Mayer Brown and Penningtons Manches have both decided to let their students jump ship a year early following the implosion of Kaplan Law School.

Today Mayer Brown confirmed to RollOnFriday that it is sending this year's GDL and LPC students to BPP. They could have completed their respective courses at Kaplan (it doesn't close until next September). But it seems the firm didn't want its students hanging out in increasingly dusty, empty lecture theatres as the heating is turned off permanently, the copper wire is nicked and local kids start daring each other to go into Kaplan at night.

Mayer Brown's Global Chief HR Officer, Annette Sheridan, told RollOnFriday "the decision about who our future LPC and GDL provider [will be] was by no means an easy one however, having considered both options we believe BPP best meets our needs". She said that Mayer Brown looked forward to continuing its relationship with ULaw through their legal apprenticeship programme.

It hasn't all gone BPP's way. Penningtons Manches has told RollOnFriday that it will be undertaking a review of LPC providers (i.e. ULaw and BPP) during the next few months. However, for the coming academic year, students "will be offered the choice of continuing their studies at Kaplan or switching to the University of Law." 

Which all means a six-pack of beer could be enough for Kaplan Law School's Freshers' week. It's not clear why Kaplan didn't wait until November to announce its closure, when the students would have started their courses, the firms would have been unable to swap them to other law schools without a lot of difficulty, and their fees would have been in the bank.

Mummy, I don't want to go to Kaplan.

Kaplan's collapse means that BPP and ULaw are slugging it out to win over its remaining client firms. BPP got off to a good start signing up Nabarro in the first round, then HFW in the second. The remaining Kaplan firms (which include Bates Wells Braithwaite, Fieldfisher, Ince & Co, Mills & Reeve, Farrer & Co and Davis Polk & Wardwell) can all expect increasingly frequent visits from ULaw and BPP reps in their smartest suits. As it stands the score is BPP 3 ULaw 1.