City or ICCA - for the Bar course

I recommend ICCA. It is run on a not for profit basis and attempts to resurrect the Inns of Court School of Law, which was absorbed by City. The academic standards at City are low.

I recommend ICCA. It is run on a not for profit basis and attempts to resurrect the Inns of Court School of Law, which was absorbed by City. The academic standards at City are low.

Probably not.

Hii, I am a thrid year law student soon to be doing the BPTC. Having a hard time deciding between City uni or ICCA. Please share any advice or experinces at either institutions. Thank you so much.

Hi Lyra, I'm Tarra, a current student on the BVS Course in City St George's University of London. I'd just like to provide some input on my personal experience on doing the BVS in City St George's!
So far it's been a really fun learning experience for me! I'm finding the modules super interesting, because I'm learning stuff that is fully relevant to real-life practice as a barrister! My modules include things like civil and criminal procedure - so procedures around going to court for civil and criminal cases; drafting court documents; writing a legal opinion about things like, say, advising a client about their prospects of success based on the current evidence they have in the bundle of papers; having a conference with your client; doing submissions, examination-in-chief, cross-examinations and ethics. All our modules have contact hours and I really like how for the more practical modules like submissions, examination-in-chief and cross-examination, your performance is recorded and feedback will be given for every session, so you can look back on your recordings, take your tutors' feedback and improve as you go along! I also really appreciate that teaching is done is small groups of 12-13 students max for individualised attention, and for the performance-based subjects I mentioned earlier where your performance is recorded, the small group is split into even smaller groups of about 6 students to ensure you have time to perform AND for feedback to be given to every single student! 🥳🌟
One of the main selling points for me going into City was that the lecturers in City are actually the writers of your textbooks. I'm not sure if every university has their own textbooks - especially for the standardised subjects - but the books I'm using for the standardised modules, especially Civil Litigation is written by someone who used to teach in City. I even had a Criminal Litigation class with one of the authors of my undergraduate core Evidence & Criminal Procedure textbook and it was absolutely mindblowing realising who he was. :0 Even if my lecturers aren't textbook writers, they're people who have practised before as barristers, so they absolutely know what they are talking about. Recently my Civil Litigation tutor was telling us about a case she herself used to do during her barrister days as a real-life answer to one of our questions during class on what happens during actual practice. It's just those little bits and bobs of practice that only former barristers can tell you so having them as tutors are absolutely fantastic!
I was also drawn to City because its legal education dates back to the 19th century from the Inns of Court School of Law (ICSL), which was the original and sole provider of the Bar course in the UK. In this sense, City is the oldest and you can say the original Bar provider!
I hope that information helps!
Kind regards,
Tarra