The Route to Qualification
The route to qualification as a solicitor has changed and all our future trainee solicitors now take the SQE path to qualification. You can find more information on the SQE route to qualification on the SRA website.
We have collaborated with BPP Law School and 5 other global law firms (the City Consortium) to create the City Consortium Solicitor Training Programme (‘CCP’). The CCP is a 12-month course which includes SQE1 and SQE2 preparation as well the bespoke Plus Programme which focuses on key areas for our practice, as well as the additional knowledge, skills, and professional behaviours necessary to ensure that you are well prepared to undertake your training contract with us.
The CCP runs in February and September each year, in-person, at BPP (London), with trainees joining the firm the following March and September respectively. The CCP is an integrated master’s course which means that, following the completion of the course, students will be awarded a Master of Laws in Legal Practice. You can read more about the CCP here.
If you have not completed a law degree in England and Wales, we may require you to complete all, or some, modules of the Law Conversion Course (PGDL) before commencing the CCP. This is likely to be necessary if you have not completed modules in these seven key areas of law: Contract, Tort, Criminal Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law, Property Law, Equity and Trusts, and the Law of the European Union. You may study the Law Conversion Course (PGDL) in person at any BPP branch; Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, London (Waterloo) or Manchester.
We pay the course fees for the Law Conversion Course (PGDL) and the CCP and provide a maintenance grant of £12,000 for the Law Conversion Course and £20,000 for the CCP. There is also an interest-free loan of up to £3,000 available to all new trainees once month before the start of their training contract, and an interest-free financial hardship loan of up to £3,000 available to our future trainees.
As the CCP is an integrated master’s course, UK students studying this course are also eligible for Student Finance England government loan funding, provided they have not already taken advantage of it for another master’s course.
OUR ROUTE TO QUALIFICATION
- Undergraduate degree
- Law Conversion Course (PGDL - non-law students only)
- CCP - SQE1 Preparation Programme (approx. 15 weeks)
- SQE 1 Assessment
- City Consortium Plus Programme (approx. 15 weeks)
- CCP - SQE 2 Preparation Programme (approx. 9 weeks)
- SQE 2 Assessment
- Qualifying work experience i.e. the training contract (2 years)*
- Qualified
*Our training contract is intended to provide you with the two years’ qualifying work experience required before you are eligible to apply to qualify as a solicitor. We will normally require anyone qualifying to a position as a solicitor with this firm to have completed our full two-year contract.
The firm is considering what the training contract of the future will look like in the new Qualifying Work Experience (QWE) world. The changes the SRA is implementing present us with a unique opportunity to sculpt a new and exciting two-year programme that allows for an innovative refresh of training for our future lawyers, alongside a renewed focus on what our current and future clients need from our legal services.