Part time law students: first contact

Andrew Francis, Keele University, and Iain McDonald, University of the West of England

This paper presents the initial findings from the authors’ research into the experiences and aspirations of part time law students. The project, supported by the Nuffield Foundation, takes the form of questionnaires sent to participating institutions – to get involved contact Andrew (e-mail:
a.m.francis@law.keele.ac.uk) or Iain (e-mail: iain.mcdonald@uwe.ac.uk).

While part time higher education has been studied generally, part time law degree programmes have never received the same attention, despite the fact that part time law students account for, on average, 16% of the total undergraduate population.

We argue that the very nature of the cohort and their aspirations requires us to ask difficult questions about the nature and purpose of legal education and its capacity to meet government objectives of lifelong learning and widening participation within a legal context. It may also represent an additional way in which the legal profession can welcome entrants from potentially more diverse backgrounds. Moreover, lessons learnt from examining the delivery of legal education to this diverse group may help us address the increasingly blurred boundaries between full and part time law students.

Despite these compelling reasons for our attention, part time law students have rarely been studied as a specific student body. In this context, the question posed by this year’s conference theme takes on an added importance. When we ask whether legal education is working, what model of legal education are we considering? Moreover, if the model is broad enough to include part time routes in legal education, how can we judge its success when there have been few attempts to document its practices and effectiveness?

Given the absence of part time law students within legal education literature it seems reasonable to conclude that when we ask ourselves otherwise valid questions such as ‘Is legal education working?’ we are making assumptions about who our students are. Maynard (1992) argues that “Universities [are] still clinging…to a normalized notion of the student as a single, geographically mobile 18-21 year old. “ Our initial survey findings present an emerging picture of a part time law student aged between 22-40, with work and caring responsibilities who is geographically immobile.

As effective teaching stems from an appreciation of individual learning environments it is important to foster legal pedagogical research which incorporates a diverse range of students. However, as long as existing assumptions of who our law students are continue to proscribe whose voices and concerns are privileged and explored, equally important questions of what problems part time law students face or advantages they may bring to their studies remain unanswered or forgotten.

It is our belief that a core explanation for assumptions about ‘typical’ students is based upon the understandable desire of law schools and part time law students to assert the equivalence of their legal qualification with the full time law degree. Such assertions of equivalence ignore important sites of difference (notwithstanding our earlier point about the increasingly blurred boundaries between part time and full time legal education).

However, the problem of assumptions shaping our view of law students does not seem to be limited solely to higher education. What assumptions do the professions make about their ideal recruits? Clifford Chance’s glib reply to The Trainee about how best to secure a training contract offers a worrying response:

“Simple…Go to a good university, get a 2:1 and have a fantastic personality.”

— (The Trainee May 2000, p28)

Corporate recruitment brochures are selling a lifestyle to the young urban professional. However, these images seem to leave little room to accommodate non-traditional entrants to the corporate world (which is by far the largest recruiter). It is difficult to see where the 40 something part time law graduate with childcare responsibilities fits in with the picture of the typical trainee solicitor in a large city firm.

Empirical research also suggests further factors impacting upon the likelihood of a candidate successfully securing a traineeship. Halpern (1994, pp77-81) and Goriely and Williams (1996, pp23-35) are in broad agreement that a graduate’s chances of obtaining a training contract are significantly related to:

• their A Level score
• the type of institution at which they studied their degree
• their degree class mark
• the type of school that they attended at age 14
• their ethnic background
• their work experience
• whether they had relatives in the profession

Lee (1999) also notes the additional emphasis that elite law firms place on vacation employment schemes as a process of recruitment.

With many part time students entering study with few formal educational qualifications, but with many pressures on their time and finances, it is apparent that these students’ chances may be significantly compromised by the operation of such criteria.

In an effort to question some of these assumptions we have embarked upon a major empirical study exploring the experiences and aspirations of part time law students in England and Wales. This large scale project, supported by the Nuffield Foundation, takes the form of questionnaires sent to participating institutions. Over half of all institutions providing part time law degrees have already responded to an initial invitation to participate – if you are not one of these and would like to be, please contact the authors. These questionnaires will be supported by a further focus group study at a smaller sample of institutions and students. The following findings and our initial responses to them represent the results of our first contact with these students.

First contact: initial findings

The results (and our analysis of them) are extremely tentative, based on returns from just two institutions so far. Already however the data that we have been able to generate is providing valuable information about an often ignored cohort.

Biographical data

• the typical student – the typical part time student is aged between 22-40, with work and caring responsibilities who is geographically immobile.

However, it is perhaps more accurate to acknowledge that there is not a typical part time law student, but rather students with a multiplicity of backgrounds and circumstances (equally the complexity of our full time law students’ experiences should not be reduced to a stereotypical thumbnail sketch). Nevertheless there are a number of points worth drawing out from the initial statistical data.

• age – part time law students are overwhelmingly over 21 years of age, with nearly 40% our respondents between 31-40 years of age
• full time employment – the majority of respondents are in full time paid employment in a wide range of occupations. The fact that the majority of students were engaged in full time employment also suggests that these students are studying to facilitate a career change – or to progress within the legal sphere they work in. While our questionnaire did invite respondents to think about personal reasons for doing a degree, only 7.5% specifically said that they were not doing the degree for vocational reasons.
• level of qualifications – in contrast to lower or less traditional educational biographies, we found in our initial research into part time law students in 2000 most of the current respondents – 53% – had A Levels or equivalent and 27% had further qualifications

So, interestingly, these respondents in terms of their educational background are not perhaps that dissimilar to our stereotypical 18 year olds – although this is clearly something that may change as further responses are returned. However, even at this stage, we have no information on the A Level grades or the way in which they were obtained (for example night school, type of school) – so their formal equivalence may not serve them any better in their attempts to secure entry to the profession.

• finance – the sample is overwhelmingly self-financing, which may explain why financial matters are a recurring concern for the respondents. This also clearly separates them from the still largely parentally supported full time undergraduates.
• work experience – previous studies have already established the crucial importance of legal work experience in securing a training contract. Most of our respondents had not had legal work experience in the sense of placements.

Interestingly however, 27% of respondents either worked in or had employment experience of law related occupations (including government and the Civil Service, this figure rose to 38%). While our initial figures are still too limited to make grand statements, those employed in these fields were more likely to have arranged further legal work experience and were the only respondents to have secured training contracts. If such findings are borne out across the entire study this would provide further evidence that the legal profession remains open to those it knows or recognises as one of its own. Beyond this the profession could potentially appear to be falling back on some of the problematic assumptions about the ideal recruits that we sketched out earlier.

In other words, for those ‘outside’ the profession, it seems that here as with many other aspects of their part time study the students may have differential levels of access to the experiences necessary to develop the ‘cultural capital’ that is such an important ingredient for success in the legal profession. Their legal education in this important sense can be seen as partial, when compared to the full time LLB path. Once more the problematic assumptions of the equivalence/difference debate surface.

Reasons for studying law

• mainly vocational reasons – 64% of the respondents wished to enter the legal profession.

Clearly vocational aims dominate the motivations of part time law students – their purpose is advancement in the job market, but specifically entry into the legal profession.

• personal motivations – even when asked directly about personal reasons for studying law, overwhelmingly (70%) the respondents cited an interest in law

Why the part time route?

• to accommodate work – most students chose to study part time in order to accommodate their work.

We’ve seen that many part time students are already in full time employment and need to maintain the employment while working towards a career change. Far less important for students was the flexibility of the entrance requirements. Many courses advertise themselves as having extremely flexible/non-formal entrance requirements (although this would also be true for many mature students in full time education). It was not for ‘access’ reasons that students were choosing to study part time; it was primarily to allow them to continue working.

Why that particular institution?

• ‘close to home’ or ‘only available institution’ was the first choice reason for two thirds of the respondents

Thus part time law students appear to be geographically immobile. They do not have the same choice as full time law undergraduates when selecting their institution. This will restrict their choice of institution (already in fact restricted because the majority of providers are post-1992 providers). We have already seen that the choice of institution can have an impact upon prospects for training contract.

Career aspirations

• an assumption of entry to the legal profession – two thirds of the sample expressed a desire to enter the profession. The strong vocational emphasis that we have seen already is reinforced. The assumption is clear – participation in legal higher education will lead to participation in the legal profession.

Problems experienced by part time law students

A development of our understanding about the problems that students experience is crucial for two key reasons:

Consideration of barriers to success for part time law students (which can thus also impact upon their chances for gaining entry to the legal profession).

As the distinction between full time/part time study becomes blurred we can learn valuable lessons to apply to the broader undergraduate law population.

Drop-outs

• nearly a third had considered dropping out at some point
• for a variety of reasons – feelings of inadequacy/time management/fatigue

External factors impacting upon study

• work pressures were by far most significant factors that students felt were impacting upon their study (with financial worries also being of concern)
• central contradiction of studying part time – this appears to be one of the central contradictions about studying for a part time law degree. The flexibility of the course allows them to study for a law degree (with the aspiration that they will enter the legal profession). However, at the same time, one of the biggest problems that they experience on the course is in trying to balance their studies with their existing work and caring responsibilities.

Such worries also clearly have the potential to impact upon the success of these students in their assessments.

Disadvantages of studying part-time

• significantly the respondents reported persistent problems of accommodating work pressures, together with financial worries

However it is also important to note that students were also concerned with factors that might seem to be more directly connected with their learning experience:

• concern that in studying part time there was only limited contact with other students and staff
• concern about the limited time to reflect on what they have learnt

This might be seen as a suggestion of desire to engage with deeper approaches to learning. This aspect, if borne out across the study as a whole, might be an issue with which law schools and particularly the profession might like to engage when thinking about the differences that part time law students might bring to their study and working lives.

Conclusions

• commitment – the respondents are displaying a clear and obvious commitment to the study of law (allied to an assumption that this will lead to entry to the profession). Our concern is over the extent to which this ‘commitment’ will be recognised by the recruiting profession. Sommerlad and Sanderson (1998) have identified the problem that women returners to the legal profession face in encountering gendered constructions of commitment within the law firm. It is our concern that part time law students may face similar problems in achieving entry to the profession.

• cultural capital – part time law students by their very status may find it difficult to develop the attributes required to help them gain entry to the profession. Their non-traditional background and circumstances may deny them the capacity to ‘become’ or ‘look like’ a potential recruit to the profession.

• strong vocational drive – students have made clear decisions to change career, and to change to a legal career. These assumptions about entry to the legal profession have to be recognised. The sacrifices that these students are making should focus our attention more keenly on the likelihood that simply participating in legal education for its own sake may not satisfy these students.

Last Modified: 12 July 2010