Few Qs on studying Law

Chet Zar

Hi all,

I'm considering training to be a solicitor and taking the FE-1s in March. Have a few questions:

-As regards preparing for the exams, who do people recommend studying with? Figure Griffith College are pretty popular and have a good rep, but how about say Independent College? The latter is far better for me location-wise, and it looks like they have lots of top students/prize-winners too.

-I am not currently working full-time, but am starting to do freelance work in another field (doing law would be a complete career change for me). How do people find juggling work with study...I guess I'd have an advantage in that I have some savings and wouldn't necessarily need to work full or even part-time - just continue working freelance here and there. This would free me up to focus on preparing for the exams practically exclusively - which would be a big advantage I'm hoping. Out of interest do most people preparing for the exams work full-time or not?

Cheers

Hogzy

I have my first 4 out of 8 exams passed, hoping to get my last 4 in the passed sitting. Theyre tough exams so expect to put yourself through hell.

Chet Zar wrote: »

-As regards preparing for the exams, who do people recommend studying with? Figure Griffith College are pretty popular and have a good rep, but how about say Independent College? The latter is far better for me location-wise, and it looks like they have lots of top students/prize-winners too.

IMO its not the schools over all that are important. Its the lecturers themselves. I tend to get on very well with lecturers who are good at teaching (this is very important if youre doing law for the first time). I hate when lecturers just recite law. I found some lecturers in GCD were like this. I did Constitutional with David Langwallner twice (failed first time) and the second time i did the course the lecturers were almost word for word the exact same and i felt he wasnt a great teacher (although a constitutional genius). I just didnt click with him. Its entirely personal. I found Brendan Foley at independent colleges fantastic for constitutional law.

So IMO you should be getting opinions on lecturers and not on law schools.

-I am not currently working full-time, but am starting to do freelance work in another field (doing law would be a complete career change for me). How do people find juggling work with study...I guess I'd have an advantage in that I have some savings and wouldn't necessarily need to work full or even part-time - just continue working freelance here and there. This would free me up to focus on preparing for the exams practically exclusively - which would be a big advantage I'm hoping. Out of interest do most people preparing for the exams work full-time or not?

Some people work full time, some dont. It all depends on how much time you can dedicate to study. And believe me, you MUST dedicate A LOT of time in order to pass. Especially the month before the exams. Expect to take off some time from work when the exams do come. And expect to travel to Dublin if you dont already live there because the Cork School of Law has closed unfortunately for many including myself.

There is a dedicated FE1 thread HERE, I would advise that you ask any questions there because it has more of a FE1 Student pass through.

Good Luck.

Chet Zar

Hogzy wrote: »

I have my first 4 out of 8 exams passed, hoping to get my last 4 in the passed sitting. Theyre tough exams so expect to put yourself through hell.

Ha defo would expect they are seriously tough...but that bad?! Did you study law before can I ask? Also do you mean you are doing the next four exams in the March sitting? This means it takes approx 1 year really to get the FE1s, right?

Hogzy wrote: »

Some people work full time, some dont. It all depends on how much time you can dedicate to study. And believe me, you MUST dedicate A LOT of time in order to pass. Especially the month before the exams. Expect to take off some time from work when the exams do come. And expect to travel to Dublin if you dont already live there because the Cork School of Law has closed unfortunately for many including myself.

Happily I am just a stone's throw from Dublin so that's cool. But Ind College would be a lot handier to get to than Griffith.

If doing them I would 100% want to get them first time, so would not be working full-time. At most I'd do part-time work but more than likely I'd just be doing freelance, making a few hundred (hopefully) each month, and then working off savings for the rest. Bit scary the cost involved but I do know that studying law would be working more towards my natural aptitudes (English, languages, linguistics and expressing ideas and concepts has always been more my forte, as opposed to say techie stuff/mathematical areas) - so while I realise it'll be a serious slog I'd be prepared to invest time in getting there as I know I could excel at it (or hopefully anyway! )

So, in short, I'd probably have about 85-90% of my available time to dedicate to studying.

Jev/N

Chet Zar wrote: »

Ha defo would expect they are seriously tough...but that bad?!

IMO they're pretty tough but I sometimes think students tend to blow them out of proportion (not necessarily referring to the poster above but in general), either on here or just in general chat. They're far from impossible and you just need the right approach/knack to the exam with a decent amount of luck in what comes up, depending on how well you're prepared.

Having said that, I didn't work through most of my study period for each set, so it would have made my sittings somewhat easier.

I attended IC for lecturers and found them, by and large, to be very good. I can't really comment on GC but I'd agree with Hogzy on the fact that the lecturers make or break it

Chet Zar

Jev/N wrote: »

IMO they're pretty tough but I sometimes think students tend to blow them out of proportion (not necessarily referring to the poster above but in general), either on here or just in general chat. They're far from impossible and you just need the right approach/knack to the exam with a decent amount of luck in what comes up, depending on how well you're prepared.

Having said that, I didn't work through most of my study period for each set, so it would have made my sittings somewhat easier.

I attended IC for lecturers and found them, by and large, to be very good. I can't really comment on GC but I'd agree with Hogzy on the fact that the lecturers make or break it

Coolio...so work hard and have the right attitude! Makes sense!

One random q - if I was doing the exams in the March 2012 sitting, I'd probably need to just do say 4 topics then, and then the other 4 in the September/October 2012 sitting, right? Then as regards the PPC1, that doesn't generally run until September - so would I be waiting a year to start the PPC1, provided I have a training contract secured? Or am I missing a piece of info there..? Does the PPC1 run more than once a year?

Also I wonder how long would you be waiting to get a training contract...I know they are tricky to find.

Jev/N

Chet Zar wrote: »

Coolio...so work hard and have the right attitude! Makes sense!

One random q - if I was doing the exams in the March 2012 sitting, I'd probably need to just do say 4 topics then, and then the other 4 in the September/October 2012 sitting, right? Then as regards the PPC1, that doesn't generally run until September - so would I be waiting a year to start the PPC1, provided I have a training contract secured? Or am I missing a piece of info there..? Does the PPC1 run more than once a year?

Also I wonder how long would you be waiting to get a training contract...I know they are tricky to find.

Yep, 4 in March '12 and 4 in Sept/Oct '12. (4 and 4 is the best way IMO)
PPC1 doesn't start til early Sept and runs til Apr, once each year. If you had a contract, you'd be waiting til the following Sept, although many firms like to bring trainees in around Apr/May to get pre-PPC1 office experience

Regarding training contracts, I can't say. Again, luck tends to be somewhat of a factors but you could be looking at anywhere between 6mths and up (and up!) Sorry to be the bearer of bad news

Chet Zar

Jev/N wrote: »

Yep, 4 in March '12 and 4 in Sept/Oct '12. (4 and 4 is the best way IMO)
PPC1 doesn't start til early Sept and runs til Apr, once each year. If you had a contract, you'd be waiting til the following Sept, although many firms like to bring trainees in around Apr/May to get pre-PPC1 office experience

Regarding training contracts, I can't say. Again, luck tends to be somewhat of a factors but you could be looking at anywhere between 6mths and up (and up!) Sorry to be the bearer of bad news

Yowzers food for thought there alright...that'd mean potentially not starting PPC1 until Sept 2013...meaning I'd be waiting a year to start if I had gotten my FEs in Sept 2012! Best case scenario there would be starting the traineeship in April 2013 which still means not qualifying until April 2015, right?! But quite possibly finishing Sept 2015!

Yikes so it could be four years from now before qualifying?! Long haul for sure...!

chops018

I'm planning on taking the so called "block of 4" in the march sitting.. getting all my materials together for study over the next few weeks.

Not going to bother going to Griffith or Ind. as I know a guy who completed his fe-1's and he is going to sell me all the manuals, previous papers, sample answers and exam grids he got from when he was there. Also there is a forum on here where people sell these things and they sell books too. I feel confident enough to study away on my own with the relevant texts and manuals after getting my degree in Law.

If I am finding a subject difficult then the law society website has numbers for people who give grinds and there is seminars nearer the time of the exams.

That's my study plan anyways - I have a job though, it's not full time but most weeks I get good hours, however there is still plenty of time to study.

I'm hoping to complete the 4 exams in the next sitting and then come Autumn 2012 do 2 more exams, and then the following Spring do the final 2 and hopefully have all the exams passed and an apprenticeship secured for Sept 2013. That's the plan anyways, let's hope it works out. Best of luck in your studying Chet Zar. It'll be tough going for us all.

Chet Zar

chops018 wrote: »

I'm planning on taking the so called "block of 4" in the march sitting.. getting all my materials together for study over the next few weeks.

Not going to bother going to Griffith or Ind. as I know a guy who completed his fe-1's and he is going to sell me all the manuals, previous papers, sample answers and exam grids he got from when he was there. Also there is a forum on here where people sell these things and they sell books too. I feel confident enough to study away on my own with the relevant texts and manuals after getting my degree in Law.

If I am finding a subject difficult then the law society website has numbers for people who give grinds and there is seminars nearer the time of the exams.

That's my study plan anyways - I have a job though, it's not full time but most weeks I get good hours, however there is still plenty of time to study.

I'm hoping to complete the 4 exams in the next sitting and then come Autumn 2012 do 2 more exams, and then the following Spring do the final 2 and hopefully have all the exams passed and an apprenticeship secured for Sept 2013. That's the plan anyways, let's hope it works out. Best of luck in your studying Chet Zar. It'll be tough going for us all.

Ah right, guess it's different for you though since you have a degree in Law - I reckon I'd be needing to go to live lectures and mix with others studying the same topics!

Cool so you're going to be working your way through as you study - guess that's the way most people go, seeing as it takes time to qualify.

chops018

Chet Zar wrote: »

Ah right, guess it's different for you though since you have a degree in Law - I reckon I'd be needing to go to live lectures and mix with others studying the same topics!

Cool so you're going to be working your way through as you study - guess that's the way most people go, seeing as it takes time to qualify.

Yeah seems like I'll be spreading them over 2 years.

You're right to go ahead and do a prepatory course, as far as I know they will tell you exactly how to answer the questions and they give you a run down of the topics and tell you what is most likely to come up so it is definitely worth doing, I just don't have the money to do them which is why I'll be buying all the stuff they get from those courses second hand. Also with the law degree I've a fair idea on how to tackle a question and I have plenty of books on some of the subjects too - another reason not to bother with a prepatory course (I'm hoping these statements don't come back to haunt me haha).

They're supposed to be very hard and next Spring will be my first attempt, the study will be difficult but I'm sure once I get into a good routine and stick to it and start nailing down topics and sample questions I should be fine.

Have you any idea how you are going to tackle the subjects yet or are you still having a toss up about getting into them at all??

All I can say is the posters here and some of the threads are very helpful.. they would take hours upon hours to read and loads of useful info about all the previous sittings and usually everyone is helpful in answering questions or queries, I'v had many myself the past year!