A number of Academic Institutions are authorised by the Bar Council to deliver BVCs. A number of these institutions allow courses to be taken through part time study. Details of the application process are available from their website. The BVC provides a practical training in the core specialist skills important to a career as a barristers.

The core course syllabus comprises the following subjects;

• Advocacy
• Conference Skills
• Drafting
• Fact Management
• The "Knowledge Subjects" (Civil Litigation; Criminal Litigation and Sentencing; Evidence; Civil Remedies)
• Legal Research
• Negotiation
• Opinion Writing
• Professional Conduct

The course also requires two optional subjects.

The course is assessed by a mixture of seen and unseen assessments. There are 8 institutions that have been validated to deliver the BVC.

• BPP Law School (London and Leeds)
• Cardiff Law School
• City Law School, London
• The College of Law (London and Birmingham)
• Manchester Metropolitan University
• Nottingham Law School
• University of Northumbria
• The University of the West of England, Bristol