Celebrating 10 years of Law Training Centre

In 2015, a bold idea started a wave of change in the UK’s legal education landscape, challenging conventional approaches to legal training and opening doors for aspiring legal professionals from all backgrounds. A decade later, Law Training Centre stands as a trailblazer in the field, having transformed online legal education and empowered thousands of learners to achieve their career goals.

Reflecting on Law Training Centre’s journey, Co-Founders Eve and Dino Dullabh are sharing their personal story about starting the law school and the impact it has had on them, the people they’ve qualified and the legal landscape as a whole.

The idea that started it all

Having completed their law degrees in South Africa, husband and wife Dino and Eve Dullabh moved to the UK, hoping to qualify and practise law. Immediately they were stopped in their tracks by unnecessary barriers to qualify via the expensive LPC route and the nature of the old training contract regime.

Whilst teaching at a college, Eve discovered the CILEX route: “I looked at it and realised this is an amazing route, but the delivery model just didn’t work. At the time it was either compressed to be equivalent to the university semester and people were having to come in at night to study, with around 80% being women with children, or worse, it was correspondence distance learning with no tutor interaction. Neither was good enough for their needs”.

Her idea was to make an entirely online law school, with an enriched, tutor supported environment where learners could qualify in a way that genuinely suited their needs.

With limited technology and resources in 2015, Eve and Dino decided to set up Law Training Centre first as a classroom-based law school in Canterbury, with the aim to move fully online with an online platform in time. As the school developed, they were eventually able to bring in new qualifications like the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) route and develop them to run fully online.

Eve’s vision was grounded in accessibility and flexibility – two principles often missing in traditional legal training pathways. Her end goal was always for there to be a way for aspiring lawyers to qualify as a solicitor completely online, even before the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) route was ever introduced.

 “When she told me she wanted there to be a way to qualify as a solicitor online I didn’t understand. I thought it was impossible. But she said no, the pathway isn’t crystal clear today but this can happen, so I believed her,” Dino recalls. “When she laid out the vision, I realised it might be possible. We started looking at all the different routes – CLC, CILEX, even the SRA police station accreditation route – and we started setting up a new system for qualifying that allowed learners to choose a pathway that was right for them and progress beyond the previously limited routes.”

Pioneering accessible legal education

From its inception, Law Training Centre has aimed to provide flexibility and inclusivity in legal training. Traditional routes were expensive and rigid, but worst of all – exclusionary by design.

Eve and Dino knew that the lack of choice and understanding of alternative routes was blocking talented and deserving aspiring lawyers.

“I was frustrated by the lack of options which stopped many individuals from entering the legal profession,” Dino tells us. “The time had come to finally give people all the options and empower them to qualify. Eve and I saw daily how people were evolving in their roles as their confidence grew, especially those who were first in their families to go into law.

“Without options, many were trapped in qualifications that were either irrelevant or didn’t fit their study needs. This is why we’ve persevered to make multiple options available in the same place,” Dino says.

Pausing to look back after 10 years, the scale of impact is beyond what Eve and Dino imagined. They’ve changed the lives of thousands of people and put their stamp on the legal education sector as a whole.

“Seeing people we taught 10 years ago now in positions of leadership, and many as Partners in law firms growing their own talent in the way we taught them, is a huge milestone. It validates everything we set out to do. You can look at business success, metrics, numbers, but to me the real validation is seeing our alumni prove that you can qualify in our way and that the sky really is the limit,” Dino highlights.

But to get to this point hasn’t always been easy, as misconceptions have continued to cloud progress. “We still get emails from people saying it’s impossible to be a Partner in a law firm unless you are a solicitor, because that was true up until 2007,” Dino tells us. “There has always been a real challenge in making people believe that qualifying flexibly was really possible.”

Eve also recalls this issue: “There was real disbelief when we started because we were very much ahead of our time. It took COVID moving everyone online and the introduction of the SQE to really make it believable in people’s minds. When the SRA said that you don’t need a law degree and you can study online, it suddenly made all the other routes viable and gave much more awareness and acceptance to online study.”

But with their determination, Law Training Centre was able to change these perceptions and create routes for every type of aspiring lawyer, helping over 4,500 learners to qualify and supporting over 700 firms and organisations to train their staff via alternative routes.

“The best employers are increasingly supporting these routes, and we’ve been lucky to work with hundreds of firms to train their talent in a way that not only benefits their business, but also works for their staff,” Dino tells us. “There has been a huge shift to realising that flexible working and learning works, and law firm leaders are increasingly developing their talent from within by supporting them through our courses”.

Looking ahead

After 10 years of success, it’s important not only to look back, but also to look forward. So, we asked Dino and Eve what they want to achieve in the next 10 years of Law Training Centre.

“We’ve set the foundation. We’ve proven that the flexible model delivers value for everyone involved – the learner, the employer, the regulators, the insurers, and most importantly the clients,” Dino says. “Our alumni are qualified, they’re leading law firms and shaping the future of the legal profession. So now looking at the next 10 years, I hope to keep sharing these alternative options and growing our learner base. Even with so many going on to great success, and my endless LinkedIn commentating, we’re probably still the best kept secret in law!

“I think the next ten years will also be about focusing on the interconnection between the routes. There will be a lot more people looking to shift their career, specialise through different pathways and cross-qualify, and by offering all the routes, we’re able to help these learners achieve full, life-long careers.”

Eve agrees: “When Dino and I started this journey, we saw talented classmates and colleagues being told ‘no’ by a system that wasn’t built for them. Ten years on, I’m more convinced than ever that the future of law belongs to those we’re saying ‘yes’ to today.

“In the next decade, I see Law Training Centre breaking down every last barrier that keeps brilliant minds out of our profession. We’re not lowering standards – we’re raising the expectations of what’s possible,” she continues.

“We’re not just training lawyers. We’re unleashing potential that’s been locked out for too long, and proving that when you give people real choices – flexible routes, world-class education and genuine support – they transform the entire profession. The legal world of 2035 will be more diverse and more dynamic, and every single person we help qualify is part of making that happen.”