The 'crippling' cost of the legal practice course may be preventing many able students becoming lawyers.

Grania Langdon-Down looks at efforts to improve access to the profession and examines the success of the City LPC

Legal education is big business.

There are 31 institutions offering more than 9,500 places on full and part-time versions of the legal practice course (LPC), with fees ranging from 5,000 to nearly 9,000.

But are the course consumers - the students, particularly those who have to fund themselves, and the firms which sponsor their future trainees - getting value for money?

There is currently a lot of uncertainty in the market.

Any plans for developing courses are on hold, waiting on the Law Society's two-year-old training framework review group, which is expected to publish its consultation paper within the next few weeks (see [2003] Gazette, 18 September, page 20).

In the meantime, the impact from the introduction two years ago of the so-called City LPC by a consortium of eight major law firms is still being assessed.

Hundreds of students who are being sponsored by the eight firms have this month joined the three consortium providers - BPP Law School, Nottingham Law School and the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice - for the third LPC intake.

However, overarching all the upheaval is widespread concern that the cost of the course is restricting access to the profession.

Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva has warned that rising LPC costs will deter many talented graduates already burdened with large debts from becoming solicitors.

A survey of 23 LPC providers by the Gazette (see [2003] Gazette, 29 August, 1) found that full-time fees increased by an average of 5% over the last year.

Staffordshire University tops the list with a 13% rise, though its fees of 5,950 are relatively cheap compared to the highest priced course at BPP which, at 8,750, is 6% more expensive than last year.

Nadia Akhtar, chairwoman of the Trainee Solicitors Group, says: 'What is the justification for these annual increases? Is the quality of the courses increasing in tandem with the fees? We are getting increasing numbers of calls to our helpline from people who are having to think twice about doing the LPC if they haven't already secured a training contract.'

Gary Brankin, a second-year trainee at six-partner Cumbrian firm Bleasdales & Co, is the new Law Society Council member representing trainee solicitors.

He took a local authority-funded four-year exempting degree at the University of Northumbria, escaping the 'crippling' cost of the LPC.

He warns: 'The cost of doing the LPC is widening the gap between those going to large firms who pay their fees and those who want to work for high street firms and have to fund the course themselves, even though their minimum starting salary will only be 13,600 (outside central London).

The problem lies with the course providers and it sends out the wrong message at a time when the Law Society is giving a big push to equality and diversity.'

The Society is launching its diversity access scheme, including scholarships, mentoring and work placements, next month.

John Herrmann, marketing director of BPP, accepts the course is very expensive.

'But when you look at the true cost of a university undergraduate course supported by government funding, the comparison isn't quite as stark.

Demand for our course is also going up, with five applicants for each of the 750 places we offered this year.

'What is worth noting is the increasing numbers taking up the part-time option, which costs 7,700.

We are also working very hard on access with our own undergraduate programme and we will be offering places for students selected by the Law Society under its new bursary scheme.'

It is not yet clear whether all the LPC courses will be full as the providers have yet to send their numbers to the Society, but it seems unlikely on the figures from recent years.

However, BPP is sufficiently confident of the market to open its first regional branch in Leeds next September, offering 360 LPC places and 100 graduate diploma in law places.

When BPP and the other consortium members launched the City LPC two years ago, opponents dubbed it 'elitist' and warned it could lead to a two-tier system.

John Herrmann, however, argues the move has benefited the whole profession because it has pulled up standards across the board.

He knows there is 'all sorts of rumour and gossip' about the agreement.

'It is difficult to say what will happen at the end of the five years [of the agreement with the eight firms].

'The market in legal services is changing so rapidly, it may well be the firms' interests diverge.

But the agreement still has three years to run and it is proving successful for the law school, the firms and the trainees.'

However, he is keen to clarify the 'City' tag, which he says is something of a misnomer as it suggests the course is somehow distinct from an 'ordinary' LPC.

He explains: 'People talk as though there are two LPCs.

We offer one LPC at the point of entry and it only diverges when students choose their electives in the third term.

Less than half of our students are sponsored by the eight consortium firms and we have a very wide intake from local, regional and national firms.

'However, it is probably true to say that legal education has gone the way of universities, where it is no longer sufficient to say what grade you achieved - your employment prospects may well depend on where you studied.'

Phil Knott, head of professional legal studies at Nottingham Law School, agrees the City course has had a 'domino effect - if you attract a particular area of the market, others will want to follow'.

Of Nottingham's 650 students, 32% have been sent by the eight firms, while the others come from a wide mix of other practices.

Asked what happens when the agreement ends, he says: 'We haven't looked that far ahead.

We are very comfortable with the way the consortium is working but, as our intake shows, we are not over-reliant on any particular group or firm - one of our strengths is our diversity.'

There were concerns from students at the end of the first year of the Oxford course, including worries about its exam-marking scheme, which led to a meeting between students and tutors (see [2002] Gazette, 5 September, 19).

While there were some 'teething problems' with the new course, the new director, Amanda Clarke - who has just joined the institute from Allen & Overy's tax department, where she supervised 12 junior associates - says the student representative's report for the last course was 'very positive'.

When it comes to the consortium firms, Gillian Hoxley, head of central training at Allen & Overy, says their trainees are now more up to speed on topics vital to City practices, such as regulation.

'The trainees' supervisors say they are able to hit the ground running.

At the end of the five-year consortium agreement, we will all have to consider what to do and nothing stands still for ever but currently we are all going ahead with it,' she says.

Suzanne Fine, head of Lovells' legal training, adds: 'We have invested a lot of time working with providers and feel the effort has been worth it.

I also think the fear of a two-tier system has been allayed as the effect has been to improve all courses.'

Non-consortium firm Ashurst Morris Crisp takes on 45 to 50 trainees a year.

Roger Finbow, partner in charge of recruitment, says the same number complete their LPCs at the three consortium providers as at various branches of the College of Law.

He does not see any hierarchy developing between the providers, though he says he speaks with 'a little bit of bias' because he is on the college's Store Street branch advisory panel and so has had an insight into the work the college has done in 'cranking up' the quality and structure of its course.

'I don't think we detect any discernible differences in the quality of training between them,' he says.

'However, the great advantage we have over the gang of eight is that we can be totally flexible in allowing our future trainees their choice of provider.

I think it has been a definite disadvantage in recruitment for some of the eight that their students don't have the same choice.'

At the College of Law, chief executive Nigel Savage says: 'All our branches are bursting at the seams, with a 10% increase in applications over last year.

We also still do a lot of training for the consortium firms as the biggest provider of their professional skills courses.

What we have done is to be aggressive in our recruitment of senior staff, taking ten from the consortium providers over the last year, including Nottingham Law School's senior design team.'

Rosemary Evans, manager of professional programmes at Staffordshire University, which offers 150 LPC places, says the City course has not had any impact on their numbers.

For her, the twin themes of the coming year will be the training review proposals and the review of the Law Society's monitoring process, which grades providers on a three-year cycle, with a three-day visit the first year, a one-day pastoral visit the second and a self-evaluation report the third.

She says: 'The Law Society has warned of "planning blight" if the training review proposals take too long.

However, I am not sure that is the issue - there is more concern that if the proposals are pushed through too quickly, they could turn out a mess.

I think from the documentation issued by the Society, firms are likely to be able to run their own LPCs but I am not sure many will want the aggravation or hassle of being constantly monitored, while smaller firms would really struggle.'

For Amanda Clarke, the important thing is that students are offered greater flexibility in the routes they can take to qualification.

'But whatever is decided, the Society is going to keep a very rigorous validation process so the maintenance of standards will continue to drive a pretty regulated approach, even as training becomes more flexible.'

Nigel Savage adds: 'The days of a one-size-fits-all course are bound to be numbered.

The Society is making the right noises about giving providers more flexibility but it then has to accept the consequences, which are that providers will be innovative.'

When it comes to the Law Society's assessment of providers, the system is good but in need of improvement, according to Rosemary Evans.

Staffordshire, which is currently graded 'very good', faces a three-day rating visit in November.

She says: 'The current monitoring system is good and needs to be done to keep people on their toes.

But whether it needs to be quite as frequent is another matter - a degree of trust has to come into it somewhere.

In the same way that over-assessing students is considered a bad thing, the same could be said for providers.'

However, amid all the debate, Roger Finbow takes a rather more pragmatic view: 'The most important thing about the LPC is that one should pass it and then get on with the real training.'

Grania Langdon-Down is a freelance journalist