A certain amount of controversy was inevitable. After all, the private equity industry attracted plenty of headlines during the credit boom for aggressive takeovers and financial engineering. And leading commercial law schools have, over the last decade, faced mounting criticism for expanding at the expense of students with little prospect of a career in law.
As such, last week’s news that the College of Law – the UK’s longest-standing and largest legal education provider – had agreed a £200m sale to Montagu Private Equity was always going to alarm those who fear the introduction of commercial players into education.
