With university fees set to rise to £9,000 next year, anything that lessens the financial burden for law students is a welcome relief. Charlotte Edmond looks at the options

For those who make it in law, there is no doubt that the financial rewards are great. For those who don't, the effort and money spent along the way has just become even more of a bitter pill to swallow with news that universities can charge tuition fees of up to £9,000 a year from 2012.

With most of the leading universities – and, by definition, those that many leading City firms and chambers recruit from – already indicating that they will look to charge the maximum permitted £9,000 a year in tuition fees, students looking to study the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL), Legal Practice Course (LPC) or Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) are likely to be shouldering a sizable undergraduate debt burden.

Former Bar Council chair Nicholas Green QC recently estimated that, in light of undergraduate fee hikes, prospective barristers would start their careers with £60,000-£70,000 of debt.

Coupled with this, news that NatWest has withdrawn its professional loan scheme for aspiring lawyers is adding insult to injury for some students.

Clearly, maintaining diversity – particularly on the social mobility front – is going to be a key issue, with efforts focusing on ensuring that the path to law is not just available for the most wealthy.

Financial support

Many of the education providers, the Law Society and Inns of Court already offer assistance to prospective lawyers by way of scholarships and bursaries as part of measures to broaden the base of students looking to go into law. And most of the major solicitor firms will support trainees through their course, as well as give maintenance grants to cover living costs. But with incoming students facing greater costs, many institutions are reviewing the assistance they provide.

Law firms including Linklaters, Clifford Chance (CC), Herbert Smith, Eversheds and Hogan Lovells have already indicated that they are reviewing their contribution with a view to possibly increasing the number or level of awards they offer.

Aside from the usual support and maintenance grants for their trainees, several law firms also offer sponsorships, often in a bid to increase diversity.

CC, for example, sponsors 35 students at Cambridge University each year with £1,000 from a bursary scheme, as well as having in place multi-cultural scholars programmes with the University of Warwick, which supports financially disadvantaged students from Bangladeshi, Pakistani, African and Caribbean backgrounds.

SNR Denton has a bursary scheme with Birkbeck University which helps around 25 students on part-time and evening courses studying a range of subjects. Linklaters, meanwhile, gives £15,000 support to one Bachelor of Civil Law or Magister Juris student every year at Oxford, and £6,000 to support an overseas year in Australia for one at Nottingham Law School.

Other schemes include Herbert Smith's Networked programme, launched late last year by managing partner David Willis with the aim of identifying promising young professionals from five schools in five boroughs surrounding the City of London and support them through the duration of their academic degree. Five students will be selected on an annual basis to go through the programme.

In addition, Hogan Lovells offers discretionary bursaries to future trainees if they face hardship or their parents are unable to assist them financially. The amount of each bursary is based on the needs of the individual and ranges between £2,000 and £5,000.

Hogan Lovells associate director of legal resourcing Clare Harris (pictured) says: "There is always the concern that increasing tuition fees will impact on social mobility. We do have funds available for grants over and above what we usually pay for our future trainees for those that might be suffering hardship – the question is whether this is something that we need to enhance in the future. I understand many universities do offer financial support where there is a hardship issue, so students should check with the universities they apply to and find out what is available. They should not be afraid to ask."

The education providers

This year's fees at major providers such as BPP Law School and College of Law's London branches stand at around £8,800 for the GDL, £13,000 for the LPC and £16,000 for the BPTC – a sizable cost following undergraduate study.

Despite the Office for Fair Access recently publishing guidelines on the level of contribution universities should make towards fee subsidies – with those universities opting to charge the maximum tuition fee of £9,000 a year required to spend £900 per student annually on projects to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds – clearly there is going to be an impact on the number of people who can afford to continue their studies.

BPP chief executive Peter Crisp comments: "Diversity and equality in terms of social mobility is becoming a bigger issue than in terms of ethnic background. There is a feeling that law is for toffs – it's not true, but I see how people can get that impression and as a profession it is important to spread the message that it is open to everybody."

The City Law School chief operating officer Paul Long comments: "In the future, taking into account undergraduate fees, plus GDL, plus LPC, you are talking about the fat end of £50,000. This undoubtedly means that scholarships and bursaries will become more important.

"Added to this, law firms and chambers increasingly want their graduates to be well-rounded and business-savvy so often look favourably on students who have done a broad degree and then converted to law. However, this route is obviously more expensive and the LLB course remains very much in demand."

The law schools themselves also offer bursaries and awards – in 2010 BPP gave away £300,000 in scholarships and regional bursaries, while the College of Law put up £400,000, mainly via its Pathways to Law scheme, which supports A-level students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The City Law School, meanwhile, has launched a new £10,000 scholarship fund from this September to support female BPTC students.

Balancing the books

In light of the increased costs on the route to law, another issue which comes to comes to bear is the success rate of getting a job on qualification, with the subject 
in particular concentrating 
minds at the Bar, where up to 
two thirds of BPTC students never gain pupillage.

Speaking at a recent Inner Temple conference, former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer (pictured) said: "Greater financial support for those who wish to become lawyers from the time they embark on their university careers should be available… This approach risks funding people who don't get to the pupillage stage. But that is a risk we should be taking to open up access."

Falconer called for the Bar to provide more pupillage places in future, which, although it won't increase the seats available, will, he believes, improve the job prospects for those who don't make it any further. He also believes "we are close to the point" where a restriction should be placed on the number of students coming into the profession.

In recent years the profession has woken up to the need to broaden its diversity horizons. And although the impact of increased tuition fees remains uncertain until there is more guidance from the government as to the assistance available for disadvantaged students, with fresh calls to both increase the diversity but decrease the volume of students moves need to be made now to put relevant support structures in place.

Falconer summarises: "If we restrict ourselves to a small socio-economic base, while in the short-term it will appear we are keeping up our standards, that will be an illusion. If we do not reach significantly into race and economic communities which we are not reaching into now, our quality will soon be damaged."

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The route for solicitors

Most of the major City law firms will offer support for their graduate recruits in the form of maintenance grants which tend to be in the region of £7,000 for London – slightly more at the larger firms – and £6,000 outside of London.
Most also cover tuition fees for the duration of the course. Depending on the firm, this can require students to go to
a particular law school.

For students who haven't secured a training contract, the Law Society runs a diversity access scheme and a bursary programme which offer assistance with Legal Practice Course (LPC) fees. Places are predictably tight, with 175 applicants in 2010 for 25 places.

The bursary scheme is funded through a number of trusts and aims to support students with strong academic credentials who have been offered a place on an LPC. The diversity access scheme supports individuals who suffer or have suffered 'exceptional obstacles' including disability or difficult family circumstances.

In common with aspiring barristers, would-be solicitors can apply for professional and career development loans through the Young People's Learning Agency. Students can borrow from £300 to £10,000 through an arrangement with Barclays and the Co-operative Bank to help pay for their course. Although they must repay their loan, the Government will pay the interest for the duration of the course and for one month afterwards.

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The route for barristers

The main funding assistance for potential Bar entrants comes via the Inns of Court, with major bodies such as the Bar Council not running their own programmes.

In 2010, the four Inns between them donated a total of £4.5m in scholarships and awards for those intending to become barristers.

The majority of the funding is provided for students studying for the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC), although all Inns also have support available for Common Professional Examination/Graduate Diploma in Law (CPE/GDL) students.

The Inner Temple provided the most funding in 2010 (£1.23m) and is due to increase the amount available to £1.26m in 2011. Inner Temple and Lincoln's Inn have indicated that they are set to increase their input for 2011. Gray's Inn has also increased the support it will offer for 2011, raising its highest award to £17,500 (£17,000 in 2010) and the lowest to £12,250 (£7,250 in 2010).

Inner Temple head of education and training Fiona Fulton says: "The Inner Temple believes that financial need should not prevent capable students from entering the profession. As increased financial pressure is put on students looking to train for the Bar, particularly in relation to course fees, the Inns of Court have dedicated more of their funds year-on-year to scholarships.

"We are committed to ensuring fair access to the profession and the provision of financial assistance is an important way of doing so. The Inns of Court offered £4.5m in scholarships last year and the Inner Temple will allocate £1.26m alone in scholarships in 2011. This is in addition to the other substantial assistance that we provide in the form of educational sessions and career assistance."
Middle and Inner Temple interview all applicants for awards and, in addition to merit, take individual's financial situation into account when deciding whether to grant an award and for how much.

Lincoln's and Gray's Inn both interview the majority, but not all, applicants; however, their awards are entirely merit-based. Lincoln's Inn usually has around 300-320 applicants for the BPTC awards, of which about 250 are interviewed with around 110-120 awards eventually granted. For CPE, there are around 80 applicants, 70 of whom are interviewed and around 35 awards are given.
Gray's Inn, the smallest of the four, by contrast has around 130-150 applications per year for BPTC awards. About 75-85 are usually interviewed, and 50-60 are given an award.

Most application forms require applicants to detail academic achievements as well as other details, such as any mini-pupillages they have done or mooting experience. For those who get an interview, this tends to last around 15 minutes and is often in front of a panel which asks candidates the usual array of questions, such as to describe an achievement of which they are most proud and why they want to join that particular inn.

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