The Student Room Group

Means of funding the Accelerated LLB?

Besides Barclays, Coop, or NatWest, are there any means of funding the accelerated/senior status LLB?

The problem with the above is that upon finishing the LLB I'd still have the diploma in professional legal practice to complete before I would begin the paid traineeship. Any thoughts?
Reply 1
Original post by Zedd
Besides Barclays
, Coop, or NatWest, are there any means of funding the accelerated/senior status LLB?

The problem with the above is that upon finishing the LLB I'd still have the diploma in professional legal practice to complete before I would begin the paid traineeship. Any thoughts?

The Natwest scheme seems to have shut from the link you've provided.

Personally I kind of question whether the Accelerated LL.B is really worth it. (Consider a cost - including opportunity cost - of possibly approaching £100,000)

The Scottish firms - to my knowledge - don't really fund people to do the accelerated course.
Reply 2
If you're converting in Scotland then you don't have much choice as that's really the only way to convert to law from another disciple.

As far as funding is concerned, I'm aware only of the career development loan as a possible source of funding, and you can only take that out once.
Reply 3
Original post by Norton1

Personally I kind of question whether the Accelerated LL.B is really worth it. (Consider a cost - including opportunity cost - of possibly approaching £100,000)

Where on earth do you get the £100,000 figure from?!
Reply 4
Original post by Murphyen
Where on earth do you get the £100,000 figure from?!


You're doing the Accelerated LL.B and hence you have a degree. With a good degree I think it likely you can get a job earning - say - £22,000. So you're in Uni for 3 years doing the LL.B plus diploma. So you've lost out on 3 years of earnings amounting to £66,000.

In each year of that you're also paying fees. OP is in Aberdeen so taking their accelerated LL.B as an example that's £9,500 fees a year. Plus around £6500 for the diploma. Another £25,000 or so. Remember also the interest payments you'll be making on any loans you take out.

You do the traineeship, good traineeship salaries in Scotland are probably around £18,000 (if someone is getting significantly more do let me know) So that's two years where it costs you 4 grand if you'd just taken that job paying £22,000.

SURE it's possible that you make all this money back over your career (which by the way you've stalled for three years doing all this; and if you have already had a career for a few years you're straight back to the bottom of the heap) but I tend to think people should be aware that it does have a big cost attached.
Reply 5
Original post by Norton1
You're doing the Accelerated LL.B and hence you have a degree. With a good degree I think it likely you can get a job earning - say - £22,000. So you're in Uni for 3 years doing the LL.B plus diploma. So you've lost out on 3 years of earnings amounting to £66,000.

In each year of that you're also paying fees. OP is in Aberdeen so taking their accelerated LL.B as an example that's £9,500 fees a year. Plus around £6500 for the diploma. Another £25,000 or so. Remember also the interest payments you'll be making on any loans you take out.

You do the traineeship, good traineeship salaries in Scotland are probably around £18,000 (if someone is getting significantly more do let me know) So that's two years where it costs you 4 grand if you'd just taken that job paying £22,000.

SURE it's possible that you make all this money back over your career (which by the way you've stalled for three years doing all this; and if you have already had a career for a few years you're straight back to the bottom of the heap) but I tend to think people should be aware that it does have a big cost attached.

I'm at Aberdeen for my undergrad but that doesn't constrain me to Aberdeen for the LLB. However, if I were to do the accelerated LLB at the University of Aberdeen then I would be paying a minimum of £22k for the degree itself. Personally though my preference is for the University of Edinburgh.

Your point stands but it ignores long term goals. Assuming I had ten years to live then going into graduate work wouldn't be a bad idea but I've longer term aspirations. Moreover, many people I know (law students amongst them) believe that I'd enjoy it and as sad as it might sound I'm inclined to agree with them.

What I'm really concerned with is damage limitation in regard to having so much debt with a bank but it seems like there's not much out there in the way of options.
Reply 6
Original post by Zedd
I'm at Aberdeen for my undergrad but that doesn't constrain me to Aberdeen for the LLB. However, if I were to do the accelerated LLB at the University of Aberdeen then I would be paying a minimum of £22k for the degree itself. Personally though my preference is for the University of Edinburgh.

Your point stands but it ignores long term goals. Assuming I had ten years to live then going into graduate work wouldn't be a bad idea but I've longer term aspirations. Moreover, many people I know (law students amongst them) believe that I'd enjoy it and as sad as it might sound I'm inclined to agree with them.

What I'm really concerned with is damage limitation in regard to having so much debt with a bank but it seems like there's not much out there in the way of options.


I think Edinburgh University's accelerated LL.B is even more ruinously expensive. I didn't know your age so yes the point is a little less relevant.
Reply 7
Original post by Norton1
I think Edinburgh University's accelerated LL.B is even more ruinously expensive. I didn't know your age so yes the point is a little less relevant.

Ruinously! Haha, well let's hope not in the long shot! I'm 26, I came late to the education game. I had always planned on going on to study medicine but since I made the switch from the sciences to the arts it's become increasingly obvious that medicine isn't the best route for me. Of course, being late to the law game might be a problem. . .

Regarding the tuition fees, I think that from 2013 the fees are going to jump up from ~£9,000 to £11,000 per academic year at most of the institutes on the east coast of Scotland. Just to give a little perspective, Aberdeen, Dundee, and Edinburgh were all charging in the area of £9,000 per academic year this year so it's not really any more expensive to go to Edinburgh over Dundee or Aberdeen. With that said, it seems that studying the accelerated LLB is quite a bit cheaper at the west coast but I'm personally not keen on going there.
Reply 8
Original post by Zedd
Ruinously! Haha, well let's hope not in the long shot! I'm 26, I came late to the education game. I had always planned on going on to study medicine but since I made the switch from the sciences to the arts it's become increasingly obvious that medicine isn't the best route for me. Of course, being late to the law game might be a problem. . .

Regarding the tuition fees, I think that from 2013 the fees are going to jump up from ~£9,000 to £11,000 per academic year at most of the institutes on the east coast of Scotland. Just to give a little perspective, Aberdeen, Dundee, and Edinburgh were all charging in the area of £9,000 per academic year this year so it's not really any more expensive to go to Edinburgh over Dundee or Aberdeen. With that said, it seems that studying the accelerated LLB is quite a bit cheaper at the west coast but I'm personally not keen on going there.


You're not particularly late to law, your accelerated brethren will be 22 or older. There's also a sizable contingent of career changers who are coming into the law in their 30's or even older. I suspect that it's actually fairly helpful to do the accelerated LL.B in terms of getting a traineeship, you have a lot more to write on summer placement forms etc.
Reply 9
Original post by Norton1
You're not particularly late to law, your accelerated brethren will be 22 or older. There's also a sizable contingent of career changers who are coming into the law in their 30's or even older. I suspect that it's actually fairly helpful to do the accelerated LL.B in terms of getting a traineeship, you have a lot more to write on summer placement forms etc.

Good points. From what I've heard the graduates from the accelerated LL.B have no issues in being picked up by law firms as long as their grades are good enough so I suppose age isn't really as big a factor as I thought.
(edited 11 years ago)

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