Your third-year university checklist

As you start the third year of your university degree (law or non-law), you’re one step closer to your dream job at your dream law firm or chambers.

We’ve created a checklist to help you stay organised in your final year:

• It’s time to research potential employers and apply for training contracts or pupillage more intensively. Create a shortlist of firms or chambers to focus your applications on. This will help you to tailor your applications. ‘Copy and paste’ applications will not secure you a training contract or pupillage – recruiters will see right through them.

Read LCN’s guide to training contract applications and tips for applying through the Pupillage Gateway.

• Familiarise yourself with the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) via LawCareers.Net’s SQE hub, sponsored by The University of Law. If you’ve not been accepted onto a training contract at a firm that’s using the traditional two-year training contract as your qualifying work experience (QWE), you’ll need to start building up your two-years QWE, which is required to qualify as a solicitor via the SQE.
   
• If your goal is to become a barrister, familiarise yourself with how the pupillage application process works.

• Non-law students in the final year of their degree should also apply for vacation schemes and training contracts or mini-pupillages.

Check out LCN’s vacation scheme deadlines page for a comprehensive list of deadlines.

• Decide on the postgraduate training you’ll need after you graduate and apply for a place on your chosen course. Either continue straight on with your studies the September after graduating or take some time out to gain work experience – it’s up to you.

Use our guide to SQE preparation courses to find your next step.

• Aspiring solicitors in the final year of a law degree should look into SQE preparation course providers.

• Aspiring barristers in the final year of a law degree should apply to take a Bar course – this is a mandatory stage of training to become a barrister.

• Non-law students in their final year should apply for a place on a law conversion course from September in the autumn term. Law conversion courses for non-law graduates aiming to qualify as a solicitor are no longer compulsory via the SQE but instead highly recommended. It’s unlikely that a non-law graduate will pass the SQE exams without first completing a law conversion and SQE preparation. For non-law graduates wanting to qualify as a barrister, a law conversion course remains compulsory.

Read LCN’s guide to SQE preparation courses for a list of courses developed in line with the new system or use LCN’s courses search!

• Maintain an interest in legal and business news throughout your third year. It’s not enough to just read the news, you must also be analysing it and considering how it could affect a law firm’s clients, the practice areas and the law firm itself, as a business. Being able to talk competently about trending commercial issues will bode well in interviews.

Find out more about commercial awareness, its importance and how to build yours with LCN’s Commercial awareness  hub, sponsored by Mayer Brown International LLP.

• Continue to get involved with your university’s law society; engage and make the most out of the opportunities on offer (eg, mooting) and use your university’s careers service while it’s still available to you.

Listen to this LawCareers.Net Podcast episode on the benefits of mooting.

• While there’s lots to be getting on with during your third year, taking time for yourself is still important and it always will be. Make selfcare a regular part of your routine – find what works for you and give yourself the time you need to practise this.

Read this advice from Elizabeth Rimmer from legal charity LawCare on establishing healthy habits early on!

• If you’ve reached the end of your LLB and are unsure whether a career in law is right for you, check out LCN’s alternative careers section and these six alternative careers for law graduates to see what else you can do with your versatile degree.

LCN’s checklists for first year and second-year students are also available to read.