The Student Room Group

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
After your Geography degree at Durham you will be able to stay on in Durham City and do a Law conversion course. This will stand you in very good stead for a legal career.

In the years law conversion (at Durham and indeed anywhere) you study the 7 foundation subjects in law: tort, criminal, EU law blah blah and so on.

After that you will either proceed to do your LPC (Legal Practice Course) or go to do the BVC (Bar Vocational Course) if you want to be barrister - like me! So PM me if you wanna know anything about the Bar.

Career options are just as good and as wide as anyone who has done a normal law degree. Same in terms of salary. You actually stand out more for having done another degree prior to your law conversion, so all is good!
Reply 2
If you did a 2 yr conversion you get to do options you could potentially do a module or a dissertation in environmental
Reply 3
red_roadkill
After your Geography degree at Durham you will be able to stay on in Durham City and do a Law conversion course. This will stand you in very good stead for a legal career.

In the years law conversion (at Durham and indeed anywhere) you study the 7 foundation subjects in law: tort, criminal, EU law blah blah and so on.

After that you will either proceed to do your LPC (Legal Practice Course) or go to do the BVC (Bar Vocational Course) if you want to be barrister - like me! So PM me if you wanna know anything about the Bar.

Career options are just as good and as wide as anyone who has done a normal law degree. Same in terms of salary. You actually stand out more for having done another degree prior to your law conversion, so all is good!


Thanks! I'd probably want to leave Durham, and do it elsewhere though, for a bit of a change! Any ideas on how much a conversion costs to do?
Reply 4
kool i like law stuff
Reply 5
bout 5 k per yr at the moment for 1 yr CPE places like college of law include texts in that
2 yr conversion varies greatly mine is £1.5k per year atm.
Reply 6
Ellie4
Thanks! I'd probably want to leave Durham, and do it elsewhere though, for a bit of a change! Any ideas on how much a conversion costs to do?


VERY expensive, that's all I can say really! I've heard it costs lots. My friends sister is doing Environmental Sciences at Newcastle and I think she's going to Leeds to do her law conversion, it's gonna cost around £7,000 I THINK. It's around that figure. It all depends on how badly you wanna be a lawyer. And going to the Bar isn't exactly no frills either, it costs a ridiculous amount of money, so my advice would be to only go for that if you have a lot of charisma and good advocacy skills. I should be fine there, then! :biggrin:
Reply 7
viviki
bout 5 k per yr at the moment for 1 yr CPE places like college of law include texts in that
2 yr conversion varies greatly mine is £1.5k per year atm.


Ah ok. Where are you doing yours? :smile:
Reply 8
After your geography degree, you take a 1 year conversation course, the Common Professional Examination (CPE), which is essentially all of the basic requirement modules for a qualifying law degree. However, talking to solicitors who did it, it is EXTREMELY hard work - for it is 7 modules crammed into one year, whereas even in a law degree you only do 4 per year. This is the academic qualification in law

Then there you take an additional course for the vocational element - the LPC (2 years long) to become a solicitor, or the BVC (currently one year, although rising to 2 years) to become a barrister.

You can get sponsered for both though - with a training contract from a soliticor, and a pupillage for a barrister with tend to subside the costs of this training.

Oh, and the LPC generally costs around 8 grand I think. :smile:

The CPE is generally less - city quotes it at £5,900

http://www.city.ac.uk/pgrad/00000139.htm
Reply 9
Ellie4
Ah ok. Where are you doing yours? :smile:


Sheffield - mine is an MA. I did it there because its cheap lol but don't be kidded because you do it over 2 yrs its easier its not at all its hideous. With the MA you do the core stuff that the undergrads do then extra topics and the pass mark is 52%. I was completely floored by the work load last yr but I'm used to it now.
Theres a few other places they do the MA, Bristol for one but I think its about 4.5k a yr there.

The CPE 1 yr course is pretty intense too, but you don't get time to do stuff in the same detail that you do at undergrad or so i've been told.

You can do a 2 yr LLM conversion at Leeds I think where its still qualifying but your dissertation counts for alot of your mark not sure of the costs.

or you could do a senior status law degree where you do a law degree in 2 yrs, loads of unis offer that alot are moving back to that and away from the CPE dont know whether theres a reason for that though. You apply for that through UCAS so you should be able to do a search for that there, but I don't know how costs for that will work out once top up fees are in existence.

Same with all these courses I kind of imagine they might go up in price in response.
Reply 10
kool i kno this has nothin to do with this thread but i want to be a navy officer!! :biggrin:
Reply 11
Lottelo
After your geography degree, you take a 1 year conversation course, the Common Professional Examination (CPE), which is essentially all of the basic requirement modules for a qualifying law degree. However, talking to solicitors who did it, it is EXTREMELY hard work - for it is 7 modules crammed into one year, whereas even in a law degree you only do 4 per year. This is the academic qualification in law

In a CPE you generally do
Contract
Tort
Public
Land Law
Equity and Trusts
EC Law
Criminal law
which is 7, in a normally year undergrad law you generally do 6 modules a year so its not that much of a difference and you tend to study the subjects at slightly more depth at undergrad or in a 2 yr conversion. It is definitely tough though I think both CPE and the longer conversions have quite high drop out rates although I just googled for stats and couldn't find any.


Then there you take an additional course for the vocational element - the LPC (2 years long) to become a solicitor, or the BVC (currently one year, although rising to 2 years) to become a barrister.

The LPC is 1 year long full time. or 2 yrs part time.

You can get sponsered for both though - with a training contract from a soliticor, and a pupillage for a barrister with tend to subside the costs of this training.

Its your TC that is 2 yrs long. If you get in with one of the bigger firms they will poss pay your fees for the CPE and LPC or at least assist. You can PM Vitriol about that he is working for one of the US firms now I believe.

Oh, and the LPC generally costs around 8 grand I think. :smile:


Varies from 6k to about 11k in London, really depends on where you do it or whether it goes up in the meantime. THe fees tend to go up £500 quid or so a year atm or did from last year to this so if you are looking for 4-5 yrs time it might be more expensive thats if people even do it by then.
Reply 12
does anyone know which (good) unis do a law conversion 1 yr degree? As in which are the best places to apply for this sort of thing? :confused:

cheers

-M-
Reply 13
My brothers doing a Biology degree at the moment, and he's planning on going to Sydney to do a environmental law conversion there. So if you fancy going that far, then you could go there!
Reply 14
Sian01
My brothers doing a Biology degree at the moment, and he's planning on going to Sydney to do a environmental law conversion there. So if you fancy going that far, then you could go there!


Wow that sounds amazing! But is that Australian law? 'Cos I'd love to study there, but I'd want to practice law here I think.
Reply 15
Ellie4
Wow that sounds amazing! But is that Australian law? 'Cos I'd love to study there, but I'd want to practice law here I think.


Nope, it covers over here too. He's emailed them about it all - I think he said he needed a high 2:1 / 1st but I wasn't really listening when he was chatting away on the phone. I'm so jealous! I want to do the same kind of thing I think.
If you've got any questions, I'll give him a ring :smile:
Reply 16
Sian01
Nope, it covers over here too. He's emailed them about it all - I think he said he needed a high 2:1 / 1st but I wasn't really listening when he was chatting away on the phone. I'm so jealous! I want to do the same kind of thing I think.
If you've got any questions, I'll give him a ring :smile:


Wow. That sounds so cool! Isn't it costing loads though? And are they bothered about what subject your undergrad degrees in? :biggrin:
Reply 17
Ellie4
Wow. That sounds so cool! Isn't it costing loads though? And are they bothered about what subject your undergrad degrees in? :biggrin:


Yeah, apparently it is quite expensive, he hasn't figured out exact cost yet, but you can get a grant or something as its a masters, and I think he's expecting the parents to help quite a bit!
I don't think the subject matters...Biology and Geog sound like the ideal ones for the basis of it. They're really helpful apparently, and have emailed him back loads.
Hmmm I wonder if they do a Journalism MA? Sunning on the beach in Oz' doesn't sound too bad... :rolleyes:
Ellie4
After my degree (Geog @ Durham) I'm thinking of doing a law conversion. I'm particularly interested in environmental law. Does anyone know where I can get more info about this/where to do it/career opps and salaries after? Thankies :smile:

Hm I don't really know much about law conversions/the CPE actually :redface: I guess cos it doesn't really apply to me. But if it's anything like the LPC/BVC then it'll be real expensive and there'll only be certain places in the UK which offer the course.

My boss did a history degree & converted :smile: I think I remember reading that it's a pretty common route for lawyers... although the majority still do law degrees. One thing I should say, though, is that it doesn't hurt your chances of a successful legal career at all :smile: In fact, sometimes it can even help; especially since you'll have a degree which is particularly relevant to the area of law in which you want to specialise.

Do you know if you want to be a solicitor/barrister?
...ok read the thread and realised how useless my post was :rolleyes: Oh well, I tried :redface: