PGDip - Legal Practice Course - University of South Wales

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Start Date

September
Location

Pontypridd
Campus Code

A

Fees

Home students

£13,600*
Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

Start Date

September
Location

Pontypridd
Campus Code

A

Fees

Overview
Module Overview
Entry Requirements
Fees and Funding
Course Highlights
Next Steps

This Legal Practice Course is the programme of study and assessment approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), which you must complete if you want to qualify as a solicitor. The LPC is a skills-based ‘learning by doing’ course that gives you the foundation to start a training contract in a law office. You will develop the skills of advocacy, interviewing, legal writing, drafting and research.

Module Overview

Elective modules typically include Family Law and Practice, Employment Law and Practice, Commercial Property, Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence Litigation, Advanced Business and Corporate Law and Practice, Wills and Estate Planning, Advanced Criminal Litigation. Part time students must study a total of three electives over the two years of study.

Year One

Business Law and Practice and Taxation
Property Law and Practice
Litigation and Advocacy
Skills for Legal Practice
Three elective modules

Year Two

Business Law and Practice and Taxation
Property Law and Practice
Skills for Legal Practice
Elective modules

Year Three

Litigation and Advocacy
Skills for Legal Practice
Elective modules

Course Highlights

How you’ll learn

You will learn through briefing sessions and practice sessions, completing practical law file exercises and replicating real-life legal scenarios. If you study full-time, you will attend approximately 16 hours of classes each week. Part-time students have approximately 8 hours of classes delivered on one day per week. Outside these formal sessions, all students are expected to carry out preparatory work and research for file exercises. In order to maximise the time devoted to practical exercises and provide optimum flexibility for personal study, the majority of briefing sessions are delivered on-line using Panopto software.

Law Research

The Law Research Group at the University of South Wales comprises staff with a wide range of academic and practice experience. Their research interests span diverse subject areas, including: constitutional law; criminal law; employment law; equality law; family law; intellectual property law; international human rights; legal education and media law. These interests are showcased in our monthly law blog.

Facilities

Your learning will be supported by state-of-the-art study facilities, including a courtroom fully equipped with the latest digital video facilities, a legal practice library, and dedicated teaching and practise rooms. All activities are based on authentic scenarios, and research and preparation is assisted by the facilities in our modern technology suites.

Careers and Employability

Possible career paths

The LPC is a requirement for qualification as a solicitor and develops the skills you will need on entering the profession.

Careers Support

The University’s Career Services offers a range of advice and guidance to students, and references to the services available to all listed at southwales.ac.uk/careers will be added to the course website by default. However, if there are other important course or subject specific initiatives run at local a level, there is an opportunity to add further details here. Whether this includes connecting with professionals, industry experts or mentors, or strategies to enhance their competitiveness and aspirations in the job market, further details will provide prospects with the confidence, encouragement, and motivation to commit to applying.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Typical qualification requirements:

LLB (Hons) degree usually of class 2:2 or above, or all subjects of the Common Professional Examination, or a combined studies degree including the core law subjects prescribed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Students who have reached the appropriate level of qualification with the Institute of Legal Executives are also eligible for consideration for admission to the course.

All applications for the full-time LPC must be made online via the Central Applications Board at www.lawcabs.ac.uk.

Applications for the part-time LPC Stage 1 and for Stage 2 can be made using our online application form.

Additional requirements include:

The course welcomes international applicants and requires an English level of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component or equivalent.

Please note that whilst this course does not require a DBS Check for entry, some professions will not consider candidates who have certain types of criminal convictions. Therefore, if you have a criminal conviction, and you are considering a particular career path we would recommend that you check with the relevant professional body or refer to their recruitment policy to make sure that your conviction will not disadvantage you.

How to apply

International applications welcomed:

We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence please view our dedicated country pages.

English language requirements

International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 72 overall and a minimum of 18 in reading, 17 in listening, 20 in speaking and 17 in writing or equivalent.

Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.

If you have previously studied through the medium of English IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.

If you do not meet the English entry criteria please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

Contextual Admissions Policy

Fees and Funding

UK Full-time Fee

£13,600

per year*

Further Information

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy. We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

Fees and Funding Scholarships and Busaries Alumni Discount

Additional Costs

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.

Students need to pay for any printing they may need.

Cost: Up to £300

At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.

If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.

Studying at USW

Our courses are designed with industry leaders and provide the practical skills and experiences industry demands. Our flexible courses reflect the need for life-long learning. If you value education in practice, not just in theory, then USW is for you.