Few law schools can count among their students a working harbourmaster and a brain surgeon; or an England cricketer and a retired coalminer.

The Open University law degree was launched ten years ago. Gary Slapper, Professor of Law and director of the Centre for Law, says the course has done more to broaden access to legal education than anything else in the past 50 years.

The 1,500 OU law graduates to date will still be at an early stage of their legal careers, but Slapper insists that the sky’s the limit. “We are focusing on educating the law lords of the future,” he says.

The OU’s was the first taught law degree to be open to everyone — something that was seen as heretical. Dropout rates are inevitably higher than for some other law schools, However, despite the OU being entirely unselective, despite many students working full-time and having family and other commitments, 70 to 80 per cent stay the course. Of those, about 90 per cent pass.

Slapper says the results debunk the notion that the only way to run a law school is by making sure every entrant “has at least three As at A level”.

The course is run in partnership with the College of Law and all graduates are guaranteed a place for vocational training. Jane Chapman, director of academic programmes at the College of Law, says that the degree’s open access was a key attraction for the college.

Chapman emphasises that although there are some quirky stories behind many OU law students — one is aged 96; another spent 75 days rowing the Atlantic before his exams — most are not what she calls “oddities”. Yes, there is the odd nonagenarian among them, but 20 per cent of students are under 30; another 30 per cent are under 40 (only 4 per cent are 60-plus), she says.

Perhaps what is most curious about the OU student body is how it mirrors that found at other law schools: about half its students are women, and 9 per cent are from ethnic minorities, rates that are broadly comparable with more traditional organisations.

Chapman says: “We have 3,500 students and most are just normal people who missed the boat to go to university at 18. It can be people who bombed out of their A levels and thought that they couldn’t be bothered to do them again; someone who has just gone into a job and then realised that he or she does have the ability. A lot of their motivation is being able to succeed when somebody, somewhere had previously told them they hadn’t got it.”

CASE STUDIES

Jane Heybroek

Years working at a call centre have come in very handy at the Bar, says Jane Heybroek, a barrister, particularly when dealing with “extremely difficult” criminal clients. “I learnt how to defuse a situation if someone is getting a bit upset,” she says.

Heybroek knew she wanted to be a barrister when she was 12. “But I was such an appalling teenager. I just wanted to go out and earn money and never finished my A levels.”

The OU law degree was, she says, like the answer to a prayer. In 2001 she was among the first wave of OU law graduates and, after studying full-time for her Bar exams at the College of Law, became its first barrister. Now at Bell Yard Chambers, she specialises in criminal, family and immigration work. “For the first time in my life, I look forward to going into work every single day.”

Marc Cornock

There cannot be many law lecturers who come to academia via a stint at catering college and then nursing.

Cornock joined the OU law centre in January, where he teaches the same law degree he completed in 2005. Unsurprisingly, given his background as a registered general nurse, he also specialises in medical law.

His interest in law was sparked by a situation on a ward: an elderly man would not consent to his unconscious wife having a treatment. “So the procedure didn’t happen — and she didn’t improve as quickly as she might,” Cornock says. On investigation, he discovered that the doctors could have gone ahead lawfully on the ground of best interest, but no one had known that at the time.

Cornock says his ward experience is a real asset in developing legal training for health workers. “Academic lawyers will say: ‘Nurses and doctors need to know this . . .’ and I’ll say: ‘Actually, they don’t. What they do need to know is X . . .’.”

Vicki Scoble

It is no surprise that someone who gained a first in her law degree and a distinction in her vocational training should end up as a solicitor at a leading West End law firm.

What is surprising, however, is that Scoble, a commercial property lawyer with Howard Kennedy, had virtually no formal schooling after a car accident when 10. Scoble says the accident “wasn’t spectacular; just one of those things”, but prolonged bouts of treatment had a devastating effect on her education. “Before the accident, I’d always wanted to be a lawyer,” she says. After the accident, given that she reached school-leaving age without ever having taken an exam, it did not seem a very realistic prospect.

She says: “I did the OU degree, never having studied. When I asked the tutor, ‘How do you write an essay?’ there was a deathly silence at the end of the phone. But, when he realised I was serious, he couldn’t have been more helpful.”

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