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If I were the Coop, at this moment I would be concentrating on ensuring that CLS is actually around in 3 years time rather than on “lawyer training”.

Their entire business model appears to be a basket case with a family law focus at a time when there are massive cuts to family legal aid. They fail to realise that people with money are not going to use the Coop's "legal advisors" when they can use a private practice solicitor.

Their PI arm has taken a massive hit and will go completely when they sell off their insurance arm (along with all the internal referrals for employment law), and people are shopping around and realising that 5k for a law-value probate may not be the best deal available!

They are making a £4m 6 month loss on a turnover of £18m after 6-7 years trading. That is absolutely awful and would mean the end of trading for any ordinary partnership. Employees of theirs may believe the spin they put on the results that they are "investing for the future", but what possible investment can a business make in family law other than marketing (to people that can't afford their services or just don't want to use them), which is just pouring money down a big black hole a la QS. Winning telephone contracts and legal-aid contracts means nothing if the work doesn't pay (which it doesn't).

If I were an aspiring "lawyer" I'd rather take my lessons from people who have actually been there and done it rather than people who ride high on the warm, flatulent winds of marketing guff.