Alex Newman gauges reaction from the frontline of legal education to BPP's attractive offer for jobless grads

It's a tough time for law graduates. For those who emerge from the legal practice course (LPC) without a training contract, the wave of job cuts currently sweeping through the market means prospects for aspiring lawyers look bleak.

So, at first glance, BPP Law School's offer of a free qualification worth up to £16,500 for its LPC students who have failed to secure a legal job six months after graduation sounds like a fantastic deal.

The initiative, announced last week, is a bold statement of confidence – to both the market and future students – that BPP will near enough guarantee a legal job for the bulk of its LPC students; a statement the law school seems willing to make a financial bet on.

"We want to go a step further with the free qualification offer as a way of demonstrating our commitment to enhancing the CVs of all of our students," said Peter Crisp (pictured), the school's dean and CEO.

The offer – which will apply to any students starting the LPC from September – will see free qualifications available in a number of areas, including the major qualifications of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Graduates can also opt for an MSc degree at BPP Business School or courses to become a chartered financial analyst or tax adviser, while law qualifications include any of BPP's Masters of Law courses or the New York Bar course.

To qualify for the free courses, graduates must be able to show evidence of having applied to a range of positions in employment "at a solicitors' practice or another organisation where the function is a legal one".

However, initial reaction from many in the market to BPP's offer has been tempered with scepticism, with some questioning the comfort such a measure would bring to graduates who fail to get a job.

"This is like offering cigarettes to a non-smoker," comments one senior manager at a rival legal education provider. "You are essentially offering someone something they didn't know they wanted, with all the risks of fostering long-term dependency on another professional qualification. If a student does not have a training contract at the end of their LPC, they would not think of their study as a successful experience."

Indeed, those who take up the highly subscribed ACCA or CIMA courses are perhaps just as likely to find themselves in a similar position after the conclusion of their free course, while other qualifications may not necessarily make students more employable, as John Flood, professor of law and sociology at the University of Westminster, points out: "There's going to be no point in doing the New York Bar course because if you don't have a US law qualification, no one is going to hire you." 

However, others are more positive. Richard Moorhead, professor of law and professional ethics at University College London, says: "It's canny marketing. It draws some distinctions between BPP and the University of Law in terms of the broader business base to their training. It is good to see them thinking about the students, worried no doubt by continuing softness in the market."

According to research carried out by BPP, 89% of its 2011-12 cohort gained training contracts or other legal work within three months of passing their LPC. The school did not have a further breakdown of the statistics, an indication of how many students in the year were surveyed, or any details of what proportion of the 89% had secured training contracts.

Nigel Savage, dean of the University of Law, describes the move as "a marketing gimmick of 'buy one get one free'", adding: "At the end of the day, it is the Americanisation of the education system; we all take our values from our parents, they take their values from the University of Phoenix." 

BPP is owned by the for-profit educational group Apollo Global, the parent company of a raft of education providers including the University of Phoenix, while the University of Law – formerly the College of Law – was last year taken over by Montagu Private Equity.

Travers Smith graduate recruitment co-head Caroline Edwards cautions: "It is clearly a sign of how tough it is out there for graduates, and in my mind it underscores the risk of embarking on the LPC without a training contract. What I am not sure about is whether it will improve students' prospects.

"If a student has taken extra qualifications, we want to understand why that would help them working for us; I don't always see it as a positive. Equally, I might ask questions of a student who had taken the LPC and then an accountancy course as to how this would help them."