Twelve students who have overcome obstacles such as disability, severe illness and difficult family circumstances are to be sponsored through their legal training in the second year of the Law Society's diversity access scheme, it was announced this week. Backed by the Law Society Charity, the College of Law and BPP, they receive either free places on the legal practice course or grants for other legal courses. Winners of the awards, handed out by Department for Constitutional Affairs minister Bridget Prentice, include a tetraplegic woman who graduated from her law degree this year with first-class honours; a woman born in Sri Lanka who is confined to a wheelchair with brittle bone disease; a Nigerian person with sickle cell disease; and an Asian woman forbidden from studying after school.