Can someone guide me as to the procedure to practice in a UK law firm? What are the possibilities that one can explore if they are a foreign trained attorney?

What exactly is LPC and QLTT? Is a two year traineeship contract to become a solicitor compulsory?

Hi Wimona,

There are slightly different procedures in different areas of the UK. They are well represented by the law socities:

England and Wales: http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/
Scotland: http://www.lawscot.org.uk/
Northern Ireland: http://www.lawsoc-ni.org/

Each of these bodies are responsible for setting the requirements for practice, and will sometimes comment on your own individual circumstance.

Hope this is helpful.

Colin.

Distance Learning
School of Law
The University of Edinburgh
http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/distancelearning/

If you are a qualified lawyer in an English speaking common law country e.g., US, Canada, Australia, NZ, South Africa, etc (the Law Society has a full list) then you are eligible to sit the QLTT (Qualified Lawyers' Transfer Test) provided you have 2 years of post-qualification legal experience. That's what I did. LLB in UK, JD in US, and then sat QLTT in Los Angeles of all places after I'd been practising in the US for 3 years.

BPP Law School offers the QLTT about 3x/year in various locations in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. The College of Law offers it almost every other month. It does not require too much study and is not a fulltime legal course like an LLM is. I studied part time while working - about 10hrs/week for about 6 weeks before sitting the exam.

If you are qualified in a civil law country or parts of Asia or S. America, then it tends to take a bit longer to requalify in the UK. I believe EU-based lawyers are eligible after practising law in the UK for 3 years, but don't quote me on that. Obviously, it's much easier for the myriad US and Aussie lawyers who flock to London than it is for say a French lawyer from just over the channel.