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With average tuition fees set to hit £8,700, here’s how to minimise the financial damage while maximising CV gains So much for the government’s estimate that average tuition fees would be £7,500. With the majority of universities set to charge the full £9,000 when the fee cap is removed next year, the actual average currently stands more than £1,000 higher than anticipated – at almost £8,700. Such amounts may have little impact on those destined for elite City law firms and leading commercial barristers’ chambers, which pay trainees about £40,000 a year. But law students who pursue careers in areas such as legal aid, where entry-level earnings are among the lowest of any graduate job, look set to be weighed down by their university debts for years to come. How, then, can prospective lawyers keep the financial damage to a minimum, while at the same time gain CV-boosting experience to help them stand out in a graduate job market that’s more competitive than ever? Do a “vac scheme” – even if you have no intention of joining up full time Corporate law firms’ formal work experience programmes – which pay up to £300 a week – have traditionally been the preserve of City types. But the impressive breadth of some “vac schemes” make them worthwhile for students planning careers in other areas of law, where paid work experience is much harder to come by. Clifford Chance and Linklaters, for example, offers interns the opportunity to do pro bono – good experience for those who want to go into publicly funded legal practice. Herbert Smith and Hill Dickinson allows placement students to spend time in their specialist advocacy units, which employ in-house barristers – an excellent opportunity for bar wannabes who miss out on one of the few paid chambers work experience gigs (the handful of chambers offering funded mini-pupillages include One Gray’s Inn Square, 2 Temple Gardens, Pump Court Tax and 5 Stone Buildings). A word of warning, though: “Commercial firms want vac scheme students who are committed to their core business,” says Edward Walker, graduate recruitment manager at national law firm Pinsent Masons. “Those who aren’t may get found out during interview.” Don’t undervalue unglamorous part-time jobs Walker thinks a good strategy for law students is to find regular paid part-time work – however unglamorous – to help them survive, then weave what they have learned from it into their CVs in a thoughtful way. “A student working on the checkout at Sainsbury’s is more impressive than they often realise,” he says, adding that law firms have become slightly tired of CVs featuring “a long list of exciting-sounding, yet not especially substantial, jobs”. Walker continues: “Let’s not forget that companies like Sainsbury’s are law firms’ core clients. Understanding how their business works from the bottom up is very useful.” The experience of first-year Manchester University law student Joseph Tomlinson bears this out: “To my amazement, barristers’ chambers have been impressed by the fact I worked as a chef during my A-levels, because of the transferable skills it gave me. Despite this I have been repeatedly told by my careers service to leave this role off my CV because it has no relevance to law.” Find time for unpaid pro bono While law firms and barristers’ chambers value exposure to the commercial world, they are also keen on applicants with hands-on experience advising clients on legal matters. “Pro bono shows commitment to being a lawyer,” says Pinsent Masons’ Walker. But how do students fit in pro bono work – which often involves the time-consuming process of getting your head around new areas of law – when their evenings are spent at Sainsbury’s and their holidays full of work-experience placements? One way is to select a degree course where pro bono work is included as part of the curriculum. The law schools at the Universities of Kent (which won best law school at the annual LawWorks and Attorney General Student pro bono awards), Hull and Northumbria are all known for their “clinical” approach to legal education. Students at the former are encouraged to base their dissertations on issues arising from the real-life cases on which they have acted. “Pro bono works best when it’s not an add-on,” says Elaine Heslop, a lecturer and clinic solicitor at the University of Kent. Compete Like pro bono work, mooting (mock advocacy conducted in a courtroom setting) is time-consuming. “I won’t pretend that I haven’t lost a lot of sleep preparing bundles and skeleton arguments,” says Karamvir Chadha, who won the 2009 English Speaking Union-Essex Court Chambers national mooting competition. Unlike pro bono work, though, mooting can offer substantial financial rewards: for his triumph Chadha picked up a cash prize of £1,000; a similar sum is awarded to the winner of the other main national mooting event, the Oxford University Press & BPP national mooting competition. For those who prefer to make their arguments on paper – and are sufficiently motivated to spend their free time writing yet more essays – the rewards can be even greater. The annual Times and One Essex Court legal essay competition pays out £10,000 worth of prizes, out of which £3,500 goes to the writer of the winning piece. Take a gap year and hope a law firm will do a KPMG Earlier this year, accountants KPMG launched an initiative to sponsor students through undergraduate degrees while they work part-time for the firm, which will see it cover tuition fees, pay them a salary and give them a full-time job at the end of the course. Law firms have been looking on with interest. James Furber, senior partner at Farrer & Co, is in favour of his firm adopting a similar initiative “to keep a route into the profession open for students from less well off backgrounds”, as is Michael Shaw, head of national law firm Cobbetts. And College of Law chief executive Nigel Savage says he has “meetings lined up” with several magic circle (the five leading London-based) law firms about sponsoring students through its recently launched two-year accelerated undergraduate law degree. Those not keen on parting with £9,000 a year will hope that other firms follow KPMG’s lead. Alex Aldridge is a freelance journalist who writes about law and education Law University funding Tuition fees Alex Aldridge guardian.co.uk