ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on the findings of two recent studies which focus explicitly on the student experience on the margins of legal education and the difficulties that non-traditional, or outsider, students. It argues that not withstanding new possibilities opening up for participation within the legal services market, exclusionary practices of cultural reproduction persist. Access to the legal profession is, today, heavily managed and mediated by teams of HR professionals who stress openness to all, objectivity and psychometrically assessed neutral competencies. In the Work Experience study firm survey, previous legal work experience was typically ranked as the second or third most important criteria in the recruiter's assessment of students for participation on the Formal Vacation Schemes. The law firm's image as a total institution demanding immersive enthusiasm from its entrants, also appears to be an uncomfortable one for many outsider students and appears to contribute to the patterns of cultural reproduction which reinforce social closure.
