Would-be lawyers from outside the EU may be forced to take an unplanned holiday due to changes in the immigration system, London Student has discovered.

New UK Border Authority rules mean that students who need visas to study in the UK will have to receive grades for the Legal Practice Course before the firms they intend to work for can sponsor their applications to remain in the country.

The time taken for the Border Authority to process applications will mean some students will have to wait up to seven months before beginning trainee schemes.

“We have no idea how long application processing is going to take, as we haven’t received Home Office guidelines yet,” business law firm Freshfields said: “early indications are that this is going to take about two months.”

Magic Circle law firm Slaughter and May said that they had to apply for “certificates of sponsorship” before students having training contracts with the firm could apply for leave to remain in the country, although the firm denied that the new immigration rules had changed the situation faced by non-EU graduates.

With some firms now offer a shortened LPC, many law students will finish the course in January 2010 and be able to start work in March of the same year.

However, students waiting for Border Authority clearance are unlikely to make this early start and will probably have to wait for the September 2010 intake, Freshfields said.

“My student visa would end in February, but I wouldn’t be able to start work until months later,” one LSE law student said, having considered taking up a training contract with Slaughter and May: “I think I’d have to go back to Singapore.”

“It’s frustrating as I’d probably have to pay rent for months when I wouldn’t be in the country,” he added.

Yet some students are not so disappointed about the enforced break: “Most people are pretty happy about this, as it means that they can go travelling and have a holiday,” one said.

London Student has also discovered figures detailing the numbers of international research students refused permission to study in the country because their research projects were judged potentially threatening to national security.

Between its launch in November 2007 and 9 February this year, 79 students were refused clearance to do research in the UK under the Academic Technology Approval Scheme, with over 12,000 applications made.

Two Pakistani applicants, hoping to do PhDs in Computing and Aeronautical Engineering at Imperial College, were refused clearance.

The Home Office said in a statement: “Although these numbers are very low, they represent a significant contribution to our counter proliferation efforts.”

“I think we were being told that less than one per cent were being refused…this seems to confirm this so no great conclusion,” head of the UK Council for International Student Affairs Dominic Scott told London Student.

“Our concern is not that ATAS is particularly difficult. More that with ATAS and normal visa application and need to do biometrics (and register with the police on arrival) there are an increasing number of steps and hurdles.”

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