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Sponsorship

The legal profession is quite particular as regards sponsoring candidates through their postgraduate studies. If you are fortunate enough to secure a training contract before you embark on the Graduate Diploma in Law (for students who undertook a non-law degree) or the Legal Practice Course, your future employer may promise to cover your course fees and may even give you a maintenance grant towards your living expenses.

Course fees for the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) or Legal Practice Course (LPC) are in the region of £10,000 each so this can be a real bonus or could even mean the difference between you being able to enter the profession or not. The larger law firms tend to pay maintenance grants of up to £7,000 per year. Whilst for the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) or as it was formerly known the Bar Vocational Course (BVC) there is some funding available. If you want to be a barrister it is possible to obtain support in the form of a scholarship from one of the four Inns of Court, but contact the students officers at the different Inns for more details.

These grants and funding programmes are usually given to all students who secure their training contract whilst in education. If you are on your Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) year, it may be unlikely that you are granted the payment of your fees and the grant for the year retrospectively.

However, you will have your Legal Practice Course (LPC) funded and be paid a maintenance grant for that year. The same applies for if you secure a training contract on your Legal Practice Course LPC year – the payment of any retrospective course fees or maintenance grants are not guaranteed but don’t be afraid to ask – after all, if you don’t ask you don’t get!

Some law schools and organisations may run scholarship schemes for individuals who meet selected criteria. It is worth asking law schools of this possibility or doing your research on the internet. In addition, there are also a number of scholarships and bursaries from the governing bodies and other charitable organisations.