About

• Duncan Gibbins (Partner), Duncan Gibbins Solicitors
• Nick Harrison (Associate, Solicitor), Pannone
• Chris Henson (Associate, Solicitor), Keoghs
• William Kerr-Rankin (Barrister), Oriel Chambers
• Audrey Powell (Mentor/Volunteer Coordinator), Probation Service
• Beth Brown (Professional Law Careers Adviser), College of Law
• Rachael Kearnan (Project Development), Merseyside Youth Association
• The ‘Choose Life Project’ (Liverpool Prison)
• Kirsty Nickson LL.B (Hons) Edge Hill University Law Graduate, 2006, (Solicitor), Fletchers
• Joseph Davison and Lucas Griffiths (Edge Hill University Law Graduates, 2010), Legal Practice Course
• Matthew Jarvis (Associate Partner), Silverbeck Rymer Solicitors
• Andrew Scott (Partner), Scott Doyle Molyneux Solicitors
• Norman Jones (President), Liverpool Law Society

The Department offers an optional work-based module for second year students with the aim of providing them with a head start when beginning their careers. The module involves students learning about how to create a CV to attract potential employers, identify suitable work placements, and become familiar with fundamental health and safety information related to the workplace.

With Edge Hill’s significant links with a variety of organisations, students can then undertake thirty hours of work placement experience. This can be in a variety of areas and includes traditional solicitors’ firms, the Citizens Advice Bureau, voluntary organisations, charities, the court system and non mainstream law employers. Not only does this module provide students with an additional qualification, but also the practical experience and skills required to be job-ready when they graduate.

The Department has launched a Law Alumni Association, to develop further networking opportunities and career development advice for our graduates. We are keen to maintain our relationships with students after they graduate and to hear about how their careers progress. We regularly invite our past students to careers talks, which enables them to share their career experiences with our current students. Graduates give a lot of inspiration to our current students, and practical advice to help them in their job search and career planning.

The Department has established a Professional Advisory Panel, comprising representatives of local and regional legal practices. The Panel meets with members of the Department two or three times a year and provides a forum for discussion of current issues of relevance to our degree programmes and to legal practitioners. We are particularly concerned to ensure that future developments in law provision at Edge Hill are informed by the needs and requirements of practice.

The Department recently secured a lucrative sponsorship deal with Duncan Gibbins Solicitors. Duncan Gibbins are experts in personal injury law who have provided excellent opportunities to law students to acquire structured work experience programmes.

The firm is offering scholarships to law students who achieve the best results in their university modules and/or extra-curricular activities.

The scholarships will be granted through the Duncan Gibbins Academy which was set up to offer friendly support and guidance to aspiring solicitors, providing useful hints and tips on how to be successful in the legal profession.

The aim behind the Academy is to give law students regular updates on current news, training contracts and work experience. The scholarships will provide students with something extra to add to their CVs and make them stand out from the rest.

Duncan Gibbins Solicitors are offering scholarships to:

• the student who obtains the highest overall grade in the law of torts and;
• to the student team which wins the University Mooting Competition

The scholarships will include cash prizes of up to £250, a work placement with Duncan Gibbins and a fast track through the application process to guarantee an interview in the next round of recruitment.

As personal injury lawyers, Duncan Gibbins recognise the importance of excelling in the law of torts and like to reward success in this area. Further, they appreciate the importance of the transferrable skills acquired by virtue of taking part in the mooting competition.

For further information about Duncan Gibbins Solicitors and The Duncan Gibbins Academy, please visit:

Duncan Gibbins Solicitors Website

Duncan Gibbins Academy Website

Twitter Duncan Gibbins – @DuncanGibbins

Twitter DG Academy – @DG_Academy

The Department will be launching a Pro Bono Law Clinic from October 2012. Undergraduate second and third year law students will provide free of charge legal advice to other students in the University and members of the wider community. The students providing legal advice will be supervised by experienced legal practitioners who are academic staff members of the Department as well as legal practitioners working for a range of practices based in the region.  The key aims of the initiative are to enable students to gain practical experience of working in legal practice and to provide an advisory legal service free of charge to members of the wider community in need of legal advice.