Discovering Higher and Degree Apprenticeships with UWE Bristol, get free advice >>

Intermitting LPC - consequences?

JK2018

I am a paralegal in a housing association, studying the LPC part time at BPP. My health has recently taken a turn for the worse, exacerbated by balancing the LPC with a full time job. I have already completed three LPC exams which I think went reasonably well (passed one, still awaiting results for the other two). However, I recently was unable to attend the PCR/SA exams due to a week of worsening illness – I am applying for medical mitigating circumstances to ensure i don’t get a zero. My class attendance has also started to suffer, I’m aware that is a big problem for the LPC due to the density of material and lack of opportunities to catch up.

I can’t risk my job (have already had to take a number of sick days and can’t really afford more) so I am considering intermitting the LPC for a year to stabilise my health. What I want to know is – what effect might this have on my prospects of a training contract? I am self funding but was planning to start applying for TCs in the near future. Will firms be unwilling to consider an applicant who has intermitted? Has anyone else here taken a year out of the LPC and if so did it affect your career? How easy was it to return to study a year later?

Academic and work background: I have a 2.1 History from Oxford and a GDL from ULaw (only a pass there as I also had some health problems in that course). Have worked in the housing sector for three years, and been a paralegal for six months. Have also interned/mini pupilled at a few firms and chambers and done various bits of volunteering and pro bono over the past three years.

Any comments/advice are much appreciated.

Reply 1

username4448686

If I were looking at your application, I would be more concerned about whether your health is stable enough for you to work in a high pressure and stressful environment, and not the fact that you intermitted the LPC per se. How will I know that you won't take days/weeks/months off work, resulting in your colleagues having to take over your files when they're already overworked as it is, and then quit because your health can't handle it?

Many here seem to have this impression that mitigating circumstances can only ever have a positive (or at worst, neutral) effect on their applications. That is false.

However, if you can satisfy law firms that your mitigating circumstances are temporary, and you otherwise have the potential to be a bright and reliable employee, the year out should not materially affect your applications.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 2

999tigger

Original post by workinglawyer

If I were looking at your application, I would be more concerned about whether your health is stable enough for you to work in a high pressure and stressful environment, and not the fact that you intermitted the LPC per se. How will I know that you won't take days/weeks/months off work, resulting in your colleagues having to take over your files when they're already overworked as it is, and then quit because your health can't handle it?

Many here seem to have this impression that mitigating circumstances can only ever have a positive effect on their applications. That is false.

However, if you can satisfy law firms that your mitigating circumstances are temporary, and you otherwise have the potential to be a bright and reliable employee, the year out should not materially affect your applications.

Reading backwards as usual I had the same concerns. the OP is in a slightly different place though as they are self financing plus working. It is not ideal, but I would have thought easier to explain away than failing modules. I would rather chance the former.

Reply 3

manic-membership

Hello. I have a question to ask. Will you get disqualified if you write your introduction and closing in a scripted way? I did my interview physically and she took all my notes. she even stop me in the beginning because of this. bare in mind, the advice section and options section were not scripted. it was on bullet points.