MA Law (University of Law) vs LLM Law and Legal Practice (BPP)

Hi,I am looking to apply for a Masters in Law, allowing me to complete a GDL integrated on a masters course, to progress to the LPC. This also gives me access to a postgraduate government loan. From what I can see, the two options I have for this is the MA Law from the University of Law and the LLM Law and Legal Practice from BPP. The price difference is £13,500 vs £16,000. Does anyone know the difference between them? Is one more well-respected than the other for law firms? Is there a difference in teaching quality or the way it is taught?If anyone has completed one of these or has information on this please let me know. Thanks!

Reply 1

virgo5

Hi, wondering if you got any insight into this as I am in the same position ??

BPP University

Reply 2

coco128

I am a current student at BPP studying the LLM Legal Practice (Solicitors). I am unsure what you mean by a GDL integrated on a masters course as from my understanding you will need a GDL or a LLB before you start either the LLM or LPC with LLM.I can only speak from personal experience but BPP has been a let down the entire year.

Half of my core group received their timetable 3 weeks into teaching, which is a horrific amount of work to catch up on (it is incredibly intense), by no fault of their own. Many people did not receive their module materials until mid way through the term and a few did not even receive them by the exams. The main reason why everyone feels so let down by the university is their management. It's been bought by an equity fund group in the last year or so and since then they have seemed to focus entirely on profit, instead of quality. There's an interesting comment/status on LinkedIn by a fellow student stating that only 12% of her group passed their exams first time (however she was a BTPC student).

I chose BPP as I thought it was more prestigious than ULaw but I, and mostly everyone else I've spoken to, wished they would have gone to ULaw due to the bad management of BPP. In terms of teaching, they were mostly fine. I haven't had consistent tutors through my electives term and through the core term the teaching was of varying quality.

Price wise, I paid for the London campus at £16,500, and have had a completely online experience which would have been no different to if I had gone to the say, Manchester campus at £12,900. Many of us have tried to get that money back but as you would imagine, it's incredibly hard arguing against a law school. We aren't given any email addresses and have to submit any query through an online portal, which we'd be lucky to get a response from. Our mocks results weren't released on time, and released only a couple of weeks before the real exams. There's been issues with grade discrepancy (some students receiving much higher, or lower than expected) and when they stated we should raise this with them, they have a replied with a point blank refusal for feedback so we don't even know if we have grounds to appeal. I haven't heard of anything like this with ULaw.

Exam wise, I'm aware that ULaw is open book, which may make them a little easier. This year BPP have changed the exams also to open book as the exams are done at home, online. I'm not sure if they will revert back to on paper, closed book next year. To answer your question, perhaps marginally more law firms send their students to BPP but I think the quality of the teaching is about the same. But for all the other reasons, I would choose ULaw.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 3

The University of Law Students

Official Rep

Original post by callumcastling

Hi Callumcastling

I appreciate you posted this 4 months ago and haven't had a reply from a ULaw representative (likely because it was posted in the BPP thread) so I don't know if you have managed to get any opinions from elsewhere but thought I drop a note on here (coco128's response appeared in a search that I was doing which is why I respond now).

I am a student ambassador for ULaw but became one because I have had a good experience with them as a student. I studied the MA Law (GDL integrated) part-time over two years (because I had other commitments too), and I studied it online. I can't compare it to the BPP course as I haven't studied there but I can tell you what the ULaw course was like.

The MA Law online part- time was 25 hours a week study (50 hours if you do it full time) and you cover the 7 foundation topics necessary for it to be a qualifying course plus you choose an area to study for a research topic. I chose a commercial law topic because I am a career changer (previous career in education and development) so I used the research project to demonstrate that I can be competent at a new area of law.

The online course consisted of weekly tutorials (which were written interactive sessions online or actual tutorials on campus if you chose that option), plus reading and tasks that needed to be completed by 10am every Friday. Although the tasks were not compulsory, those that completed them generally did better in the exams.

Live sessions were online 3 times a term per subject but I know that they are increasing this amount due to student feedback so the next course will be different. Online, they were not compulsory and there were recordings if you missed them.

The exams pre-covid were 3 hour closed book exams but these changed to open book exams during the pandemic. However, I personally found that it was still better to prepare for the exams as though they were closed book.

The online campus has developed greatly over the two years that I have been with ULaw. There is a lot to do and I got involved with lots of competitions and moots, and I also joined the mooting and debating society.

The MA Law does qualify for a Govt loan (if you meet the other requirements)- I took it too but ULaw also have a lot of scholarships available too. I recently secured one for my next course. Have a look here: https://www.law.ac.uk/study/scholarships-bursaries/

I enjoyed studying with ULaw and am starting the Bar Practice Course with them in September now. I'm moving to on campus learning so I'm hoping it will be even better than the online.

ULaw has a lot of additional services that you can access too- if you do join, check out the employability service as it is brilliant.

I'm not sure if you will have made your decision by now but I hope the information is useful to you and anyone else reading the post.

Best wishes

Nic
Student Ambassador at the University of Law

Reply 4

BPP Students

Official Rep

For BPP LPC, a prospective student still need to have a 2.2 at least in LLB unless you have completed the GDL as a non-law student.

Given that this post is a year older, I believe it's important to shed light on the current arrangement of things at BPP when it comes to studying LPC.

I understand from my conversation with my personal tutor that BPP didn't have the online transition on the eve of the pandemic but I must reiterate that as a full-time online/remote learner who started last year (Sep,21), LPC timetabling as well as hard copy materials had been delivered weeks in advance. Likewise, mock feedback had been released on time. Almost all exams are open book with a few exceptions as we also get take-home submissions. Should you choose to do LPC with a free top-up i.e. LLM, you would qualify for SFE Master's loan.

Best wishes with future legal studies wherever you choose to pursue.
Farzana
BPP ambassador
LPC LLM student

(edited 2 years ago)

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