Law Society explores aptitude test for graduates who want to take legal practice course

The Law Society is looking into the option of introducing an aptitude test for graduates who want to take the legal practice course (LPC).

The introduction of an aptitude test might help to reduce the high numbers of students who undertake the LPC each year only to find they cannot get training contracts with solicitors’ firms.

Similar moves are already under way to help ensure that would-be barristers do not spend thousands of pounds on taking the Bar professional training course (BPTC) if they lack the analytical and critical reasoning skills and fluency in English to obtain a pupillage, the year-long training place in chambers.

The Bar Standards Board (BSB) is currently piloting the aptitude test for the BPTC and hopes that it will be introduced fully for students starting the BPTC in 2012.

Desmond Hudson, the Law Society chief executive, said the Law Society was at an early stage of a scoping project to assess whether an aptitude test similar to that being piloted by the BSB would be beneficial. It would then be down to the Solicitors Regulation Authority to decide whether to implement an aptitude test.

Mr Hudson said, ‘There are serious issues to be considered in the current arrangements. Many aspiring solicitors are ill served by the status quo and considering possible reforms is a proper thing for the Society to do.’

Posted by Alison_TARGETjobs on 21 September 2010

Comments on ‘Law Society explores aptitude test for graduates who want to take legal practice course’

jamespearson, 21 October 2010, 17.59 pm“First of all if I may take the point made by Jennifer Sugden, yes it is true that students work extremely hard on their A-Levels and indeed on their degree with the idea of pursuing a career in the legal profession. The fact of the matter is the legal profession is getting more and more competitive each and every year, record numbers are embarking on the LPC in the hunt for a training contract. At the end of this process many end up jobless, let me put forward this question: What is better for law students; to pay £10,000+ to do a course which can only really lead to a career in the law or to prompt reconsideration by way of further assessment before the LPC and keep options wide open by having a highly sought after degree? I think the answer is clear. A second and brief point (again in response to Jennifer Sugden) is that there are no strictly enforced entrance requirements to the LPC, providers are operated in an unregulated system which effectively allows any law graduate with money or a friendly bank manager to come onto the LPC – so it may be of a disadvantage initially to those who work hard and achieve top grades in that they have to sit another exam, but in the TC hunt it will benefit them as there will be less competition, in theory. In conclusion the entrance tests should be rolled out across all LPC providers. James Pearson Secretary Edge Hill University Law and Criminology Society”

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