Students on Nottingham Law School's LPC sat their business paper this week, which included a question on accounts. Students were asked to balance an account, which seemed reasonable enough, except the figures given meant it was actually impossible.
At least Nottingham Law School was suitably contrite. Bob White, its Director of LPC, said "we’re horrified. This is the first time anything like this happened to us since the LPC was launched in 1993. We made a mistake and have learnt a hard lesson. We said sorry to affected students straightaway and will offer a first sit before the summer to any who think they were disadvantaged. We’re not the first major provider to make a mistake but we intend this to be the first and last time it happens to us.”
And yesterday students at the College of Law's Guildford branch sat their criminal paper - slightly disadvantaged by not having a multiple choice answer sheet to complete. The invigilator spent about ten minutes talking on the phone in an attempt to get the sheets, and students say they finally managing to hand them out half way through the exam. A spokeswoman for the college said, "the exam invigilator noticed right away that the mulitiple choice papers were not there... The exam started at 9.30 and all the students had the paper by around 9.38am".
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A cut out and keep guide |
These are the latest in a series of cock-ups at the UK's law schools. The College of Law gave its LPC students the wrong materials in an exam last June. And BPP, apart from having a computer system which seems to spend more time down than up, managed to appoint a professional ethics tutors who had been suspended from practicing as a barrister, and couldn't even name its own students.
Undergraduates have been having an odd time too. Law students at the School of Oriental and African Studies, faced a bizarre first year mooting assessment concerning the law of consent. It started as follows:
"The defendant, Oliver O'Leary, met the deceased, Gayle Gaga, in the Pokerface Nightclub on the 22nd September 2008. The defendant escorted Miss Gaga to her home where she invited him in. After having a cup of coffee, the defendant, with Miss Gaga's consent, had sexual intercourse with Miss Gaga by penetrating her vagina with his penis. Subsequently, and also with her consent, he penetrated her rectum with his hand (2 sexual acts). Miss Gaga suffered internal cuts caused by a signet ring on Mr O'Leary's hand. Miss Gaga did not realise for some time that her injuries were very serious. After a period of two weeks, she was admitted to hospital where she died of septicaemia. It was proven, conclusively, that the septicaemia was a direct result of the cuts caused by Mr O'Leary's ring."
Beth Wanono is the member of the Law Society Council responsible for representing LPC students and trainees, and has the unenviable task of dealing with the UK's law schools. You can give her a hand by completing her survey.