Updated guides are coming soon!
We update our Core Guides every summer in time for the new academic year. We’ve had a fair few students get in touch already about when we’ll be releasing our next updates, so click here for the breakdown.
We are looking for a team of law student ambassadors for the 2024/25 academic year. If you want to expand your skills and develop your network, this is the role for you.
We have an experienced editorial team at Law Answered, but we’re always looking for bright students to give us feedback to improve our products. We want our guides to be the best they can be and to tell students what they really need to know for their exams - so that’s where our Student Advisors come in!
We are looking for student advisors who are currently studying the PGDL (or MA Law) and the SQE… apply now!
We are looking for a motivated, conscientious individual with excellent written, legal and communication skills and a love for helping students to join our team as a Legal Writer.
When it comes to getting through your law exams and finding your dream job can feel like the biggest challenge there is. We totally get it. So many questions. So many decisions. It’s overwhelming.
And if there is one thing law students don’t have… is a lot of spare time to be figuring this all out yourself.
That’s why we’ve created the Answered Squad. Want to find out more?
Revising for the PGDL this year is particularly difficult. It’s a new course this academic year. It also has new exam questions designed for the SQE (namely multiple choice questions, and we’ve written a blog about technique for answering MCQs.
Love them or hate them, the fact is that MCQs – multiple choice questions – are going to be a key part of your legal exams. The new Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) will test a broad range of legal knowledge through MCQs, which means that course providers are adapting their preparatory courses. BPP’s PGDL course includes a mix of MCQs alongside more traditional long-form questions.
Last month we discussed how to go about making applications for training contracts and vacation schemes and the key traits of preparation and perseverance that you’ll need to get through to an interview and assessment centre. So what is it going to be like when you do make it through?
Applications for vacation schemes and training contracts can seem daunting. At the very least, they are enormously time-consuming, with all manner of hurdles for you to overcome before you finally get the offer you were hoping for. Many application forms for training contracts and vacation schemes are very similar, as many firms see vacation schemes as the route many of their prospective trainees will take. To tackle either of them, we recommend you do two things: prepare and persevere.
We all know that training contracts are not easy to get. Law firms often receive well over a hundred applications for each available space. And of these hundred applicants, the vast majority will all look excellent on paper: good universities, high grades, and a raft of extra-curricular trophies and titles.
2020 is a year like no other. As a current third year student, I will never have to experience a socially distanced freshers’ week and first year. I’m sure that you are blindingly aware that it won’t be the experience you quite imagined, but try to make the most of what you can.
Here are some quick fire tips to get you started on the best footing:
It’s well worth remembering that the rule on self-dealing by trustees is a lot stricter than the rule on fair dealing. This has been underlined by a recent case which might be quite useful if you’re having to write an essay about fiduciary duties. (If you’ve got our LLB Equity guide you might add a link to this case to page 86. It’s page 374 in our GDL guide).
One of the SRA’s stated aims in shaking up legal education was to improve diversity in the solicitors’ profession. The logic was that, by removing the need to take and pass the LPC before a getting a training contract and qualifying as a solicitor, students would not have to take the “LPC gamble” of spending around £15,000 on the LPC without knowing they had a job at the end of it (excluding those lucky few who were granted a training contract while on the LLB or GDL of course).
This isn’t likely to be any part of your syllabus, but for those applying for law firms questions about the future direction of the legal profession are quite common. You’ll often find yourself gazing into a crystal ball as you try to work out what challenges and opportunities might be before law firms. Plainly Brexit and Covid-19 are very large elephants in the room and offer endless scope for pontification, but perhaps you’d like to write about, or answer questions on, something else?
I quite often hear from you that critical thinking assessment is the area that you perform less well at, find it rather difficult, and in consequence, stressful. The reality is that you cannot skip it, for most City law firms require you to take Watson Glaser or other critical thinking test (CTT) in order to progress with your training contract or vacation scheme applications. If we cannot leave it behind, we must learn how to live with it, and in this case, how to develop your critical thinking skills.
