Law professors dismissed training courses offering to prepare prospective law students for the new national admissions test for law (LNAT) exam as a waste of money this week, claiming that coaching will not improve test scores.

Private training company Kaplan announced last month that it had launched two-day training sessions to prepare students for the LNAT test, at a charge of £200 (see [2004] Gazette, 5 August, 7). The test has been introduced by eight red-brick universities to assist in selecting law undergraduates.


Professor Alastair Mullis, dean of law at the University of East Anglia, said: 'Any sensible student should practise the test, using the sample questions on the LNAT Web site (www.lnat.ac.uk) and the various books available. But the test is not coachable in the sense that substantive law would be. These courses are a waste of money.'


Professor David Fox, academic secretary of Cambridge University's law faculty, said: 'We are not encouraging, or expecting, any of our applicants to sign up to coaching sessions. The LNAT is meant to be a test of the skills needed to study law, and I am not convinced that these can be developed by coaching sessions.'


Rodney Austin, sub dean and law faculty tutor at University College London (UCL), said he had refused to endorse LNAT training sessions. He added: 'The LNAT enables us to pick out students who may demonstrate extremely good logical reasoning and analytical abilities even though they may have modest academic qualifications, for reasons of economic disadvantage. It is relatively immune to coaching.'


Kaplan executive director Lev Kaye said the company had developed strategies to boost students' scores, as well as offering them test-like conditions in which to practise. He said: 'With 85% of new students coming to us through referrals from former Kaplan students, our business has been built on raising students' scores... We hope that law professors will remain open-minded to options that help their students succeed.'


So far eight universities - Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Durham, Nottingham, Birmingham, East Anglia and UCL - have adopted the test in addition to traditional methods.


The controversy over LNAT coaching comes as a government task force, led by Professor Steven Schwartz of Brunel University, prepares to issue its final report on the university admissions process.


Last September, Professor Schwartz said universities should consider taking into account a student's background and the type of school they attended - and not just their academic results - when considering them for admission.