Masters or Post Qualification accreditation?

[Riablo]

I'm 1 year through my training contract, and I think from looking at other posts on here I am very lucky because I like the firm I am working at and my training has so far been excellent.

I did my LPC at Staffs University and there is the option of a masters tagged on to the end of the LPC. I have to do a 4000 essay before June and then I have around 2 years to complete my 15,000 dissertation.

The cost is very reasonable for a masters, around £1000.

Although I think masters have very limited value once qualified, this is a masters in Legal Practice rather than an academic topic. It looks at ways of making a law firm profitable and given that I am looking to continue working in high street practice it could come in very useful in the future, either if I went down the partner route or if I wanted to market and run a department.

I do feel that for the sakes of £1000 and a couple of years of effort I would be silly not to do it, but I am weighing this up against post qualification accreditation with organisations such as Solicitors for the Elderly, Society of Trusts and Estate Practitioners ect (by the way I'm looking to go into wills and probate!!).

I'm aware that some of these post qualification qualifications can be very time consuming and require quite a lot of work. Realistically I do not think that I am going to manage to do these alongside my masters. I think I am going to find it hard enough doing my masters after work and during lunchtimes, whilst trying to establish myself in the firm as a newly qualified and have some kind of home life!

So my question really boils down to what si going to make me more marketable - a legal practice based masters or post qualification accreditation.

If I do the masters then once that was out of the way I could do the other courses, but I wonder if I wanted to move firms after a year and had no post qualification accreditation whether this would make my CV look seriously lacking.

In reality I guess the masters, although useful, would only come into play further down the line and I wouldn't be consdiering it at all if it wasn't for the reasonable price and relative ease of getting the qualification.

The firm I am training with like the idea of the masters, in fact one of our partners has the same masters and rates it very highly.

I have no guarantees that this firm will keep me on so I need to consider what the broader high street market would consdier desirable in NQ - 3 years PQE.

A possible change in firms may affect my masters, so I would need to be careful to pick a dissertation topic that isn't firm specific and could be transfered possibly part way through.

Any opinions much appreciated.

[NicB]

Originally Posted by Riablo

So my question really boils down to what si going to make me more marketable - a legal practice based masters or post qualification accreditation.

If you're looking at staying in wills and probate, the STEP course is quite difficult and time consuming but once gained makes you more marketable to firms so the answer to this bit I think is what you already know - the post qualification accreditation rather than the LLM will be better on your cv. But if you can manage to do both, then why not!

My LLM from my uni would be on a similar basis and the only reason I havent done it is sheer laziness on my part

[Riablo]

Thanks for the reply.

I think, certainly in the short term that STEP would be a big advantage, especially as no one at my firm is currently qualified with STEP and this is something they are looking to gain in the future.

I must admit that laziness makes me keep putting the masters off and I was ready to say forget it, just try to be a good solicitor with good post qualification accreditation.

I know I can get the 4000 word essay done, but I am slightly worried that I will than have to pay the full fee and may struggle time wise once I am newly qualified and I wouldn't want to waste £1000 so I would feel obliged to finish it, but perhaps not as well as I would like.

I think I will struggle to do STEP (or other post qual courses) and the masters at the same time, so doing the masters would mean delaying the post qualification stuff until 2 years PQE.

Really wondering whether a masters in Legal Practice will enhance my CV a great deal? must admit that the essay title and topics I have considered for the dissertation could be of use practically.