Serious about social responsibility
The College of Law works in and for the legal services industry. Our remit has always stretched further than giving the next generation of lawyers the highest standards of training.
Our charitable status allows us the scope to re-invest in the legal community and to work towards a profession that truly represents the society it serves.
And our position as the UK’s leading law school, together with our network of contacts, Alumni and strategic partners puts us in the perfect place to achieve a wide range of goals from increasing accessibility and diversity in the industry to driving the legal services policies of the future.
Pioneers in pro bono
Henry Hodge Traineeship
Pathways to Law programme
Law Society Diversity Access Scheme
College of Law scholarship schemes
Future Lawyers Network
Legal Services Institute
Getting graduates into work
Environmental responsibility
Pioneers in pro bono
The College of Law is renowned for its pioneering and award-winning pro-bono programmes, which benefit both the public and our students. We have made this a keystone of our practice-based training and operate a huge number of free legal advice schemes from our centres around the UK. This focus has made us one of the most significant contributors to pro bono work in the community, and our people and schemes have regularly received public recognition for their efforts.
Pro Bono Annual Report 2009-10
More information on free legal advice
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Henry Hodge Traineeship
Legal aid work is essential in making the law more accessible for all. The College of Law has always been committed to furthering the practice of law in this area and Sir Henry Hodge, the College’s former Deputy Chair of Governors, was a leading pioneer in legal aid practice. Following his death in 2009, we were proud to establish the Henry Hodge Traineeship for College LPC students seeking to forge a career in legal aid work.
The recipient spends the first year of the training contract in the College’s London Bloomsbury Legal Advice Centre. In the second year, they are seconded to Hodge Jones & Allen LLP, a leading legal aid firm co-founded by Henry Hodge in 1977.
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Pathways to Law programme
The College of Law is the major financial contributor to the innovative Pathways to Law scheme. Created in collaboration with the Sutton Trust charity, leading law firms and seven Russell Group universities, the scheme aims to provide career opportunities for academically able state school students who come from less advantaged backgrounds and have no family history of university education. Our £3m commitment will help the scheme achieve its aims of widening access to the legal professions and increasing diversity within the legal services industry.
The scheme provides support throughout years 12 and 13, including lectures, seminars, advice sessions, mentoring, law firm placements and a three-day national conference.
The scheme currently offers 375 places per year and has already helped nearly 1,250 students since it started in September 2007.
More information on Pathways to Law
Pathways to Law was shortlisted in the ‘Excellence in Equality and Diversity’ category of the Law Society Excellence Awards 2010.
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Law Society Diversity Access Scheme
The Law Society Diversity Access Scheme aims to improve social mobility in the legal profession by supporting promising entrants who also face exceptional social, educational, financial or personal obstacles to qualification. The College supports this scheme to the equivalent of six full-time LPC course fees each year.
More information on the Law Society Diversity Access Scheme
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College of Law scholarship schemes
In addition to our work with Pathways to Law and the Law Society Diversity Access Scheme, The College of Law has established its own scholarship schemes to help talented students fund their legal training and achieve their career ambitions. Scholarships currently apply to our LL.B, GDL and LPC programmes.
More information on our LL.B scholarships
More information on our GDL and LPC scholarships
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Future Lawyers Network
Our Future Lawyers Network is designed to open up the possibility of a legal career to young people and career changers. This exclusive online community is free to join and open to anyone over the age of 16 who is considering a career in law.
More information on our Future Lawyers Network
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Legal Services Institute
In parallel with our work to increase access and diversity within the industry, The College of Law is working towards shaping legal services policy so that it is fit to meet the challenges of the future. To help achieve this we established the Legal Services Institute in 2007. This think-tank, under the leadership of renowned industry figure Professor Stephen Mayson, is a totally independent body, funded by us, but dedicated to the public interest.
More information on the Legal Services Institute
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Getting graduates into work
Whilst we are committed to increasing diversity and access to the legal services industry, we are equally aware of our responsibilities towards our own students. As such, our focus is to provide not only practice-based training, but a market-leading law careers and employability service that makes the most of our outstanding network of contacts throughout every area of the legal industry.
This combination means our graduates are in a unique position when it comes to finding employment – they have the practical skills that employers are looking for, plus access to a wide range of pro bono work placements and over 3,000 legal job vacancies a year. It’s little wonder that over 84% of our LPC students find employment within the legal industry within months of graduating (based on known records of students successfully completing their studies in 2010).
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Environmental responsibility
As a member of the Legal Sector Alliance, The College of Law is committed to achieving specific targets for carbon reduction – a principle adopted by the Alliance during 2011. In recognition of our efforts, we were delighted to be shortlisted by the Law Society for the 2011 Legal Sector Alliance Award for Excellence in Environmental Responsibility.
The College was nominated for its achievement in reducing electricity consumption by 18% in the past year, through a programme of environmental initiatives that included investment in energy saving equipment and facilities works, as well as behavioural changes across all of our centres.
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