Judge clears legal course over student's exam failures (From Oxford Mail)

Judge clears legal course over student's exam failures

10:00am Saturday 19th March 2011 in Oxford

A STUDENT who sued an Oxford law college for £100,000 after failing exams three times has been told by a judge her own lack of aptitude was to blame.

Mr Justice Burnett, sitting at the High Court in London, said no-one doubted Russian-born Maria Abramova’s academic brilliance after she won an Oxford University law degree.

But he ruled there was “no realistic chance” of her passing the professional course which would have led to her becoming a solicitor.

The 28-year-old claimed staff at the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice (OXILP), part of Oxford Brookes University, let her down by failing to coach her in exam techniques before she flunked her first set of exams in May 2005.

She later failed twice more, also failing to pass the New York Bar examinations in 2007.

Exonerating the college yesterday, Mr Justice Burnett said Miss Abramova had failed to prove that her coaching in exam techniques “was inadequate, still less negligent”.

He added it was clear that OXILP staff had “put themselves out to assist Miss Abramova in circumstances where she had disadvantaged herself by cutting things fine”.

He added: “In my judgment, there was no realistic chance of her passing the course. For whatever reason, she did not display the aptitude necessary to succeed.

“The breadth of her difficulties in passing variou papers suggests a fundamental problem which the lack of success in the New York Bar examinations confirms.

“Despite her academic ability, which is beyond doubt, Miss Abramova’s difficulties in achieving success in the LPC were profound, indeed fatal to that success.”

Miss Abramova, a linguist, now works for a firm specialising in aviation law, but the court heard she remained haunted by her failure to pass the LPC.

Miss Abramova, now of Aldgate, London, won a law degree at Oriel College in July 2004, commencing the LPC course the following September.

Julie Brannan, director of OXILP, said: “I have always had total confidence in the quality of the course.

“The continuing success of the vast majority of our students is testimony to the exceptional calibre of the teaching.”