on 15 May, I am most likely tempting fate by writing this blog as it is all about failing the LPC. 

Ask any current student on any Legal Practice Course and they will all know of at least one failure related horror story. Mine is this: a girl in the year ahead of me managed to secure a training contract with a decent firm in her first year of the part time LPC. Having gained distinctions and competents in all of her exams thus far, she was horrified to find she had failed Civil Litigation. Even though she retook the exam, passed, and retained her 70% distinction average (even with the 50% cap on Civil Litigation), she could be awarded no more than a pass, as university rules state that to fail a core exam limits the student to an overall pass mark on the LPC. Do not pass Go, do not collect £200. As if the poor girl's situation could not seem any more devastating, upon informing her firm of her fail they hastily withdrew her training contract, as per the terms of said contract. The student who was once averaging a distinction and had a promising future in the bag lost it all by one failed exam. 

I did a little research and this type of situation is, unfortunately, not uncommon. And even worse is the cut throat attitude of other law students commenting on this type of situation. One pleasant chap was so outraged by the fact that anyone could fail an LPC exam that he stated that a person who fails an LPC exam was clearly not worthy of a training contract in the first place. It got me thinking, are the the LPC exams really that difficult to fail? And if a person does fail does that mean that they are henceforth irredeemable as a lawyer? 

Having studied on the part time course I have had the opportunity to meet people from a variety of different backgrounds. We all have careers outside of law school. Many have families and other commitments outside of law school. Basically, for some people, the world simply cannot revolve around law school. And this can lead to the dreaded fail. 

During the previous exam period I had my exams sandwiched between work days. I could not afford to take more than the actual days of the exams off. Has this affected my performance? We will see. But does this make me any less of a lawyer compared to a person who is fortunate enough to be able to study full time and without having to work? I am not so sure. 

If the legal world doesn't look any further into a person's circumstances before rejecting their application based on a fail (or worse, withdrawing a training contract) I have to wonder whether the profession genuinely does want to move towards representing a wider section of the community. The kind of student who has to work to fund their LPC is the same student typically from poorer backgrounds. In this way, the barrier to these students still holds. These students generally cannot get time off from work for work experience and certainly cannot afford to undertake the common place unpaid work experience. They cram their study in to ever busy working weeks and struggle to keep their heads above water. And on top of all this, one bad day, one hectic week at work, or one poorly child the night before an exam, could mean their whole LPC is rendered worthless. 

So to that extremely closed minded man who sought to make the author of the forum question feel totally worthless, open your eyes and see that, yes, failing a module on the LPC may be down to one's laziness and lack of motivation. But it could also be due to a whole host of other reasons that do not make that person any less of a fantastic lawyer.