Training Contract UK

LPC to Training Contract - Making it Pay

Law student debt can reach £40,000 by the time you start a Training Contract (TC). The fees for the postgraduate, pre-training “bridge” Legal Practice Course (LPC), which should ensure that you are ready to take on the challenges of working as a trainee solicitor, can cost around £14,000 alone. There are several ways to fund the LPC, most of which will land you in further debt. But for most people the biggest challenge is not just the money. It’s making your LPC a real bridge to a training contract and your career as a qualified lawyer.

Although a training contract includes the cost of your studies for the Professional Skills Course, funding from firms to do the LPC is the exception rather than the norm. A list of firms offering sponsorship can be found in The Training Contract and Pupilage Handbook 2008 published by The Law Society. The double-edged sword of sponsorship is that funding for your LPC usually guarantees a training contract with the firm and you are then bound to the firm for a certain period of time - for most, this is a good thing; for others, not always. And, of course, competition is ferocious.

There are also several bursaries and scholarships on offer from The Law Society. Again, competition is tough, and there isn’t the guarantee of a training contract afterwards.

It’s important to note that the LPC does not come under government/education authority funding or student loans. What you can get is a Professional Studies Loan from a commercial high street bank or, if you haven’t anywhere else to turn to, a Career Development Loan (see the Department for Children, Schools and Families website). As a potential high-earner, commercial banks won’t be too worried about lending to you. However, remember they are much stricter than a normal student loan, as you do have to start paying it back soon after you finish studying. This is regardless of how much or whether or not you’re earning. Career Development Loans from the government (up to a maximum of £8,000) are only available to those who can’t get anything else, including a commercial loan, and are particularly useful for part-time students.

Apart from the financial question, however, it’s important to do some research while you’re applying for your LPC to give you the best chance of getting a training contract and making all the money you’ve spent on your studies pay off.

Think ahead.

Get as much legal experience as possible. Easter, summer, anything and any time you can. You should start applying for contracts two years ahead - even before you start your LPC - though some firms do recruit the year before. Send out applications to as many firms as possible. Many people send out around 200 applications before they get an offer. However, don’t just apply wildly to every firm in the City. Try to work out what you want to do and where you want to do it. The big names may be important and may have more places (though they will also have many, many more applicants) - that goes for the LPC as well. But if you’re interested in regional or local work, you may be better to apply for an LPC in the area. This may also prove to be a better source for local contacts. It goes without saying that your application should also be geared to the needs of the firm. Fifty carefully targeted applications are much more likely to be successful than a hundred bog-standard sausage-factory CVs. Keep it personal. Make as much direct contact as possible without overstepping the mark – you want people to remember you, but not as crazy/pushy/weird/annoying.

And network. Any time, any place. You never know who you’re going to meet.

By Miya Komori

Training Contract Application - 5 Common Mistakes To Avoid

Too many spelling or grammar problems

This is the undisputed cardinal sin of written submissions.

Nearly all spelling and grammar errors are picked up by word processors, and with some good proofreading you can eliminate the rest of the errors. Apart from giving them the impression that you're not one for close attention to details, it also conveys a lack of professionalism to your prospective employers.

If you are also looking for a well-written and presented applications, then there is no room for mistakes like these.

 

Regurgitating, or cutting and pasting information

There are plenty of good examples of training contract applications out there, but there can be no substitute to one that you write by yourself. Other than spelling and grammar errors, there is probably nothing more irritating for reviewer than for them to spot instances of copy and pasting from other sources.

Incorrect information and mistaken names can be a great source of embarrassment during the review process. In addition, having the reviewers spot something that is copied directly from another source gives very little credit to the rest of your work.

 

Inappropriate use of language

As with other types of formal writing, it is not considered good practice to include slang or colloquial language with your application. Write with a clear and direct purpose to give your writing added readability.

When it comes to questions that require you to provide an opinion, take one side of the argument, but remain balanced in your views. Avoid making your arguments and points too long, or you'll struggle to retain coherence and consistency.

 

Going over the top with your words

For many reviewers, making your writing sound too classy can often bring about the opposite effect. The main purpose of your application is to address the questions that the reviewers have posed, so don't make their job more difficult by making the language ambiguous or convoluted.

Try and ensure that the style and tone of your writing is assured and precise, and it will give off the right impression to the reviewers.

 

Dodging the bullet or incomplete answers

Most people take the view that it is better to present only areas that they are strongest in, while leaving out others in the hope that they are not seen to be as important. Someone who is looking to avoid or leave out their weakness doesn't display qualities that reviewers would associate with self-evaluation and improvement. In addition, being open and honest about your own abilities and skills, gives more credibility to everything else in your application.

How Non-Law Graduates Can Get a Training Contract: Six Easy Steps

Didn’t choose to study law? Enjoy your course but after two years of soul searching realize that a career in law is the thing for you?  If this is you, take a step back, relax and follow this four-step guide. With a little patience and a lot of passion you’ll be well on your way to plotting a successful career as a solicitor.

You should know that the law training contract is essentially the last and most difficult hurdle for those wishing to become solicitors. With competition now tougher than ever non-law graduates can feel totally at sea when it comes to deciding how to tackle the challenges ahead. However, if you think and plan carefully, there’s no reason you can’t be fully armed when the time comes to win (and keep) a solicitor training contract.

Step One: Get Informed

The first thing you must do is your homework. Remember you will be competing against people who might already have some familiarity with the way the legal profession works either through their course or via early work experience. So, now is the time to make good use of all the resources available. One place to start is the Times law reports for digestible information on the latest judicial decisions and legal analysis for the layman. Also, familiarize yourself with some basic legal jargon. Remember, lawyers work in firms never in companies. Use your university careers office. Most institutions have a careers team and you should book a personal appointment to discuss your options in depth. It may still be early days but the more you know, the better equipped you will be to succeed later.

Step Two: Work Experience

In the meantime, if you are a second year student, try to get some informal work experience over the summer vacation. Smaller firms are the most likely to be accommodating in this respect. Even if you probably won’t be given much responsibility, you’ll still be able to learn from meeting solicitors and seeing how they work. In addition to this, getting work experience will show you’re serious and is unlikely to do your CV any harm.

Step Three: Researching and Applying for Training Contracts

Many firms begin to take applications for legal training contracts up to two years in advance, which means you may need to start thinking of your application before you’ve even graduated! Consider the type of firm you want to work for - not everyone is suited to a corporate environment so don’t just head straight for the biggest firms. You will need to direct applications to each firm individually. Make sure your application stands out and use everything you have done to sell yourself.

However, if you feel this is too early, don’t worry. Some firms take applications only a year in advance so you can wait until you’ve completed your GDL before applying. The important thing is to be clued-up.

Step Four: The GDL

The Graduate Diploma in Law is the conversion course that all non-law graduates must acquire in order to move forward. The idea is that it will bring you up to speed with law graduates in an intensive format. Applications must be in before 1st February and should be made through Central Applications Board. A full time GDL course is generally completed in one year but there are options to take the course part-time as well. If you have not done so already, you should be narrowing down the list of firms you would like to complete your training contract with. If you haven’t got one yet: persevere. Attend as many law careers fairs as possible and check for adverts in places such as Law Society Gazette and LawCareers.Net

Step Five: The LPC

So, you got some work experience and got onto a GDL course. What next? The Legal Practice course (LPC) of course! The LPC is the vocational course for those who want to become solicitors in England and Wales. It is composed of a combination of compulsory and optional subjects. Applications must be in by 1^st August of the year you hope to start the LPC.

Step Six: The Training Contract

One non-law degree, a GDL and an LPC later here you are about to face the most difficult stage of your journey. The training contract is your opportunity (after years of study, debt and hard work) to start learning about what being a solicitor really involves. You will complete a professional skills course (PSC) and probably get a taste of different departments over a period of two years. After this point you will be invited to the official roll of solicitors.

Written by Mary Clare Waireri

Thinking of Taking a Law Conversion Course Followed by a Training Contract?

A fast track into the challenging and potentially lucrative profession of Law could be yours with a conversion course. Here’s how it could work for you...

What is a conversion course?

A law conversion course enables graduates of non-law degrees to enter professional training as either a solicitor or a barrister. Conversion courses normally last one year, or two if taken part-time. The conversion course comes in many guises, all of which are roughly equal in content and standing: Common Professional Examination (CPE), Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL), Senior Status Law degree, Postgraduate LLB or GDip.  MA qualifications in this field tend to last for two years, full-time, and often take studies into further detail.

Law firms welcome non-law graduates for the diversity of experiences and skills they can bring to their work. For example, a first degree in Languages could come to your advantage in multinational legal work.

How does a conversion course compare to a traditional law degree?

Most graduates who studied law for their first degree will have spent three years getting to grips with the intricacies of the Law. A conversion course won’t cram all the material of a full undergraduate degree into one year. Instead, it will focus on the seven core areas of law:

• Contract Law

• Tort Law

• Constitutional and Administrative Law

• European Union Law

• Equity and Trusts

• Land Law

• Criminal Law

Students will also gain general legal analysis skills and have the to chance to specialise in another area of law of their choosing. Often this ‘specialism’ forms the basis of an extended essay to be assessed at the end of the course.

How to choose the right conversion course

Course content: Although all conversion courses will cover the same basic syllabus, it is a good idea to consider what type of law you wish to practice in future when choosing a course or institution. If you want to become a solicitor, and study the Legal Practice Course (LPC) after conversion, it is worth noting that many institutions offer both courses. Some of these law schools can guarantee progression onto their LPC for all students successfully completing a GDL with them.  Similarly, if you know what area of law you want to specialise in upon qualification, e.g. family or commercial law, it is wise to choose a conversion course which offers relevant electives. If you are unsure of where you would like to specialise in the long term, it may be best to opt for a conversion course which offers a balance of both general and City/commercial electives.

Reputation: The legal profession is highly competitive, and studying at a well-respected law school will give you the edge when seeking employment.  You may want to check out a law school's credentials by referring to the website of the Law Society, which inspects and grades all LPCs.

Careers service: Law qualifications are your passport to the legal profession, and their ultimate goal should be employability. A good careers service, with strong links to law firms and other employers, is a great asset to a law school and essential for those students who commence studies without a pre-arranged solicitor training contract.

How to fund a conversion course

Although the rewards are high, the training path to becoming a lawyer is not a cheap one. You should consider how to finance your studies from the beginning. Local authorities rarely fund conversion courses, so most students are faced with two options: self-funding or sponsorship from a law firm. Many law firms offer sponsorship for graduates with a good first degree, on condition that you work for them for a period of time after qualification. If you do not wish to tie yourself to a firm in this way you may be able to get a scholarship from the Law Society, Bar Council, Inns of Court or a Law School. Alternatively, you could self-fund with support from a Career Development Loan, or balance your studies with work by taking a part-time conversion course over two years.

Written by Ciara Davies

Graduate Market

• How does the graduate market for the legal sector compare to other industries?
• Well, firstly you won’t be lonely since law hires a large portion of all graduates (7%).
• Hiring rates are very stable because law firms hire three years in advance of qualification.
  • They have to play safe unless they are willing to make a bet on the economy three years down the line.
  • Unlike banks which grow and shrink their workforce in line with market conditions.
• Salaries:
  • Secondly, you will be awarded one of the highest starting salaries for anyone your age.
  • On top of which, salaries for junior associates are being pushed up by the American firms in the UK.
• Given the desirability of a law career, whilst there are many applicants per place, the figure is not astronomical. This is probably explained by a degree of self-selection amongst applicants who know what is required to make the grade.
• This is perhaps unlike Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies (who make things like shampoos and toothpaste) which attract over 100 applicants per place. An applicant to a law firm is less likely to have speculatively written a cover letter and CV after seeing the brand name of a shampoo in the shower.

Sources include: AGR Summer Survey, Company Websites, The Lawyer, Legal Week, Topemployers, Legal 500, Hildebrandt, ALM Research, Legal Business, First Research, Legal Marketing News and The Economist.

Recent History and the Future

• The top 20 law firms in the UK have remained largely unchanged.
• Reluctant consolidation among smaller firms.
• Legal industry recovering after 3 years of tough conditions.
  • Firms have pruned partners to preserve PEP.
  • But have emerged leaner and in better shape for the future.
  • Legal services will be liberalized by the LLP model.
  • A new phase of growth is anticipated.

• The UK’s largest firms have followed a path of international expansion.
  • This has led to an increase in size and revenue but a decrease in profit margin.
  • However, many lessons have been learnt about international strategy and many may continue to aggressively pursue the U.S. market.

What have been the trends in 2007 for each practice area?

Corporate

• M&A market remains buoyant with many large deals.
• However, focus has moved away from highly leveraged (debt funded) buyouts by private equity buyers to corporate-on-corporate deals.

Finance

• Continuing credit crisis and tightening of credit leading to:
• Recent crash in leveraged buy out (LBO) deals.
• An increase in restructuring mandates due to more companies facing financial difficulties because of the drying up of credit.

Real Estate

• Very strong year.
• Profitability is now competing with that of Corporate due to:
  • Increased investment in real estate.
  • Growing complexity of transactions.
  • Blossoming regeneration.
• REITs providing a new source of work.
• Worries about raising interest rates.

Litigation

• A few big cases, but long term trend towards mediation ADR to avoid costly litigation.
• However, fresh hopes bank-on-bank litigation following the credit crisis.

Top UK Firms’ Practice Sectors

• Companies are often best described by the products they sell and law firms are no exception.
• If you want to work in a specific practice area, or want to get an objective flavor of how a firm is positioned, it pays to see where their business comes from.

• Evidently the large firms can handle work in all service areas and have specialist partners in each of the four main practice areas of Corporate, Finance, Real Estate and Litigation.
• Most of the firms pride themselves on having large and profitable Corporate divisions. There are various proportions of Finance and Litigation however there tends to be relatively little exposure to Real Estate work (although this is now increasing).
• The “Other” category consists mostly of Tax, Competition, EU, Incentives, Employment and Projects.

Benefits From Large / Small Divisions

Large

• Brand status (useful for the CV).
• Excellent in-house education.
• Higher pay (e.g. Law School fees).
• More international secondments.
• Experience on deals that only large departments can handle.

Small

• Broader job description.
• More meaningful ties with colleagues.
• More responsibility.
• Big fish – small pond.
• May be more profitable.

 

• Whatever you decide, talking knowledgeably about the firm is bound to leave a good impression at the training contract interview.

These charts show the proportional increase in each firm’s revenue and PEP by assuming that they were all equally sized in 2001:

• Despite the recent downturn most firms have significantly increased their revenues since 2001.
• However, this has predominantly been the result of increasing their headcount through adding lawyers, practice groups or through mergers either at home or abroad.

• This chart can be misleading.
• Most law firm profits are actually down since 2001.
• However, firms massively reduced their numbers of equity partners in 2003 when they reacted to the downturn.
• Many used this as justification for clearing out dead-wood and their over-adjustment led to a large increase in PEP across the board in 2003.
• Therefore the pyramid has got steeper:

  • It’s harder to get to the very top.

  • BUT you will be paid much more when you get there!

The UK Market

• The UK legal market is carved up into firms that can be grouped into four broad categories: The Magic Circle, The Silver Circle, International Firms and UK National Firms.
• Whilst revenue volume, strategy and client base define a firm’s position in the market, employees should also be interested in PEP. However, PEP can overestimate margins and remuneration for fir ms with a high number of non-equity partners.
• In support of Robert Joffe’s point regarding diseconomies of scale, there is little correlation between the size of firm and its profitability. The exception to this is the Magic Circle, who proudly maintains both.

Magic Circle (Pink)

• Historically dominated the top end of the City Mergers & Acquisitions market.
• No sign that they are losing this position and several are strengthening their grip.

"Silver" Circle (Grey)

• Generally advise premium UK clients rather than global institutions.
• Work tends to be real estate, AIM business, private equity and litigation.
• Dislike for bureaucracy and over management.
• Strong recent performance and have adapted well to the recent downturn.

International Firms (Purple)

• Internationally focused City firms whose larger members are known as the “Chasing Pack”.
• Slower to react to the downturn than their mid-tier rivals due to their larger size - producing mixed recent performance.
• Top employees are attractive targets for poaching by US firms.

International Firms (Blue)

• Typically have regional offices outside of London.
• More relaxed culture than many City firms.
• Cost of maintaining many offices impacts margins.
• A lucrative target for UK training contracts.
  

 

Go Global or Stay Local – The Jury Is Still Out

Introduction

Other professional service industries such as accounting and advertising have consolidated to produce big global generalists. For example, these include the “Big Four” accountancy firms: Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC and advertising agencies such at JWT, Omnicom and Publicis.

Whilst there are some law firms with a truly global footprint, there are relatively few internationalists compared to other industries.

Why hasn’t a cross-border merger wave swept the legal sector?

• Marriages have been stymied by the different nature of business in its two biggest markets: London and New York. See below for details.
• London law firms want to be more global, New York firms want to be more profitable.
• So far, the Londoners have been pursuing the New Yorkers, but the east coasters seem happy to remain independent and have been resisting their merger advances.

In Europe, many German firms also advocate a global strategy. French firms, however, have largely remained independent.

However, if you are looking for a law firm with a global outlook, London is the best place to find one. The chart overleaf should provide a few ideas.

The Big Smoke and The Big Apple

Both cities have a small group of premium firms which are marked out by their blue chip client lists.

• In London this is the “Magic Circle”: Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Linklaters and Slaughter and May.
• In New York they are known as the “Charmed Circle”: Cleary, Cravath, Davis, Simpson, Skadden, Sullivan and Wachtell (abbreviated names).
• New York firms are by far the most profitable. Only one UK firm, Slaughter and May, makes it into a list of Top 10 firms by PEP which is dominated by the relatively specialist New York firms.
• There is little direct competition between these two circles.

For UK law firms wanting a slice of American pie, remuneration seems to be the core problem.

• Any UK firm starting or merging with a US practice will have to handle the thorny issue of different remuneration structures on either side of the Atlantic.
• UK model: “lock-step” profits are shared between partners on the basis of their seniority. This aims to encourage teamwork and minimises internal fighting.
• US model: “eat-what-you-kill” profits are shared between partners according to how much business they bring in. This encourages a more aggressive approach to wining business.

Conclusion

While there may still be global tie-ups in the future, a small number of legal giants are unlikely to ever dominate the industry. This is because:

• There remain large differences between different countries’ legal systems (eg civil vs common law).
• “There are real diseconomies of scale in this business. We are not making widgets.” – Robert Joffe, Cravath Swaine & Moore.
• Mergers are tricky. Keeping all the partners happy is often impossible, especially if you throw in different pay structures for them to argue about.

However, some firms will still pursue global strategies.

• The road for such a global footprint lies through Europe and China.
• If global giants do emerge, they will probably be from London. Indeed, some of the Magic Circle may fit the bill already.

Consolidation Trends of Legal Services

Consolidation is driven by the desire of some corporate customers, who require a host of legal services, to have one firm handling all of their needs, a “one-stop-shop”.

Firms typically add specialist lawyers and practice groups to do this. However, they can achieve this more rapidly and on a grander scale by merging with other firms.

Non-global players traditionally share an international mandate with a local player, or refer the client to a firm which they recommended. An example of this is the Slaughter and May (UK) / Cravath (US) “best friends” relationship.

One of the hottest current debates regards whether firms will consolidate globally to offer cross-border one-stop-shopping or whether firms will be chosen on their ability to provide the best service in a particular jurisdiction similar to a specialist boutique.