How we won ‘Best society for first-year students’ at LawCareers.Net’s Student Law Society Awards

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The University of Bristol Law Club (UBLC) is one of the UK's most highly reputed law societies and one of the largest societies at the University of Bristol, with nearly 1000 members.

The UBLC was nominated for three awards at this year's Student Law Society Awards (SLS), sponsored by BARBRI: ‘Best society for commercial awareness’, ‘Best society for non-law students’ and ‘Best society for first-year students’. This year, we were proud to win an award for the latter, ‘Best society for first-year students’, sponsored by Weightmans LLP.

Check out LCN’s First-year hub for tips, content and opportunities available for first-year law students!

Our opportunities

The UBLC operates with the aim of providing our members with the skills and opportunities to help make their career aspirations become a reality. Open to students from all academic disciplines, the UBLC provides unparalleled exposure to the legal sector through our strong relationships with more than 30 leading law firms, chambers and legal education institutions. Our events enable our members to engage with employers through careers presentations, exclusive dinners, employability workshops, networking events and a wide range of competitions.

However, the UBLC experience isn’t solely about academic and professional development. We also value the enjoyment, memories and experiences created from participating in our wide range of social events and initiatives, including our spectacular Annual Law Ball, our trip abroad (to Prague this year) and our two sports teams. In addition, we continue to prioritise accessibility and inclusivity through the UBLC Hub and the UBLC Bursary programme, as well as offering free access to all of our careers events and sports teams.

Our offering to first years

As an academic society with a focus on career development, we hosted various events at the start of the academic year dedicated to introducing first-year students to the world of legal careers. Our First Year Schemer’s panel involved a panel discussion and Q&A featuring eight students who had successfully obtained first-year insight schemes at a variety of law firms. Our Meet the Brand Ambassadors event introduced first-year students to firms through their student representatives. Meanwhile, our Intro to Commercial Law event – where our careers secretaries gave attendees an insight into the different areas of commercial law, the route to becoming a solicitor and tips and tricks for the application process – was also well received by first years.

We also want to ensure that new first-year students have the opportunity to join the UBLC community and meet their fellow law students. To this end, during Welcome Week, we hosted a variety of social events, including our Freshers’ Picnic and Freshers’ Night Out. Our Mentoring Scheme, which matches first-year mentees with second and third-year mentors, has provided first years with a chance to gain careers advice from experienced students, while also facilitating connections between year groups.

Finally, our dedicated First Year Guide provided a key source of information to first years, including information about life as a law student at Bristol, UBLC opportunities and insights into the basics of legal careers.

At the UBLC, we always try to provide our first-year members with support and encouragement as they settle in at university (having been in that position ourselves, not that long ago!). As such, we were especially pleased to see that, in their responses for the SLS Awards, our members had commented that the UBLC “caters to first-year students exceptionally well” and that our opportunities “provide a strong foundation for success in law school and beyond”. Thank you to Dimitar and the LawCareers.Net team for their organisation of the awards – it’s a fantastic initiative and a great opportunity to bring together student law societies from across the country.

We’re grateful to our members, for their engagement and commitment to our events this year, and to all our sponsors, whose invaluable support continues to help us to provide our members with the best opportunities possible.

It’s truly been a privilege to lead the UBLC this year, and to work alongside our incredible committee, without whom none of these achievements would’ve been possible. I have every confidence that the incoming committee will be able to build upon our successes and take the UBLC to even greater heights!

Ben de Sousa is the president of the University of Bristol Law Club in 2024/2025.