LPC or SQE?

Hi there, you would only be able to take the SQE route since you are in your 1st year. If you were to finish your law degree this year then you would be able to take the LPC route.

Assuming your degree is a law degree then you are right - you can choose either. It would be best if you can to apply for vacation schemes and training contracts whilst still doing your degree as firms recruit years in advance in some cases and then that firm will pay for your LPC or SQE course - for the bigger firms it will be SQE by then so the decision is taken out of your hands.

You can apply this summer for vacation schemes the following year from which many trainees are recruited.
If you cannot obtain a training contract that way then you do indeed have that dilemma.
LPC - firms know it but for many bigger firms Sept 2021 will be the last time they put potential trainees through the LPC as they move en masse to the SQE system so we will probably find fewer and fewer LPC courses available and fewer people doing it and you will be doing differently from your cohort to do the LPC. So probably see if you can take SQE1 in summer of year 3 of your degree after your finals or a course for it and get that done - the law degree will be good grounding for it so you may not need an SQE1 course (assuming you do not have a training contract by then) and then consider doing a course and SQE2 exams part time whilst working as a "trainee" of whatever we are going to be calling them at a good firm for 2 years which is going to look better on the CV than 4 stints at different places cobbled together which technically will be okay instead of a\ TC but might blight your CV for life.

So if you have sponsorship for that LPC year but if you have family to fund it it might be simpler just to do the LPC - one course with exams all set by the same provider but if not then SQE1. It is very hard to decide. All I have done is waffle on...