“Potentially Excellent” Law Graduates - Non RG

[Delicia31]

Hello Guys,

I am a recent First Class LLB Business Law & LPC graduate from De Montfort University.

I’m looking to create a blog which focuses on the journey of law graduates who have attended a university which isn’t considered as a red brick or Russell group university. I’m specifically looking for grads who have good A-levels and 2:1 or higher.
Please add your first name or initials, degree classification, university, grad year.

I’d like to know your experience including:

- do you feel like your career team at university helped your enough: importance of vacation schemes, applying for TC, limits you may encounter due to your current uni or even encouraged you to transfer unis.

- what were your A-level grades like? Would you have resit exams knowing what you know now?

- Reasons for attending your uni or transferring.

- did you attempt to apply for VS or gain experience at good law firms or didn’t bother - why not?

- after grad, did you get a paralegal job or TC straight away?

- did top Law agencies e.g. ‘Law support’ consider your applications?

Stories
- any regrets or proudness of undertaking a law degree?

- are you using your degree in other sectors? E.g finance, recruitment.

- any good/bad interviews based on your academic results.

- any success stories of individuals receiving a TC at a reputable firm despite your uni.

- any other contributing factors? E.g. Family, race, class

This blog aims to focus on individuals like myself who are considered as ‘Potentially Excellent’ as they have the necessary requirements to become a lawyer yet the competitive market doesn’t offer a fair chance.

Bringing some awareness could help the next generation of law students or even change the view of employers.

Thank you in advance!

 

[D95]

Hi Delicia, happy to chime in! c


D.W., First Class LLB Law with International Arbitration and Commercial Law, Brunel University London, graduated in 2018

- Do you feel like your career team at university helped your enough: importance of vacation schemes, applying for TC, limits you may encounter due to your current uni or even encouraged you to transfer unis.
As much as I enjoyed my time at university overall, this is where I feel Brunel did not support me (and the rest of my cohort) enough - as an EU student, I became aware of the importance of vacation schemes only when I started my final year - that was my first round of, very unpolished, applications. How I managed to get onto one assessment centres without much preparation - I still do not know.
The university is great with supporting students with professional placement option, but I think it was not pushing us enough.
I have noticed that following feedback the Law School is now much more active in this regard and actually pushes students to apply for VS and TCs from the very first moment. Whilst I am happy that they took our feedback onboard, I am a bit disappointed that I missed out on this.

- What were your A-level grades like?
I am from one of the EU countries and I got an equivalent of four A-levels at (roughly) grades A*AAA.

- Reasons for attending your university.
I am going to be completely honest here - I had no idea whatsoever about the Russell Group. I remember coming across this term and quickly dismissing it because it allegedly only had an impact on research. I chose Brunel because it was pretty high in ranking in 2013/2014 (when I applied), it had a placement year offer and had a London-based campus.
In hindsight, I know that I could have gone to a much "better" university, or at least one of the targeted ones. However, I am trying to not delve on it too much. I was an 18 year old girl dreaming about moving to London, did not have anyone to help me with applications and so I went through the entire UCAS process entirely by myself. I think I did a pretty good job
I also think it is counter-productive to wonder "what would happen if I went to a red brick uni"... Well, I don't keep a time-machine in my backyard to find this out and in any case it is best to focus on the future and on how to work with the cards that I was given.

- Did you attempt to apply for VS or gain experience at good law firms or didn’t bother - why not?
Admittedly, I went through a few months of serious lack of confidence which resulted in not proceeding with some applications. However, this summer I did a vac scheme with a US law firm and before that I landed places on open days at some other big City law firms, so I can only assume that my non-RG status was not the end of the world. Of course, there is a small pool of law firms which hire only from Oxbridge or top RG, but there are still plenty others where you can find trainees from a wide range of universities.

- After grad, did you get a paralegal job or TC straight away?
Ever since graduation I have been working in-house for technology companies, sending TC applications in the meantime.

- Did top Law agencies e.g. ‘Law support’ consider your applications?
Yes, when I started to look for another job a few months ago and opened my LinkedIn profile, I got plenty of messages from different recruiters. I went through a few interviews and finally decided to take on another in-house role. Also, my lack of LPC was not too much of a problem - while some employers favour applicants with LPC, it is not always decisive.


And, on a final note: I have been working really hard for the past few months to get rid the negative kind of mindset that I have to prove something *despite* my university background. Once I stopped obsessing about it and thinking that every rejection was purely based on my alma mater, I discovered that actually it is all down to better application technique, improving self-esteem and developing more commercial awareness -> these are the things that I should now be focusing on and not the place of my university in the league tables.