Warwick: law and socilogy or LLB at the university of Leicester

Since Warwick is not an LLB, you have to choose Leicester and so super-duper well, as Leicester is not a target university for barristers.

Untrue. Leicester is increasingly well respected for law and many chambers recognise that.

My degree is politics with international relations and my entire second term for one of my modules has been focused on the global economy and political economy. We touch on banking but not the nuts and bolts of it. I have helped organise 2 financial services events this year though and was interviewed for a Spring internship with Goldman Sachs but I couldn't commit the time because of my exam timetable next term. I was urged to apply for a Summer internship next year and I still might but I my have reservations. If I was going to go down that route I would much rather be an individual trader or stock broker, that way I dictate my terms. I meet with several people that do it and it seems a far better way to make your cash, look at Warren buffett.

Yes it is but when has anything worth having been easy to achieve? My mum works for a guy who did it and still dabbles but has largely retired. He said to me things were so much easier when he was younger because you could just go down to london if you had the right connections and get going climbing the ladder but not now because it is so competitive. Nothing is stopping you trading in stock through a broker today, anyone could do it. You can do it through a bank but it generally costs more. If you want to go into that field I say go for it, either through a company or find an individual broker or group that would willing you take you on. It is hard and it is competitive but that is no reason not to try.

It depends, it mostly is today but the guy I knew didn't go to uni and he is worth a fair bit now. If you know the right people or get in with the right people things happen.

I Want to become a barrister. I have recieved two offers, one being the conventional LLB at the university of Leicester. The other being Law and Sociology at Warwick (I was rejected from LLB and transferred to this course).

So what would be better, Staying with Leicester, or doing the other course at Warwick?

Here's my advice as an ex-Warwick Law School - don't do either. Take a year out - get some work experience and apply for either UCL, LSE, KCL, Oxbridge or Durham if you want a career at the commercial bar. Leicester is a good, but not top place. Also - don't be too disappointed by Warwick. Warwick Law is not great - a top 10 domestic Uni, a bottom 20 law school. It's staff seem far more preoccupied with writing human rights wrongs, and less on other aspects of the black letter law - its really got a bad rep for not having research-led teaching in core areas, PG tutors who haven't even got English law degrees, and it isn't a top QS school either. It's student satisfaction scores have been rubbish in recent years, and the "excellent" REF result was based on a very narrow selection of case studies and submissions by comparison to the Unis mentioned above. Undergrad recruitment is highly political with race & gender a big factor. Warwick Law loves international students because of the money they bring in - but can't draw from the top drawer. These students are being preferred over talented home students and it is getting around the City I can tell you....

Finally someone who spoke the truth. Good on you. Could you share more?

Why are people giving advice on a thread 4 years old?

its a question that still raises relevant issues

They are likely to have graduated by now. There are plenty of unanswered law questions to answer, but if you want to deal with old threads, then fill your boots.

I have to object to the post above that Warwick law school is in every single magic circle target list - that is a sweeping generalisation. Even if MC firms do send a couple of HR bods along to the student law soc once in a while, that is absolutely no guarantee that you'll get offered something against candidates from top international law schools. The MC milkround extends far and wide for the off-chance that these grad recruitment people will find the odd seemingly stellar candidate from some of the more mid-range law schools (such as Warwick), and then see how they fair given a chance. Warwick law is not top draw - let's be clear about this. If you look at the QS results, you'll see Warwick law on the slide internationally, and if you look at NSS results for the past 5 years (with its 80% + response rate among finalists) you'll see how consistently disappointed law graduates have been with the teaching and the school.

Don't make it hard on yourself by applying to Warwick Law when you can go somewhere better with the same grades; don't waste a UCAS slot by applying to an institution that discriminates on the basis of where your parents chose to live or which school you went to.. avoid Warwick law school - its failings are only going to get more exposed when the new Teaching Excellence Framework is introduced in Autumn 2017. If you go to Warwick law school - they'll be questions as to how good your knowledge of the subject is and whether you were offered a place on the course not because of your ability, but because of what your parents did or didn't do for a living.

http://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities cute x

Colourful but meaningless. This is hardly REF worthy empirical research by Chambers. The sampling isn't just crude, but rubbish. These trainees just happened to have secured training contracts at 124 different law firms (pick size and prestige out of air). A clear picture on elite law firms is non-existent - the chart for "all London firms" means nothing. In fact, how many of the top 20 international law firms or MC were actually represented by respondents from the law school at Warwick? That was the original line of argument. Sorry I'm sticking with my industry knowledge - its not many.

This is a far too general and unreliable survey based on the responses of only 2000 trainees (from whatever graduate discipline and not necessarily law..) across 3 years. For all we know it might even include trainees with extensive periods of time in other careers as well in addition to any degree - even a lousy one from Warwick law school. What we're actually dealing with here are survey response rates from trainees, not reliable stats.

Consider then that unreliable figure X represents a share of the recruitment overall from Warwick on these charts (and we see that this amount is clearly considerably less than Oxbridge already). Then consider that this is further split over a period 3 years; then reduce again by X amount to reflect the number of trainees who were actually recruited by large law firms, then reduce again for the silver circle and MC; then reduce again for those who might actually have graduated from Warwick law school itself. Logically, how many of these trainees who responded to the survey were in any given year graduates of Warwick law school? A negligible number, and applying the same logic to the all of the other universities represented as well - this table is meaningless for comparison between law schools.

If anything, what these colourful, eye-catching but utterly meaningless charts appear to show on the surface is that if you graduate from several other Universities, and in any non-law discipline, that you'd put yourself in a better position than any Warwick grad (and seeing how these stats don't differentiate between discipline - then this would have to include Warwick law grads too).

These results are not reliable enough to serve any useful indication as to how Warwick law school grads will fair in future recruitment stakes either (i.e. by the time the current crop actually graduate given that a degree is a 3/4 year expensive investment) Nor does this data combat or excuse Warwick law school's appalling NSS results, sliding QS international standing, and fact that the law school's position in domestic leagues is totally out of kilter with the Uni's position in the domestic league tables (lead balloon scenario). What we can say is that there's much better value for money to be had outside Warwick law school and that any whiff of declining standards in teaching or undergrad selection are picked up very quickly by industry because this impacts on the calibre of graduate.