Asking the Right Questions; Fight for Legal Diversity

Today, I wrote an email to the BPP Law School asking questions about their decision to increase the fees for the LPC and BVE whilst also questioning their ethics in regards to students, scholarships and how they could change.

To whom it may concern,

 

I am writing to enquire as to the recent publication by The Legal Week which reported that law schools across England and Wales, notably yourselves and others in the London district, decided to increase fees on average of 9%, following the line of trans-Atlantic law schools in their decision to do the same.

 

Below, I have included an extract from The Legal Week which highlights what I see as an error in judgment in making this decision.

 

“Three of London’s law schools have considerably increased their Legal Practice Course (LPC), despite the widespread cost-cutting measures currently being implemented across the profession. BPP Law School has hiked annual fees for its London LPC students by more than 9% to £12,500, a move that means it remains the country’s most expensive law school. The college’s branches in Leeds and Manchester will see a more modest increase of 4.7%, from from £9,550 up to £9,995. Meanwhile, arch-rival The College of Law is set to introduce a fee increase of 8.8% as of September, meaning the LPC will set back a trainee lawyer £11,250, up from £10,340….”

 

This decision seems to mean illogical considering the fact that it was reported that the last quarter produced profits beyond expectations and there has been a general decline in the economic boom, therefore suggesting that the law schools should decrease their fees in order to help students gain better access to the law profession.

 

Instead, it appears as though your company is attempting to create a system which rewards wealth and power above intelligence and hard work. The few scholarships that you do provide are often available to only one student. I appreciate that you are a business but that does not give you the right to manipulate the system to your own end.

 

You seem to forget that it is the students who continue to fund your business and provide you with the profits and this decision has outraged many people, particularly myself.

 

The Cohen Scholarship Programme which is one of the few that was offered to more than one person but it comes with two catches. Students have to study the Legal Practice Course and the Graduate Diploma in Law and they have to be working for it at either Leeds or Manchester. What about London students?

 

It is, in essence, further limiting access to law.

 

People who have studied law are left at a disadvantage by the few and far between scholarships that are offered.

 

I would have thought these students should be the priorities.

 

What I fail to understand is how this can be the case.

 

Why are you increasing your fees?

 

Have your costs increased?

 

By the very nature of law itself, one would assume that demand has decreased for the law profession. I do, of course, know that last year alone, thirty thousand students applied for three hundred pupilages. Furthermore, eighty thousand students studied law despite the current demand being around the fifteen thousand mark.

 

It suggests that demand is increasing.

 

Where has the logic gone?

 

If you could provide me with some answers, I would be most appreciative.

 

Yours sincerely,

Ian Caithness