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Bar Professional Training Course

Postgraduate course in England and Wales

Summary

Postgraduate course in England and Wales

The [[City Law School]] is one of the eight institutes to provide the BPTC.

The Bar Professional Training Course or BPTC was a postgraduate course which allowed law graduates to be named and practise as barristers in England and Wales. The eight institutes that ran the BPTC along with the four Inns of Court were often collectively referred to as Bar School. Until September 2010, it was known as the Bar Vocational Course, or BVC. It was abolished in 2020 and replaced by the vocational component of Bar training.

The BPTC was one of the most expensive legal courses in Europe.

The academic stage is the first of the three stages of legal education; the second is the vocational stage (formerly the BPTC) and the third is the practical stage (pupillage). On successful completion of the BPTC, which also involved completing twelve qualifying sessions, students were called to the Bar; however, only those who then successfully completed pupillage could work as barristers.

Entry requirements

In addition to passing the Bar Course Aptitude Test (BCAT), the minimum entry requirements for the BPTC was a qualifying undergraduate degree in law with no less than lower second-class (2:2) honours or a non-law academic degree with lower second-class (2:2) honours alongside the Graduate Diploma in Law. Additionally students from outside English speaking countries were required to demonstrate their oral and written English language ability was at least equivalent to a minimum score of 7.5 in each section of the IELTS academic test or a minimum score of 73 in each part of the Pearson Test of English (academic).

Criticisms

In April 2015, Chair of the Bar Council Alastair Macdonald raised concerns about the financial risk involved in taking the BPTC, claiming that "There are too many people spending too much money in order to train [...] with no realistic prospect of being able to make a start in the profession". In the same month, a report commissioned by the Bar Council heavily criticised BPTC providers. The report suggested that course providers were "using the system to make money from people with no realistic prospect of pupillage", and claimed that the course was "not highly regarded by practitioners." The report suggested increasing standards for the course, and introducing a new test to replace the BCAT, which then had a 98% pass rate, though there were plans to increase the pass mark. Jeremy Robson, a senior lecturer at Nottingham Law School, denied these claims. He noted that all prospective students receive a health warning noting the low number of pupillages compared to course places, and that the practitioners consulted in the working group were "drawn from a small section of the profession."

Providers

Institution	Location	Circuit	Approx. course fees	Report
London	South Eastern	£16,700(Domestic) £17,900(International)	Report	BPP
Leeds	North Eastern	£14,121	Report	BPP
Manchester	Northern	£14,121	Report	BPP
Birmingham	Midland Circuit	£14,121		BPP
Bristol	Western	£14,121		BPP
Cardiff	Wales & Chester	£15,950(UK & EU) £17,650(International)	Report	Cardiff
London	South Eastern	£19,730	Report	City St George's
Manchester	Northern	£14,550	This course has been approved by Manchester Metropolitan University to start in September 2020. Pending full authorisation by the Bar Standards Board.	MMU
London	South Eastern	£14,830		ICCA
Newcastle upon Tyne	North Eastern	£15,050	Report	Northumbria
Nottingham	Midland Circuit	£14,800	Report	Nottingham
Birmingham	Midland Circuit	£16,250	full-time – 1 year – September 2014 Report	ULaw
Leeds	North Eastern	£16,250	full-time – 1 year – September 2014 Report	ULaw
London	South Eastern	£19,400	full-time – 1 year – September 2014 Report	ULaw
Bristol	Western	£14,000	Report	UWE

References

(21 March 2011). "Amendments to the Bar Training Regulations – Matters relating to Pupillage". [[Legal Services Board]].
"Authorised Education and Training Organisations".
Cownie, Fiona. (2010). "Stakeholders in the Law School". Hart Publishing.
Adam Kramer. (2007). "Bewigged and Bewildered: Pupillage and a Career at the Bar". Hart Publishing.
(7 April 2015). "Bar weighs option of breaking up barristers' training". [[The Financial Times]].
[https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/qualifying-as-a-barrister/bar-professional-training-course/bptc-frequently-asked-questions/ Entry Requirement] {{Webarchive. link. (4 April 2015 , BPTC)
"English Language Requirement - Bar Standards Board".
"Bar regulator announces changes to the Bar Course Aptitude Test for 2016 and 2017".
(13 April 2015). "Bar Council report slams BPTC providers". [[The Lawyer]].
(17 April 2015). "'Bar Council's attack on BPTC providers is wrong' - Nottingham Law School responds to Rivlin criticism". [[The Lawyer]].
[https://www.bpp.com/courses/law/postgraduate/btc-barrister-training-course BTC Barrister Training Course] bpp.com
(30 October 2020). "LLM Bar Vocational Studies (Full-time and Part-time) | City St George's, University of London".
"Fees and funding".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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