The Student Room Group

Am I cooked? (law)

Currently a first year international student at UWE studying law with business. From what I read is UWE isn't the most prestigious Law school. I also massively screwed my a levels due to personal and mental health reasons.

ok all that aside am i cooked in the sense will i be able to get a TC or even a job atp. half of the stuff im reading is mad depressing about how its impossible to get a tc or a job now a days.

seems weird but i often go down a rabbit hole filled with anxiety over it
Life is full of second chances. A person's destiny is not determined by the choices they make when they are in their late teens or early twenties.

I'll get the blunt stuff out of the way first: UWE does not have a prestigious law school. It is indeed very hard to obtain training contracts and pupillages, and graduates (law and non-law) of a group of well known universities have the best chances of obtaining the limited places available. The chances of obtaining a training contract or pupillage at a high-end law firm or set of chambers with a degree from UWE and nothing else are, frankly, not at all good.

Now for the positive stuff. You can make things different for yourself. Work hard and get the best result that you can at UWE. Read widely about the law, and about anything else that interests you. Be a person of broad knowledge with many interests. Write as often as you have time to do so. Maybe blog or podcast if you have that in you. Network via LinkedIn etc.

Then try for postgraduate study at a Russell Group university. Maybe then work for some years in jobs that provide experience of business, or government, and then try to qualify as a lawyer.

A good friend of mine got a 2.2 at a mid to low ranking university. She later got an excellent LLM at KCL. She did all sorts of jobs, including being a Home Office Presenting Officer in immigration appeals. She then became a barrister in her thirties, and started doing low-end criminal work. She worked her way up through various chambers, did a stint working in offshore commercial law, and is now a member of a well regarded chambers doing commercial litigation. I am a senior barrister in a prestigious chambers, and the person I describe is one of my go-to junior counsel.

Good luck!
PS: Some law firms and chambers assess candidates with the names of their universities concealed, which is a good thing to do, but the blunt fact remains that the graduates from the highly rated universities often (not always) make the best showings in their applications.

PPS: I and several of the members of my chambers studied at you know where, but we are still keen to recruit the person I describe above to join us. Her Desmond at the University of Who Cares has been forgotten.

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