Exclusive: LPC students left unable to access vital online law library
BPP Law School’s practical legal research (PLR) examination was thrown into chaos yesterday after students were unable to access online legal resource website LexisNexis.
Legal Practice Course (LPC) students at BPP’s Holborn branch were in the middle of their PLR assessment when the site — popular with both students and lawyers — went down.
Those sitting the exam were given a problem question on Monday morning and had just two days to complete and submit their research for marking. As you can probably imagine being unable to access what is presumably the one site now not blocked at BPP was not exactly helpful for students.
In an email (pictured below) sent to panic-stricken students yesterday afternoon, and subsequently acquired by Legal Cheek, the law school acknowledged that LexisNexis was having some technical difficulties and provided students with emergency login details.
One LPC student affected by the problem, and wishing to remain anonymous, told Legal Cheek:
I expended a lot of energy yesterday afternoon getting angry with my computer. I assumed the problem was at my end until we got the email from BPP. They responded pretty quickly to the problem which is encouraging, though I wouldn’t have said no to an extension. I just hope this isn’t a choreographed stunt to teach us a lesson about not leaving things until the last minute: I didn’t pay £15k for lessons in real life.
A BPP University Law School spokesperson said:
We have alerted LexisNexis that students are completing the PLR assessment at the moment. Temporary login details have been provided to students as an interim measure.