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Diploma in Legal Practice

Hi folks,

I have been reading this site for a while now but only have I recently felt the need to join for a specific question that will no doubt lead to a long stay here.

Anyway, I'm currently an LLB student at Strathclyde on the accelerated graduate entry course with a general degree in Finance and Business law being my first degree.

My question is in regards to the Diploma in Legal Practice. Our lecturer in Legal Process (Prof. Alan Patterson) gave some statistics that there are currently more places than there are students now. I'm not sure if that can be true but he is respected within the profession so it must be.

Anyway, I have been getting anywhere in the range from 51-63% with my grades (mostly mid to high 50s) and I'm wondering if anyone knows if this would be enough to get into the diploma?

I'm not in competition for funding so I don't need to be in the top 30-40% because I don't have a problem funding the diploma myself.

All I need to get into honours after next year is to pass everything (which I have so far) and I know I'll need to work my butt off to get a 2:1. But honours doesn't count towards the diploma entry so that won't matter.

Anyone know about the diploma? Also what would I need to do to ensure a traineeship? I have links that I'm using to get a internship next summer so hopefully that will help.
Reply 1
I'm doing the Diploma this year at Strathclyde, having just graduated with a 2:1 in Hons there. There are core "professional" subjects that the Diploma entry is based on - they are what also determine whether you get part-funding or not. Pretty rubbish tbh, one of my friends got a 1st and still never got funding for the course. Competition is pretty poor now, it's relatively easy to get in to do the Diploma somewhere, you might just not get into your first choice whether thats Glasgow or Strathclyde.

Traineeship is an entirely different kettle of fish. It's still really tough to gain a traineeship. You have to think of all the surplus of Trainee's that exist in Scotland at the moment from 2008 onwards. It's all about who you know and I would suggest you use those contacts to gain one somewhere.
Reply 2
Thanks for the reply.

I agree, the system that is used is not right. I'm lucky to have some contacts but I guess thats just the way it has always been with any kind of job.

If you don't mind me asking: how did you get on with your core subjects on the LLB? Like I said my results vary. In the core subjects I'm probably averaging about 58%. Do you reckon that would be enough to get into Strathclyde for the diploma?
Reply 3
More than enough. In 1st Year, I simply aimed for 40% because I was too busy messing around to actually do my work. In 2nd and 3rd year I hovered around the 60%'s mark and in 4th Year Honours I was 2% off a First.

If you're averaging around that, I wouldn't be worried at all :smile:.
Reply 4
Cheers. Thats good news! I was getting worried when I saw a post saying you needed to average over 60% to get in.

I have another question (sorry for all the questions) but have you got any tips on how to get my work up overall into that near 70% range? Like what did you do differently? I tried emailing the likes of Norrie and Tata to see how to get my grade up into that range but I got no help whatsoever.
Reply 5
Average over 60?! No! That's complete rubbish whoever told you that. Scaremongering at its best!

Personally, I took more time researching than writing. I also included more of my own opinion (Dissertation especially) into the work, elaborating on the author I was quoting and applying their logic to various examples. Norrie & Tata are ********s, they will not offer much help. You'd be better off e-mailing someone like Professor Robson, Prof. Neal or even Poustie.. My dissertation got me 79% which was great. If you want a read at it, I could send it over to you. I'm pretty sure they'll have it up on the Intranet for Honours students soon anyway !
Reply 6
Ok, I'll start applying that when I go back and I'll email those guys.

This just shows you what kind of lecturers those 2 are: I had glandular fever in the first semester this year so I missed everything from week 3 onwards including exams. So I spoke to them in the hopes that they would give me advice on how to catchup in preparation for the summer exams. All they did was recommend that I take the year out. Tata didn't even provide me with lecture notes because "home learning is not a substitute" and he doesn't put his notes on Spider.

That would be great if you could email me that. I'll send you a message with my strath account email. Thanks again for all your help. You have given me more insight here than the lecturers have done, and they are paid to help students.

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