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As I said in my introductory blog, I could have made life much easier for myself in actually finding a training contract if I’d done things a little differently from the outset; now I can pass on a few hints about how to make yourself as legally attractive as possible all the way along that golden training contract path, starting with…

A-Levels

I cannot stress enough how important it is to do as well as you possibly can in your A-Levels if you want to go into a career in law.  A-Level results day is the one day in my life which I think taught me more of a lesson than any other day that I can remember.  Just because you’ve excelled throughout your education so far, found your GCSEs to be a breeze and won awards for your academic excellence does not mean that things are always going to go as planned. 

A few missed marks in your A-Levels can change your grades from four A’s to four B’s.  Whilst some people might be aiming for B’s, and be very pleased with achieving these results, it really is the bare minimum level of achievement if you want to get into the top firms. 

If you look at any of the big firms’ application forms, you’ll see one of the first things commonly mentioned, before you even fill in your name, is the fact that the firm only considers applicants who have achieved between 300-340 UCAS points at A-Level (which does not include General Studies). That means you need at least three B’s, and some firms will not even accept that. If you’re lucky enough to have done that, then, and only then, can you click the magic ‘Continue’ button.

At the same time, you need to choose your universities wisely.  Again, a huge lesson that I learnt was that even with an immaculate academic record and predictions of all A’s at A-Level, not all of the top universities will accept your application.  If you only get two or three offers from these universities, then you have to perform in your A-Levels to get those top marks that they require. If you don’t perform, you’re in trouble. 

Give yourself a back-up, somewhere that maybe isn’t at a level where you’d really like to go, but somewhere you’d be happy to go, with a good reputation, which is still going to be well regarded by those graduate recruitment teams. The last thing you want to do is miss out by 7 marks from getting into your top choice university which is already oversubscribed, have a second-choice university with higher entry requirements than your first-choice which, again, is oversubscribed, and phone them both up on results day only to have them confirm your worst fears that, no, you have not been successful, but if you want you can do an undersubscribed degree in which you have zero interest.  Because then you get to go home feeling a) sick and b) like a fool, researching universities which have places available through the clearing system and scrambling to get on a course whilst your friends who thought you were the one person who would get into any university that you wanted with ease are all in the pub celebrating. 

Trust me, it’s not enjoyable.

Whilst a good-to-great academic record is a pre-requisite, as I’ve mentioned above, it won’t get you everywhere in life. Both universities and law firms are looking for those extra-curricular activities which make you more employable than the next genius. As I shall explain next time, university is where you can really take advantage of the opportunities available to strengthen your CV in these other areas.