granddaughter wants to be a solicitor

marywooyeah

Filey wrote: »

Fortunately for her she speaks fluent French, all acquired painlessly as she went to school in France for several years, so whatever she decides to do she has that in her favour.

Where else than MSE can anyone reach such breadth of advice! I love it!

that's a very good skill to have - it can actually help with client care too and save the firm money on interpreters.

gregg1

margaretclare wrote: »

Oh, I wish I had done that when I was offered the chance to go to uni (then polytechnic). I could have chosen to do a law degree but I went for Behavioural Sciences instead because that tied in with my career in the NHS. One of those 'roads not travelled'...

The main thing that put me off was, after the law degree you needed to be 'articled' to an existing firm of solicitors as a sort of apprentice and wouldn't be earning in that time. I didn't have the option of doing that.

Your GD should have a careers teacher at school who could advise but, in any event and in the short term, she needs to work hard at school and get good results. Being able to express herself clearly in both speech and writing will be important so, English language is crucial. And history perhaps, so that she knows just how far we have come and how our present system of laws developed. Michael Wood is a historian whose books are very readable and I enjoy his TV programmes - try http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00r12j3

Best wishes to her!

Articled clerks do get paid a proper salary.

poet123

gregg1 wrote: »

Articled clerks do get paid a proper salary.

Now they do!;) Not years ago.

gregg1

poet123 wrote: »

It is disparaged for good reason by people who actually know the relative value of particular degrees. It does not fare well in the employment stats of Alumni. That is a fact, not an opinion, not given to disparage but to ground in reality those who would consider doing such a degree and then live to regret it.

Is that not reasonable or advisable?

It is completely laughable to equate that degree with English Lit.

Well said.

gregg1

Nicki wrote: »

Person one, are you a lawyer, or have you ever been involved in the recruitment of one? As others have said, the competition to get a training contract or pupillage is intense, and only a very small percentage of those who apply will be offered.

My experience, having worked in the sector, is that candidates with a 2:1 or 1st from a Russell Group university in a fairly narrow range of subjects are overwhelmingly more successful in this competition. Those subjects tend to be the most academic ones such as Law, Sciences, English, etc. if you can quote some statistics to back your claim that graduates in media studies are as successful (or indeed have any success at all) in securing training contracts or pupillages, then I'll happily modify my post. However, in the absence of that, my personal experience of that sector is that this would not be a good degree to study if a career in law was your ultimate goal.

You are correct. I worked in legal offices for many years and even going back a number of years, the larger firms would not even look at applications with less than a 2.1 from what they consider to be a good university. It is, I assume, even harder now and a media degree would be highly unlikely to get you through the door.

Job losses are affecting the legal profession as well these days.

Loanranger

Just to add that for many years now, to my certain knowledge about 20 years, there has been an oversupply of people being accepted onto the LPC (Legal Practice Course) compared with the number of Training Contracts available. Approx 6000 people on LPCs and 4,500 Training Contracts if memory is correct. So, it's always been very very hard to get into the law.
No, a Media Studies degree would be laughed out of court, pun intended, and probably even a Media Studies A level would be unacceptable. Not through academic snobbery but simply because the subject has no academic rigour. Work experience is always required and all the other stuff previously mentioned.
Your GD needs to start putting feelers out for work experience now, never too soon to start and this is something she needs to do herself not by her parents or you. She can ask at school and ask around her friends and, here's the radical bit, actually write a letter on paper to firms of solicitors.

gregg1

poet123 wrote: »

Now they do!;) Not years ago.[/

Ah, maybe it depended on which law firm then. I know back in the late seventies, the bigger firms were paying articled clerks a salary but maybe not all firms did.