BPP Law School was the founding school of what is now BPP University. It takes its name from the surname initials of Alan Brierley, Richard Price and Charles Prior who founded a college in 1976 to provide exam training to accountancy students. The BPP Law School was founded in 1992 to offer training to students wanting to qualify as solicitors or barristers in England and Wales. It was set up by Mike Semple Piggot and run by Carl Lygo and Professor Peter Crisp. In 2005 the law school joined forces with the newly formed BPP Business School under the name BPP College. Both became part of BPP Holdings Ltd.. Through its parent institution, the law school has degree awarding powers, awarded by the Privy Council in 2007.. BPP Holdings was sold to the Apollo Group in 2009. BPP College was granted university status and renamed BPP University in 2013. BPP University Law School has ties to a consortium of "Magic Circle" and "Silver Circle" law firms to educate their future trainees. The school is used by more than 60 City of London law firms to educate their lawyers. The law school's pro bono centre runs a number of projects delivered by BPP law school students with guidance from qualified lawyers. BPP's parent company, Apollo Education Group, was sold to a trio of private equity companies in February 2017. In March of that year, Carl Lygo, the law school's CEO and first Vice Chancellor stepped down. The departure of the law school's Dean, Peter Crisp, followed in June. Crisp went on to become a pro vice chancellor of the University of Law. In July 2017 Andrew Chadwick was appointed Dean of the Law School BPP University Law School had set up its first Bachelor of Laws degree programmes in 2009. The undergraduate LL.B. programme was suspended in May 2018 pending a review of the law school's entire programme portfolio. Enrollment in the LL.B. had reached a high of 665 undergraduates in 2014 but had fallen to 105 students by 2017. According to Andrew Chadwick, dean of the law school, the suspension did not effect BPP's solicitor apprenticeship programme, "which incorporates a distinct and purpose-built LLB". BPP closed its Liverpool branch at the end of June 2018. The existing 37 students there, all of whom were studying part-time, were advised to continue their legal studies at the University's Manchester campus. In 2019, Department for Education banned BPP Law School from recruiting new apprentices. This was announced following an 'Inadequate' rating by Ofsted in November 2018. In December 2019, BPP University Law School was appointed as the exclusive provider of training to the City Consortium In December 2019, BPP University's Companies House entry revealed the termination of the appointment of current Dean John Chadwick as a director. Andrew Chadwick resigned from his statutory role as a Director of BPP University Limited on 12 December 2019.
Programmes
The school is a vocational provider of the Legal Practice Course for future Solicitors. The school also offers the Bar Training Course for future barristers and awards the Graduate Diploma in Law , Graduate LL.B. and Master of Laws degrees. In June 2017 BPP was ranked "Bronze" in the Teaching Excellence Framework, a government-backed initiative to make teaching standards more transparent for students, with the categories for education institutions being "Bronze", "Silver", and "Gold".
