Number of places: 85 FTE

Fees (2011/12):£9,500

LPC students are taught in Bournemouth's shiny executive business centre on its Lansdowne Campus, complete with catering, cafés and multimedia ‘technopods’– hi-tech booths with space for eight or so people – for learning and seminar preparation. In 2010, the university introduced a part-time course with these students attending classes on two or three days each week alongside their full-time colleagues. Students who have successfully completed the LPC can opt to undertake an LLM in legal practice.

While the surroundings are modern, the course is structured in a more traditional fashion, with lectures – comprising around 60 students – supported by more intimate seminars. “Remote learning might suit some students, but the message we get is that students think the smaller, interactive small group sessions are absolutely essential,” one lecturer told us. That said, the university acknowledges the value of online learning: specific lectures, such as accounts, are posted online so students can rewind and replay. Students can choose from electives in employment, private client, commercial, family, commercial property, advanced litigation and ‘the client in the community’, which deals with housing, benefits, children and juvenile crime.

Bournemouth has good links with local firms and law societies, and students have plenty of chances to network with practitioners through events and guest lectures. The all-important commercial awareness is delivered to students in daily doses via news summaries of issues affecting solicitors. Students tend to either have local links or have attended a South Coast university – Bournemouth and Southampton unis are well represented. For those who go on to training contracts, the majority work in the region, often going into high street practice. Some go to bigger provincial firms with corporate and commercial practices.