22/03/2018

Careers: Preparing mature students and career changers for the ’ profession

Sponsored by Wednesday 21 March 2018

Husnara Begum Career Strategist / Coach, Husnara Begum Consulting

Amanda Jardine-Viner

Trainee , Buss Murton

1 22/03/2018

Training routes to qualification

Diane Goodier

Head of Students, University of Law

Why choose a career in law?

• Intellectually stimulating and challenging

• Variety of practice areas

• Job satisfaction

• Career progression

• Financially rewarding

Training routes

Qualifying degree in Training Legal Admission Contract English Law Solicitor Practice as a solicitor 2 years Course

Non-Law degree

Bar Professional Call to Graduate Barrister Training the Bar 12 months Diploma in Law Course

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Funding options

• Sponsorship by future employer

• Loans –

– Government funded (masters’ programmes)

– Commercial Providers

• Scholarships and bursaries

The SRA’s plan is to replace the LPC as the route into the profession

2. SQE Stage 1 3. Qualifying Work Very limited skills content Experience No electives 4. SQE Stage 2 Expected that SQE1 is sat Must pass all of SQE1 before work-based before attempting experience SQE2 SQE2 is taken 1. Entry 3 during/following work- based learning Entrance are graduates, 2 4 solicitor apprentices and foreign qualified lawyers 1 SQE 5 5. Qualification No definition of a Qualifying Law Degree No prescribed non-law conversion course 8

Solicitor Apprenticeship

Qualfication Type of Student Solicitor Apprenticeship with How long does it last? LLB (Law Degree) in Legal 3 A Levels A-C Practice & Skills 6 year programme 5 GCSE’s including Maths & & September & January starts English or equivalent Preparation for SQE 1 & 2

How does it work? Employers 80% work- 20% study and Plexus training

Ulaw materials – i-LLB (canvas) Training Fletchers

Ulaw subject tutors Ulaw WBA assessor visits the Gowling WLG apprentice every 10- 12 Ulaw WBA weeks to check progress and Exeter City Council Admin Support build a work based portfolio. City & Guilds

Students are registered with a Ulaw Centre (all centres host apprentices)

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Who are we?

• World’s largest professional law school • Global connections • Award-winning practice-based teaching • Market-leading Employability service • 8 fully resourced centres and Exeter • 97% of our full-time 2015 LPC students secured training contracts or other legal work within 9 months of completing the course

Employability – Careers support

• One to one advice • Interview preparation • Skills workshops • External speakers • Mentoring scheme • Jobsearch – exclusive online legal database • Online student employability programme (StEP)

Employability – Pro bono

• Get involved with pro bono to bring your learning to life and develop your legal skills • Our award winning pro bono programme includes: • Legal advice clinics • Shadowing • Public legal education • Tribunal representation

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Scholarships and Bursaries

• We are committed to widening participation to those wishing to study law.

• We offer a comprehensive range of scholarships and law bursary schemes.

• Applications are open for September 2018

• Register your interest by emailing [email protected]

Come and meet us

Attend an Open Day – www.law.ac.uk/events

Join the Future Lawyers Network

Engage with us on:

on facebook.com/universityoflaw

@universityoflaw

youtube.com/universityoflaw

Any questions?

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Training Contract Applications

Julia Sadley Managing Editor, gti

Hannah Erskine Talent Manager, Howard Kennedy LLP

Outline

• Introductions • Shortlisting firms • Psychometrics • Application forms • Assessment centres • Interviews

Introductions

• Hannah, talent manager, Howard Kennedy LLP • Julia, editor, TARGETjobs Law, TARGETjobs Law Vacation Schemes and Mini-, and targetjobslaw.co.uk

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Shortlisting firms

• Why is this important? • How many? • Where to start – • Practical factors e.g. location / salary • Types of law • What makes a mature candidate attractive to a firm?

Psychometrics

• 2 main types – ability and personality • Ability – e.g. Watson Glaser • Personality – e.g. MBTI, SJT • How to prepare

Gamification

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Typical format of online applications

• 1. Contact details • 2. Academic results and achievements • 3. Work experience • A list of your legal and non-legal experience (including today’s event) • 4. Demonstration of core qualities • A series of competency/commercial awareness questions and/or a covering letter

Before you start

• You won’t get a without demonstrating these four: thorough research, motivation, key competencies and accuracy • On a big piece of paper, list the competencies the firm is looking for and match them to your previous career, hobbies and academic study • If the firm doesn’t list its competencies, list the skills lawyers need and match to your values

The covering letter

Some law firms use a covering letter only without any extended questions. For example:

‘In your covering letter, please explain your reasons for wishing to pursue a career in commercial law. Please also explain your motivation for applying to Baker & McKenzie. You should also use the covering letter as an opportunity to include any additional information that is relevant to your application but is not covered in the form. (750 words max)’

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The covering letter

Use it to prove: • You can follow instructions • You can write concisely and to a word count • You can use a professional tone. NB plain English! • You have considered the firm’s culture and values, and made it clear how they relate to you • You have thought about what you want from your working environment and how that firm can provide it

The covering letter

Use it to prove: • How the training programme appeals to you • Your commercial awareness: • Talk about any of the firm’s cases that have caught your eye recently and why they appeal to you • Emphasise any experience you have had in a legal or commercial environment • How your previous career relates to law

Typical application form questions

• ‘Please describe a recent major challenge that you have faced and specifically how you responded as an individual’ (250 words) – Classic competency question. • Use the STAR technique to organise your answers to competency questions: the situation, the task required, the action you took and the result of your action. Avoid ‘we’.

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Typical application form questions

• ‘What are your main interests, activities and pastimes? Please describe any related positions of responsibility you have held from school/university and onwards.’ (250 words) • ‘Tell us why you want to be a lawyer and why X firm?’ Show a clear motivation for (a) law and (b) a career at that firm

Application form tips

• Quality not quantity • Don’t cut and paste • Think ahead to the interview; make sure you are prepared to be quizzed on any examples in your form • Check the firm’s website and Facebook pages for application FAQs or hints and tips • Use examples from more than one area of your life • In each section of the form, ask yourself which skills can I showcase here?

Assessment centres

• What do they involve? • Group & individual exercises & often an interview • Legal / commercial topics • How to prepare • Go back to your research on the firm • Do everything possible to be ‘yourself on a really good day’! • What to bear in mind for mature applicants

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Types of law interview

• Phone interviews • Video interviews • One-to-one interviews, with HR or partner • Panel interviews • ‘Article’ interviews

Interview preparation tips?

• Practise! Sign up for a mock interview at your careers service if you have access. Get honest feedback • Find out the format of the interview from the firm or from websites such as targetjobslaw.co.uk • Be up to date with current affairs • Read business pages regularly – what is this law firm’s perspective? • Remember: there is no substitute for research.

Types of law interview questions

• Broadly speaking, interviewers use questions to test three things: motivation; commercial awareness; skills • Legal work experience suits motivation questions (as opposed to skills questions) • Read TARGETjobs Inside Buzz reports to research types of questions: – ‘I was asked "If you were going to set up a new office, where would it be?” first-year trainee at – ‘Why do you want to be a solicitor rather than a consultant or banker?’ first-year trainee at White & Case

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Why ask questions?

• To show you’re prepared and enthusiastic • To find out more information not available elsewhere • Use it to further show your research and interest – in a deal, a sector or an area of law • Find out who will be interviewing you and pitch your questions appropriately • Advice from Hogan Lovells: ‘If in doubt, ask the partners about themselves… how they got into their area of law, their client base, the type of work they do and what they enjoy about being at the firm.’

Help is at hand!

• Read the advice and FAQs on law firms’ websites • Use TARGETjobs Law pages 18 to 33 for targeted applications advice and tips from graduate recruiters • Read the interviews and applications advice on targetjobslaw.co.uk • Sign up to other workshops and events… • … add this event to your CV or application • Follow @TjobsLaw on Twitter for application deadline reminders and timely tips

Time for questions…

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Tips for boosting your commercial awareness

Chris Cowland

Associate, Cylde & Co LLP

What does it really mean for aspiring City lawyers?

• Understanding that English law promotes commerce

• Knowing about the UK’s specialist commercial courts and ’s role as the world’s leading centre of arbitration

• Appreciating that clients need commercial (and not just legal) solutions

• Recognising some of the commercial considerations of litigation

• Knowing how law firms operate as a business

o How do they make money? o Current / future trends

English law promotes commerce

‘We are there to oil the wheels of commerce, not to put spanners in the works, or even grit in the oil’ Lord Goff

• Law affords parties wide discretion in their allocation of risk e.g. exclusion and indemnity clauses

• Contract terms readily implied from a prior and consistent course of dealing

• Courts admit evidence of market customs and usages

• Courts attempt to protect commercial purpose of the contract

If detailed semantic and syntactical analysis of words in a commercial contract is going to lead to a conclusion that flouts business common sense, it must be made to yield to business common sense Lord Diplock, The Antaios (1984)

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Specialist commercial courts

• London’s Commercial Court provides dedicated judges with commercial, banking and finance, commodities, insurance & maritime law backgrounds.

• Rolls Building is the world’s largest dedicated business dispute resolution centre.

• Three quarters of litigants non-UK based

• Circuit Commercial Courts exist nationwide: , Bristol, Cardiff, Chester, Leeds, Liverpool, , Mold (Wales) and Newcastle

London is the world’s leading arbitration centre

• The London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) among the world’s leading international institutions for commercial dispute resolution

• London often named as the seat of arbitration because of the quality and impartiality of its lawyers (e.g. Bermuda Form – New York Law with arbitration in London)

Clients need commercial solutions

Important to appreciate the following: • Solicitors project manage transactions and litigation

• Advice needs to be practical and solution focused – law often seen as being ‘in the way’

• Clients will have limited budgets for legal spend / their own management to please

• Business practice sometimes ahead of the law e.g. insurers and the Insurance Act 2015

• Challenge of giving advice & explaining obligations where some commercial / reputational harm unavoidable e.g. News International destruction of evidence during phone hacking scandal

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Commercial considerations when litigating

• Does the amount in dispute justify the costs to be incurred?

• Might going to trial set a helpful or unhelpful precedent commercially? E.g. insurers combating insurance

• Will any award be enforceable i.e. does the defendant have liability insurance or sufficient liquid assets?

• To appeal or not to appeal?

• Differences between law & jurisdiction e.g. civil juries, large damage awards, other remedies (freezing injunctions and search orders)

• Alternative dispute resolution, e.g. mediation

Law firms as a business – making money

• Fixed fee vs. hourly basis

• Time recording

• Rates – cf. legally aided work, corporate clients and everything in between

• Sector focus – full service vs niche

• Profitability

• Value added work – seminars / training, sending lawyers on secondment, to generate higher work in long-run

Law firms as a business – current trends

• Relocation of work to regional offices where lower rates can be offered

• Increasing consolidation within the City e.g. Clyde & Co and BLG

• Competition from Alternative Business Structures e.g. PWC Legal, the Co-Op

• Growth of in-house lawyers (now 25% of all practitioners)

• Increasing use of technology & data e.g. MI

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How to prepare for interviews / training contracts

• Read the FT, the Economist and any trade publications

• Read the Law Society’s study “The Future of Legal Services’

• Work experience / vacation schemes

• Know your target law firm’s clients

• Consider if / how Brexit will affect your target law firm

Refreshment break

Alternative Route to Qualification

Noel Inge

Managing Director, CILEX Law School

16 22/03/2018

TO SUCCEED IN YOUR LEGAL CAREER YOU NEED …

Step 1: now get to know the legal services industry

• Approx 10,471 law firms in England & Wales (2017) • Market is fragmented and very localised • 85% of firms are small with 4 or fewer partners (2017) • Circa 500 ABSs: most want business skills • 14% of all workers in the legal services industry are self-employed • One law firm described itself as social workers with a little bit of law • https://tinyurl.com/hme7u3q: A&O/BMK legal innovation centre

Step 2: what about the competition?

• HESA research: 25 & 75 split • Employers hire for behaviours- they train for knowledge • Are you realistic in valuing your own worth (women usually undervalue themselves & over-achieve)

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Step 3: know thyself

• Honest self assessment: see http://www.markparkinson.co.uk/psychometric_links.htm

• Be wary of believing your own publicity!

• Speak to your university careers adviser: you’ve paid for it!

Step 4: Ask yourself, how will I evidence the behaviours/skills?

• Voluntary work • Make it easy for an • Business start up employer : show how your skills help them- • Networking you are a solution to – Eventbrite their problem . – Business networks: http://www.national- • Nine second rule: womens-network.co.uk/ review your CV – CILEx branches • Support your claims – Political parties (18% of MPs have a legal • There’s lots of free background) guidance on completing – Experience abroad a job application – Clubs, societies etc • Practical English Usage (Swan)

Plan A? Always have a backdoor Plan B.

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Plan B- consider alternatives: Chartered Legal Executives: specialist lawyers

• Roles are similar to those of high street solicitors.

• Partnership (approx 245: expected to increase). 74% of Chartered Legal Executives want to become partners

• Advocacy rights-civil/crime/family (with additional training)

Opportunities for Chartered Legal Executives

• Eligibility for judicial appointment • Suitably experienced, can run own… – Litigation business – business – Conveyancing business – Probate business

Where do Chartered Legal Executives work?

• …in over 1,500 law firms • … central and local government • … commercial and financial companies • ABSs

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How much do Chartered Legal Executives earn?

Summary for Chartered Legal Executives Low: £22,000 High: £60,000+

Source: Anakin Seal 2017 Average according to Reed Recruitment is £41,875

Paralegal Salaries 2018

• Av national: £21,610 • Mcstr: £19,793k (Total Jobs) • Av London: £27,738k • Based on 11,937 salaries • Min £9,600 • Max £55,000 • Source Indeed.Co.uk

Plan B route: becoming a Chartered

• Graduate in law/GDL

• Obtain work as a paralegal • Study CILEx qual at same time (approx 1 yr)

• After three years’ paralegal work experience become a Chartered Legal Executive

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The studying bit: the three unit CILEX Graduate Fast-track Diploma (GFTD)

• Start here: a qualifying law degree/GDL is required • Then.. GFTD comprises… • x 2 CILEX Level 6 legal practice units and • CILEX Level 6 client care unit

What’s in the three unit CILEX GFTD?

You choose two from this list… • Civil Litigation • Conveyancing • Criminal Litigation • The Practice of Employment Law • The Practice of Family Law • Probate Practice • The Practice of Company and Partnership Law (At least one unit must be linked to your law degree) • Plus the CILEX Level 6 Client Care unit

Time Commitment for the CILEX GFTD while working

• Each legal practice unit takes approx 190 hours. • The client care unit takes approx 75-100 hours. • Typically students work while studying CILEx Law • School’s supported distance learning courses

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Unlike the LPC…

…you don’t have to finish the GFTD in one bite. Each unit can be studied separately, when you choose, over any period that suits you.

CILEX GFTD costs 2018

Graduate Fast-Track Diploma Course Fees £2170 ( x2 Level 6 Practice units and Level 6 Assessment fees £283 Client Care unit) CILEx Exemption fee £200 CILEx Associate. £230 membership (incl first reg fee) Work based learning reg £300

Application for Fellowship £150

Total cost £3,333

Studying at CILEx Law School by supported distance learning.

• Study from anywhere. • LexisNexis Legal Awards 2018: Award for • Enrol whenever you like. Diversity and Inclusion – Winner Modern Law Awards 2017/18: Supporting the • Unrivalled telephone and on-line support. Industry Award – Winner • British Legal Awards 2017: Supplier Innovation • Teaching is by distance learning and (Services) – Finalist occasional regional face-to-face sessions all Innovation Awards 2017: Training delivered by subject specialists. Innovation Award – Finalist • Solicitors Journal Awards 2017: Legal Education • CILEx Law School is CILEx’s award winning Provider of the Year Award – Shortlisted wholly owned, not-for-profit law school.

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Your paralegal work to become a Chartered Legal Executive

• 3 years’ qualifying employment (paralegal work), meeting work based learning outcome requirements.

• 2 Years must be consecutive qualifying employment immediately preceding the application to be a Chartered Legal Executive

• At least 1 year must be in the Graduate grade of membership (achieved by completing the GFTD)

• During this time you must demonstrate competencies through a work based learning portfolio

Summary: differing training routes

Solicitor (Plan A) Ch. Legal Executive (Plan B)

1. Qualifying law degree /GDL 1. Qualifying law degree /GDL 2. Study the LPC either full or part- 2. three yrs’ paralegal work, per time (1-2 years) CILEx rules. 3. Find a training contract (2 years), 3. Complete GFTD qualification (in PSC. year one) by distance learning 4. You’re newly qualified. while in paralegal work 4. You’re qualified as a Chartered Legal Executive

Always have a Plan B C

– Study the LPC over two years part-time while working

– If you are a Chartered Legal Executive then you can claim automatic exemption from the training contract.

– Partial exemption from open learning De Montfort University LPC.

– Chartered Legal Executives require only one seat, not three via equivalent means/training contract.

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Plan C advantages

Training contract/period of recognised training exemption because you’re a Chartered Legal Executive

Partial exemption against De Montfort University open learning LPC

Gain a professional qualification without large up-front financial commitment.

Summary…

1. Become a Chartered Legal Executive and enjoy practice rights comparable with those of a solicitor. 2. Cost of Chartered Legal Executive training is a fraction of that to become a solicitor.

OR

3. If you want to convert to become a solicitor via CILEx , NO training contract is required as rules currently stand. 4. Being a Chartered Legal Executive means you may be exempt from elements of the De Montfort University LPC.

Getting in touch…

Noel Inge T: 01234 844325. E: [email protected] www.cilexlawschool.ac.uk

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Panel Session

- Rob Allan, Trainee Solicitor, Reed Smith - Alan Woolston, Partner, Fladgate LLP - Ian Bond, Trainee Solicitor, . - Phil Spencer, Trainee Solicitor, LLP - Morgan Wolfe, Trainee, Goodman Derrick

Refreshment break

Speed Networking

Participants include:

- Berwin Leighton Paisner - Hogan Lovells - Chartered Institute of Legal Executives - Howard Kennedy - Clyde & Co - - CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro - Shearman & Sterling LLP - Fladgate LLP - Tuckers Solicitors - Goodman Derrick LLP - University of Law - Government Legal Service

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Careers: Preparing mature students and career changers for the solicitors’ profession

Sponsored by Wednesday 21 March 2018

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