GDL & LPC

Whatever you study at university, you will have some postgraduate study to complete before you begin your training contract with a law firm. This will give you the foundations for your legal career and enable you to make the most of your training contract from day one. If you have studied law at university, your training begins with the year-long Legal Practice Course (LPC). If you have studied a subject other than law, your training begins with the one-year Graduate Diploma in Law conversion course (GDL), followed by the LPC.

Graduate Diploma in Law

This one-year conversion course will provide you with a foundation in legal knowledge and process and set you up to begin your LPC alongside graduates who have studied Law. In terms of the structure of your career, this extra year of study is the only material difference between graduates with law backgrounds and those without. There are no restrictions regarding where you study for the GDL. Details of universities and colleges offering GDL courses are available on the Solicitors Regulation Authority website: www.sra.org.uk

Clifford Chance will pay all your GDL course fees and provide a maintenance grant to help support you during this additional year of study.

Legal Practice Course

All candidates - both law and non-law - must take the LPC before beginning a training course. At Clifford Chance we have developed our own LPC programme in association with the College of Law in London and in accordance with the requirements of the SRA. All UK candidates (and certain overseas candidates) must take this course, unless you have already taken your LPC before applying to the firm.

The Clifford Chance LPC has been designed to introduce you to the kinds of issues and challenges that we tackle on behalf of our clients and to familiarise you with the documentation, templates and processes that shape major business transactions - it is, effectively, the first year of a three-year traineeship. It will also provide you with a year in which to get to know your future trainee colleagues and begin building your personal networks, connecting with people who will see and experience different parts of the firm as their careers develop.

Our LPC programme at the College of Law is also supplemented with a series of talks at our offices in Canary Wharf. By describing our work and the role of the trainees in each practice area, these talks are designed to help you put your course in context and further prepare you for the transition to your training contract.

During your LPC you'll also have regular contact with our Graduate Development team, who will discuss the seat allocation process and are available to answer any other questions you may have before starting with the firm.

Clifford Chance will pay all your fees for studying the Clifford Chance LPC and provide a maintenance grant to help support you during your studies.