BPP Law School is going to have to fight to keep the five-firm City Legal Practice Course (LPC) consortium [Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slaughter and May, Herbert Smith, Lovells and Norton Rose] as a client and will face competition from the College of Law, Nottingham – Kaplan and the Inns of Court School of Law for a revamped LPC. The full story is in Legal Week
The interesting analysis is in the Editor of Legal Week’s blog
Nigel Savage, CEO of The College of Law (Pictured right) is one of the most tenacious (and effective) legal education professionals I have come across and his run at The College of Law, for well over ten years, has seen the College develop into a very high quality provider and reap the rewards accordingly in terms of recognition by Law Society course provider inspectors and others. I also know the team at Nottingham and their decision to provide a high quality LPC in London as a result of their tie up with Kaplan will certainly be of great interest to the big London firms.
Legal Week points out that the consortium “are not unhappy with BPP but rivals appear unconvinced that such a successful relationship would need reviewing after just two years. Even Slaughters’ training head, Louise Stoker, admits BPP will be given no preferential treatment in the tender process.”
The blog comment continues: “The consortium firms argue they are simply keeping their options open in light of (yet another) review of the LPC regime just launched by the Solicitors Regulations Authority. But if this really is the case, why not wait a year and discover what the new course will look like before deciding who can provide it?”
BPP has developed rapidly in the past few years and they have the resources of a very successful PLC behind them. It will be interesting to see what happens. One thing is certain: the competition will benefit the students on the consortium courses – and the general competition between these top law schools can only benefit students generally in the non-City sector.
Firm specific tailored courses have become more popular but there have been criticisms from students, reported in the legal press recently. See: Top students unconvinced by firm-tailored education reported in Legal Week 15th February
I’ll be watching this with interest.
Leave a comment