A STUDENT who claims her legal career was jinxed by an Oxford law institute’s failure to prepare her adequately for major professional exams has launched a £100,000 High Court compensation bid.

Maria Abramova claims staff at the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice (OXILP) let her down by failing to coach her in crucial exam techniques before she flunked her first set of exams in May 2005.

The institute, part of Oxford Brookes University, is fighting the case.

The 28-year-old Oxford University graduate said her experiences at OXILP left her with a critical blind spot in tackling exams, contributing to her failing the coveted New York bar examination three years ago.

“I recently decided not to retake that examination,” she told the court on Monday.

“This is because I have found it psychologically difficult to take legal examinations following my experiences on the course and subsequently, at OXILP.”

Although she has pursued a career as a paralegal with a UK firm specialising in aviation law, she said she still felt haunted by her failure to qualify as a solicitor because she never passed the Property Law and Practice (PLP) element of her course.

Russian-born Ms Abramova came to the UK 11 years ago having accumulated a variety of academic plaudits, including the country’s “silver medal for outstanding academic achievements”.

She read law at Oriel College, Oxford, and left with a 2:1 in July 2004, commencing her legal practitioner’s course at OXILP in September that year with keen ambitions to qualify as a solicitor.

But her barrister, Oliver Hyams, claimed the law college failed Ms Abramova by neglecting to provide “tuition in examination techniques” before she failed her first set of tests in May 2005, and then of “inadequate assistance in relation to the retaking of those failed exams”.

The alleged lack of tuition was “clearly negligent”, argued Mr Hyams.

He added: “The defendant, if it was to comply with its part of the bargain between the parties, should have done something, and not just nothing, to assist her with her examination techniques long before one month before the end of the course.

“Such help as was then given was going to have to be efficacious during a period when most staff were on holiday and at a time when further exams were imminent.”

Although Ms Abramova re-took the exams, and was successful in most components, the PLP element still eluded her and she finished unqualified as a solicitor.

Ms Abramova, from Aldgate, London, is claiming more than £100,000 compensation from OXILP.

The institute denies all liability.

Defence lawyers argue her lawsuit is groundless and that she was given every possible assistance throughout her course.

The hearing continues.