"It would also be discriminatory to domestic student".

Incorporating EU law in the LPC programme, according to you, is discriminatory to domestic students but wasting a year as well as thousands of pounds of non-UK law graduates from English common law countries by forcing them to do the GDL/CPE programme is not?

Your argument (of non-UK law graduates from English common law countries being forced to do one year GDL/CPE programme) chiefly rests on the fact that there may be at least 1 module which may not be taught to law graduates in non-UK English common law countries and this is enough reason according to you to advocate a one year compulsory GDL/CPE programme for them.

When a suggestion is made to incorporate this subject in the LPC programme, among other things, you immediately state "It would also be discriminatory to domestic student".

I am sorry to hear that your heart only bleeds for domestic students and the so-called discrimination against them. Now that you have made your position clear (discrimination, according to you, is only there if and when it is faced by domestic students), I suppose there is nothing much left then to discuss with you on this issue now.

Added later: If one were to go by your logic then America, India, Canada, Australia, Nigeria or for that matter any other English common law country would start saying there may be certain (1-2) modules which are only taught in that particular country so what next? To buttress your arguments, you would start arguing for doing away totally with this English common law countries principle and when law graduates from one of these English common law countries go to another, they should start their law studies from scratch?

And I think it was discriminatory of the Law Society to force me to do a GDL in order to qualify as a solicitor. I may not have done a law degree but I was familiar with the principles of the British legal system so I could have picked the specifics up pretty easily on the job. Who cares if I didn't know about Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company or whatever?

It smacks me of sour grapes on the part of non-UK citizens here. Qualified lawyers have to do their own exams in order to practice here, and I don't have a problem with heading across to the US and having to sit exams before I can practice there.

At the end of the day, if you find it so abhorrent then nobody is forcing you to actually sit a GDL and qualify in the UK. There are plenty of other countries with strong legal markets.

"Incorporating EU law in the LPC programme, according to you, is discriminatory to domestic students but wasting a year as well as thousands of pounds of non-UK law graduates from English common law countries by forcing them to do the GDL/CPE programme is not?

Your argument (of non-UK law graduates from English common law countries being forced to do one year GDL/CPE programme) chiefly rests on the fact that there may be at least 1 module which may not be taught to law graduates in non-UK English common law countries and this is enough reason according to you to advocate a one year compulsory GDL/CPE programme for them.

When a suggestion is made to incorporate this subject in the LPC programme, among other things, you immediately state "It would also be discriminatory to domestic student".

I am sorry to hear that your heart only bleeds for domestic students and the so-called discrimination against them. Now that you have made your position clear (discrimination, according to you, is only there if and when it is faced by domestic students), I suppose there is nothing much left then to discuss with you on this issue now.

Added later: If one were to go by your logic then America, India, Canada, Australia, Nigeria or for that matter any other English common law country would start saying there may be certain (1-2) modules which are only taught in that particular country so what next? To buttress your arguments, you would start arguing for doing away totally with this English common law countries principle and when law graduates from one of these English common law countries go to another, they should start their law studies from scratch?"

Sid, your knee-jerk reaction to my comments is annoying because you totally misinterpret what I say. If you bother to read my comments, you'd see I never say the current situation is satisfactory. In not one comment do I support the GDL, but rather I question why non-grads have to do it and if this is new policy (no body has bothered replying to that). I also suggest why prerequisite knowledge IS required, and then possible improvements would be the use of conversion courses and degrees judged on their own merits.

I'm afraid allowing non-UK grads to sit the EU Law module at LPC but not apply the same rule to UK grads would be different treatment, and thus discriminatory - if you don't understand why, then you have not good a grasp of what the 'qualifying law degree' is about, nor the distinction between academic and vocational stages. This doesn't mean the current situation for non-UK grads ISN'T discriminatory.

There is no point continuing to contribute to this thread because it's clear you just want to vent (and raising the BNP above with Good Gosh was appalling form).

I hope you all have fair and good responses from the law society and SRA about how to improve this situation.

"if you don't understand why, then you have not good a grasp of what the 'qualifying law degree' is about, nor the distinction between academic and vocational stages".

Essentially the same thought process as in the last post of Good Gosh. Hmm....

Kerfuffle ((1. informal chiefly ( Brit ) commotion; disorder; agitation)) alias "Good" Gosh....two avatars on this forum of essentially the same person trying to play the good cop (in one avatar) and the bad cop (in another). Enough said....

I rest my case.

Oh Sid!!

Wait - this all seems a little over-reactionary to me. I am a UK citizien and a British law graduate from a British University. I graduated in 2005 with an LLB from Bristol. I have been planning to change careers to law from Goverment work in a few more years. I WOULD ALSO need to do the CPE as my UK LLB would be 'stale' i.e. seven years after completing a UK law degree it becomes irrelevant and you are treated as a non-law graduate.

Let me mention one more Discrimination by Bar Council. You have to appear in a test before enrolling to the BPTC from 2013. This test costs £170. How many more bearers they want to place in front of dedicated students wishing to qualify as a lawyer in UK.??

i just wanted to check , if it is still compulsory to do a GDL first , before doing LPC , if you are non-uk graduate.

Whether you need to do the GDL or not depends firstly on whether you have a qualifying law degree. The Solicitors Regulation Authority have a list on their website. You must also have covered the foundations of legal knowledge subjects. These are also available on that website.

If you have a foreign degree you can apply for a Certificate of Academic standing from the SRA and this will tell you how many, if any, GDL subjects you need to do. (Info. on website). They determine this by assessing your degree transcripts. It's based on how many of the foundations of legal knowledge subjects you are missing. Bear in mind that if you have done a subject in a foreign jurisdiction e.g. Land Law, it may not qualify if they deem it sufficiently different from UK law. You could potentially have to do the whole thing. You might only need one. The problem is, even if it's only one, you still need to take a year out to do it. Shop around with GDL providers for price if you are only doing one or two subjects. There should be a huge discount.

Can anyone speak to the difficulty of gaining admission into The University of Law, BPP or Kaplan for the GDL in London? In addition, can anyone give me a hand with the personal statement? I've made a PS before, but that was for the LLM and the approach I used was completely different... If someone could be so kind as to send me a GDL PS for me to base mine off of, I would really appreciate. I promise I will not copy/paste... i just need some ideas to kick things off...