Can you work AND do the GDL?

It’s also a rather expensive year. Even if you are lucky enough to have a training contract (which covers fees and can give a grant of up to £7,500 for the year), there won’t be heaps of spare cash lying around.

If you move down to London and decide to rent, £5,000 can easily be blown on accommodation alone during the year, quickly eating up the majority of any grant.

Those without training contracts can face bills for Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) tuition fees to the tune of £10,000 – the cost of studying law after university is significant. But the million dollar question (or £65 a week question): can you get a job on the side whilst staying afloat with the Graduate Dipolma in Law (GDL) workload?

There are two things to consider here. Firstly, is there time? Whilst there is a great deal of studying required every week, you should be able to perform solidly on the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) by doing a nine to five everyday.

Although timetabling will vary from one law school to another, it’s likely you’ll have four or five days when you should be on campus do attend lectures or tutorials. So, assuming you devote those days entirely to getting work done, you could find yourself with between two to three days a week free to work.

Furthermore, don’t forget that as online learning resources become more widely used by institutions, you can watch lectures online from home rather than going into certain law schools during the week. If your time management’s any good, you can use this to your advantage and free up even more time for part time work. This said, it’s still important to have time to socialise and relax – if you spend five days a week studying solidly and the remaining two working, it could be a rather tough year.

As such, one option which is always popular for those who simply cannot attend law school without earning a significant amount on the side is to do the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) part-time over two years. This way, you should technically have half the workload compared with those on the full-time course. With some institutions offering evening and weekend teaching to part-timers, it’s definitely possible to hold down a full-time job during the week, though it certainly requires dedication and hard work to remain on top of things.

Secondly, one has to consider the economic climate and types of job available. Although the UK is supposedly showing signs of coming out of recession soon, it won’t be the easiest thing to walk into a part-time job. Law schools generally aren’t like universities, with student unions offering casual work to hundreds.

If you’re studying the GDL full-time, a popular option for those seeking employment is casual shop work on the days off. Something like office work isn’t the easiest thing arrange for a couple of days a week or at weekends, but you never know what opportunities are knocking around.

One final tip: avoid night time pub or bar work unless you absolutely have no other choice. If you can get away with working from say 10am-7pm at the weekends, there’s no problem; but working later shifts isn’t always conducive to productive studying. For example, if you finish law school at 5pm on a weekday then head off to work at your local between 6pm and 2am, it won’t be overly helpful in assisting your academic routine.

But, nobody knows their strengths and weaknesses better than individuals themselves. If you think you can work long hours in the evenings and get all of your studying done regardless, then go for it. If you know that you’re a bit of a last minute preparer for classes, you may want to think carefully about how you’d fit a job in. Though don’t forget: although the GDL’s tough, a bit of self-discipline and careful time management should see you through it just fine.

Michael Jacobs

GDL Graduate

Trainee at Herbert Smith

30-09-2009