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Alex Aldridge Bar Vocational Course

Kaplan test of professional competence. Will you take the test?

"Why do you think would be a good lawyer?" asks James Wakefield, director of vocational courses Bar (BPTC) at Kaplan Law School.

"Well, I think it's, uh, a question that depends on a number of factors ..." I answer, in the manner of someone who would be a bad lawyer, as Wakefield is doing everything possible to maintain a neutral facial expression.

I'm halfway through the final section of the aptitude test of two hours the London School of Kaplan law requires that lawyers who aspire to sit for admission to the BPTC. The test is the only of its kind, with eight other course providers BPTC asking only that students have a 2.2 or 2.1 A in some cases, at ground level. This open door policy - which sees about 1,700 students enroll each year in the BPTC, then fight for only 500 pupillages after graduation - has created a large number of disappointed candidates after the course. With unsuccessful candidates who return year after year to put in more requests for internships, which compromise the system in the process, it is estimated that only one in six graduates BPTC be lawyers. However, students of BPTC Kaplan, who presented his aptitude test when the course began in 2009, a 46% chance to get an internship before graduation, with 27% followed by an internship recording. Additional, but unspecified, percentage of practices hold bag lawyer within one year after completing the course.

I do not

Kaplan because I want to become a lawyer, I tried six years ago, and became one of the training camps of lawyers many of them don ' not graduate to ensure placement. Fortunately, during my career of 20 fruitless interviews I have a slot that the details of my failures at the time and became a journalist instead of a lawyer. Without this break, however, would probably still be working as a paralegal.

memories of reading these conversations in my mind for the admission test of Kaplan, which is very similar to an internship interview. It begins with a 40-minute exercise in writing (which was needed to provide legal advice to a company involved in a conflict), followed by a right of counsel (a letter on behalf of an individual in the civil courts ), and ended with a ten-minute presentation on the bar and my motivation to become a lawyer.

The test is difficult, requiring a large amount of information that is absorbed, and the analysis carried out before long. Without my previous experience in the study and interviews of the bar, I think it would have failed. So I spend - although Wakefield, which manages my test, he told me that my interview style was poor. I would not have been up to in this section alone, explained in the answer post-test (see below).

I'm surprised to hear that, because I've always thought that I found very good - if a little walk - in interviews, and this was my promotional technique that considers Wakefield it has great potential, not let me down. Maybe five years to justify my arguments in the press as a journalist and as a result less out has improved my defense to the detriment of my social skills? Or maybe you've always been a competent and not very good at interviews?

The thing is, as a student BPTC is often difficult to get an idea of ??what is good and where improvements are needed. Reviews contained within my course the helm in 2005-06 at City University, where promotion sessions were organized in groups of six and great emphasis on students who criticize each other, often confusing and contradictory. And the answer he received from lawyers rejected rooms I was too polite to give a real sense of where he went wrong. By the way, if I did everything again, I relish the opportunity to finance through my steps before release so now you can be as much as £ 17 000 in course fees. Many feel the same: hence the clamor to force other law schools to follow the example of Kaplan

The problem is that aptitude tests are slow, costly to administer, and, if done properly, to limit the number of students significantly affected the earnings of the law schools - as Kaplan has taught, so that a loss in its BPTC each of the three years he was running. Map of Wakefield for the course is beautifully long-term ambition: to build slowly growing reputation as an institution Kaplan's elite professional training of the bar, while gradually increasing the number (85-90 l next year for students taking the course, the 100 is the breakeven point in terms of making money). Further, law schools already established who have become accustomed to healthy incomes BPTC from 400 or more students, and understandably reluctant to employ this strategy.

The good news for those law schools is that, despite calls from others to develop an aptitude test, there seems little appetite for authentic inside the bar which is necessary. When the idea was born in 2009, and met with some concern the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for competitive reasons, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) quickly shifted gears and began working at be, an exploration, to pass a test is ready to be introduced in 2013. Few expect this commitment to have a significant effect. Voluntary testing has no component of the promotion, or element, even legal and is designed to eliminate the small percentage of students who fail the BPTC instead of many who fail to get internships.

In the future, one can study legal education courses could shake a situation that counsel for the former president of Nicholas Green, QC, admitted "real qualms about it .. . "with rumors that the distinction between the lawyer and the lawyer training could be scrapped in favor of a course in the new joint. Meanwhile, future lawyers who want to get an idea of ??their ability to do before the game of big money in the course fees are in the absurd position of having to rely on a private law school in the seeking help, because the BSB looks away. And that is only available if they get through the strict Kaplan powder of the first round of applications to decide who gets an interview. The bar should be the next generation than that.

Alex Aldridge is the editor of the cheek legal

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