Student round-up: CoL signs up Beachcroft while Hammonds invites clients on vac scheme

Beachcroft has become the latest law firm to sign an exclusive deal to send its future trainees to study at the College of Law.

The arrangement, which will come into effect from September, will see students with training contracts at Beachcroft study the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) at the College.

College of Law chief executive Nigel Savage said: "The firm will be able to maximise our networks to their full advantage - to support recruitment activity, for example - while being assured of common quality standards across all our centres and benefiting from a more tailored LPC."

The College of Law now has exclusive tie-ups with 21 firms, including magic circle trio Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance and Linklaters. BPP Law School has 19 similar arrangements with firms including Slaughter and May, Norton Rose and Herbert Smith.

Kaplan Law School, meanwhile, has ten exclusive tie-ups - the most recent coming last week when Ince & Co agreed to send all its future trainees studying in London to do the LPC and GDL at the provider.

In other news, the College of Law and BPP have both launched GDL programmes with January start dates. The College of Law course will run part-time over 18 months and be taught predominantly online, while the BPP course is a conventional full-time GDL.

BPP chief executive Peter Crisp commented: "This is part of an ongoing strategy to provide more flexibility for students starting their legal careers with us. Our experience tells us that no two people are the same, and we appreciate that not everybody is able to study in the same way at the same time".

Elsewhere, Hammonds has announced that its clients will be invited to get involved in the firm's summer vacation schemes this year. Summer programmes - from which the firm often recruits trainees - will include an additional element where candidates give mock pitches to individuals from the firm's client companies.

"By involving our clients, we'll hopefully get a different, more commercial perspective, which will add a useful dimension to our recruitment decisions," said Hammonds graduate recruitment partner Mike Butler.

Hammonds is also extending its trainee deferral programme,. The firm has asked 17 students scheduled to start at the firm in September 2010 to consider deferring for 12 months.

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