Courses
The Work-Life Balance
What is it going to be like on the LPC?
It was a long year. At times it felt like there was no end to the work that was being dumped at my feet and the end of term breaks seemed more like breathing space to catch up on work and prepare for the next load. There were times, however, when it eased up a bit and I was able to go out and sit in the sun with some lunch and a beer.
My name is Bob Ashcroft and I studied the Legal Practice Course (LPC) at Kaplan Law School in 2007/08. I got a distinction overall and took the corporate electives of Equity Finance, Private Acquisitions and Advanced Commercial Litigation.
I think the key to my success was being able to enjoy myself whilst utilising my time productively during the day. By getting the work done during the breaks in teaching I was still able to see my friends and on the rare occasion when I got a Friday afternoon off, I could even go away for a little while.
Before I started the Legal Practice Course (LPC) I was worried about what demands it would make on my time and whether I would have any life at all whilst studying for it. When I enrolled I seriously thought that my worst fears had just come true as I was handed a bag stuffed full of text books and paperwork.
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"This meant that I could often stop in the pub at the end of the day and more often than not had the weekends to myself..."
For the first couple of weeks it still seemed that way as I found that preparing for a seminar on the Legal Practice Course (LPC) was so much different to my degree at university.
As soon as I learnt how you should prepare for seminars things got a lot better. I’m not saying that it became easy, but it became more enjoyable and quicker to get ready for each session.
I think it was at this point that I could see that the Legal Practice Course (LPC) was not going to take up every waking hour of my life! I could look ahead at the timetable and see which weeks were going to be busy. I think it was pretty much the same for everyone and sure enough as soon as we saw an easier week coming up we organised some sort of social.
From my point of view the key thing was making use of my time at the law school. When I didn’t have a lecture or a seminar I was in the library getting sorted for the other seminars that week. This meant that I could often stop in the pub at the end of the day and more often than not had the weekends to myself.
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One period when I found that I didn’t have a lot of time to myself was during the Christmas break. The term finished on about the 22nd of December and the mock exams were on our first day back, which was the 6th of January.
This meant that basically Christmas was only a day off whilst doing revision for those exams. Likewise the Easter break was mostly spent beginning the revision for the final exams.
So if you keep up to date and work hard when you need to you can definitely strike a good work-life balance whilst studying for the Legal Practice Course (LPC).
Bob Ashcroft
Kaplan Law School LPC student 2007/8
http://www.kaplanlawschool.org.uk30-09-2009
