Back to business as usual

Last Wednesday I attended court with the housing charity I work for as a volunteer. This time at court was however a little different in that on previous occasions I have been accompanied by a solicitor from shelter. Today I ran the session, with the help of a trainee who is only at the stage of taking instructions rather than advocacy.

I personally represented 7 people at court in the space of two and a half hours, with most people going away happy. There was again unfortunately one eviction which I thought was entirely unfair as they had a buyer for the property, but the Judge was unwilling to suspend the warrant because the contracts had not been exchanged.

I did however come up against a strange phenomena which slightly threw me. I will call it the 'over helpful Judge'. Now I'm not saying that having a friendly Judge is a bad thing, but this Judge had her own ideas of exactly what was best for the client, regardless of what my instructions were. In fact in one case I had suggested the exact same solution to the client, but had been turned down, only for it to be accepted when made by the Judge ten minutes later.

I think the problem is is that the Judge is so used to defendants not being represented that she has developed a style in that she becomes both their representative and Judge. A lot of the time my carefully thought out submissions and facts were useless as she proceeded to ask the client all of the questions rather than me. But there we go, the important thing is a good outcome for the client so I can't complain too much.

I have also been asked by the coordinator whether I would be willing to take on the role of a mentor for a future volunteer. This is of course quite a compliment to my own work, but a lot of responsibility. I have agreed as I think that it will be an excellent experience, and will improve my work as I will have to think even more about how I work so that I can pass on best practice to the new volunteer.

Posts to come soon include the result of the elections at my uni, where I am running for a part time executive position, the target pupillage fair, and also the law students dinner at Lincolns Inn that I will be attending in March.

All the very best,

BoB

A defence from an unwarranted attack

I suppose in all walks of life you come across people that obviously feel so bad about themselves that they feel the need to belittle and insult people to achieve a feeling of worth and importance. These people do not anger me, but merely invoke feelings of pity and sympathy for the sad little lives that they lead.

The attack which I mention in the title is that which was directed to my choice of favourite books, and more specifically my enjoyment of Harry Potter. We all have guilty pleasures and I am more than happy to admit that I enjoy reading Harry Potter. We are all but human and fallible. However to attack me because I am not pompous and don't fell the need to mention that I have read '100 years of solitude' and 'The unbearable lightness of being' to try and prove that I am intellectual is merely a reflection of your own insecurities.

Favourite reads means exactly that. A subjective question, not based upon your intelligence, but what you enjoy. There are many extremely clever people that will sit down and read a trashy magazine for enjoyment and relaxation, which has no reflection on their intelligence. If 'favourite' is based upon what you enjoy then Harry Potter has given me a lot of enjoyment and deserves to be on my list.

It is quite obvious from the posts left on other blogs that the person who has decided to ridicule me is actually a bit of an idiot. He never has anything nice to say about anyone, and I seriously doubt whether he actually is a barrister. If he is I would imagine he is the one in chambers that nobody likes, receives very few briefs, and generally blames his own failings on everybody else other than him. This is because if he did own up to his own failings he would probably top himself for being such a worthless cretin.

I am sorry regular readers that this is a rather off topic post but I will not be told that I am unworthy of being a barrister purely because I enjoy some lighthearted relaxing reading. The blog will return to my journey to success (hopefully) in the very near future.

Victory for BoB

Loyal bog watchers the results are in for the final of the internal second year mooting competition, and as you may have guessed from the title of this post my partner and I won!!!

It was very close according to the Judge, although I was fairly sure that we had won, and indeed only one point seperated the teams. This did suprise me a little bit, as the other team relied on parts of the judgment in their cases which were given by dissenting judges, or at one point the argument of counsel. When I pointed this out to the judge in my rebuttal, it was met with a smile and a nod which certaintly did great things for my confidence.

Another reason that we won was the other team reading all of their submissions from pre-prepared scripts. So bad was this that even though in my initial submissions I conceded that the appellant could not succeed on a certain grounds, the lead counsel for the respondent spent half of her time explaining to the judge why the appellant could not succeed, because she just followed her script rather than change it.

This victory is however slightly tinged with sadness, as my beloved other half is jetting off to Australia this morning for five months as part of her degree course. On a plus side, my partner and I have been invited to moot externally for the university next year in the ESU mooting competition.

All the best
BoB

A Thorny Issue?

As someone who is nearing the point in my university experience when I need to decide which BVC provider to apply for, I have mulled over not just which will be the best but also the whole issue of entry requirements.

Now I don't want to go over old ground, which has been covered in a far better fashion than I ever could by Simon Myerson QC, but I wanted to post on what I personally think is the best option.

I am aware that supposedly you are required to have a 2.2 to get a place on the BVC, but from the impression I get this is not actually true. The first point I will make is why bother with entry criteria if you're not even going to enforce them. I know that BVC providers are businesses looking to make as much cash as possible, but how about thinking of the service you are providing to those poor people that are handing over a wheelbarrow full of money.

Letting in students that are clearly not up to the job not only results in a large number of massively in debt people with little chance of becoming barristers, but it will also impact on my learning experience which is utterly intolerable.

Instead of saying it just has to be a 2.2 (which in its self is pretty low especially seeing as most chambers stipulate a 2.1), why not have an examination before the offering of places based on public speaking and mooting skills, interviews, and some from of exam looking at issues affecting the bar today, ethics, etc.

I am not totally on board with this idea but thought that it would make an interesting post and might start some more discussion. Any tips or inside track concerning different providers would also be of great help. All the best BoB.

Finals of Mooting and new Bar Soc.

I have, as many regular readers will know, been steadily progressing through the internal mooting competition with my partner, and have reached the final. The final will be the 13th of February and is front of a real Judge, and in gowns so all very exciting.

I'm feeling really fired up for this, especially after the disappointment of the Vac scheme interview, and have again been placed in the position of the appellants. I shall obviously let you know the result, but if we win it may be a little while afterwards due to having to nurse a massive hangover.

I have come back this year and am working hard, and have also realised that my degree is half way through. Things will start really going soon when considering BVC provider, funding, scholarship applications, and my first go at the dreaded OLPAS form. To this end it is back o the grindstone to have as impressive a list of exam results, and some more sending off of CV's for mini pupillage's.

In other news I am attending the Target Pupillage fair to talk to chambers, network, and swan around London for a while afterwards. I assume I may see some of you there. The University I attend has also just started up a new Bar Soc, finally, so that we may actually start to see some events specifically for those wishing to qualify as Barristers.

I promise I shall post with something a little more interesting, possibly jumping into the debate concerning the BVC and admission to the course?

Happy BoB

As I promised here is a round up of my interview at a certain MC firm which took place this morning. I am sure that you are not supposed to enjoy interviews this much, but I can honestly say hand on heart that I felt I gave a very good impression of myself and found it to be a very interesting and stimulating experience.

The morning started with a critical reasoning test. These are a pain in the backside but the firm was good enough to send out a practice paper so that with some study I was able to walk in a lot more confident about it, and felt that I did not embarrassed myself totally.

This was followed by an interview with a member of HR and concentrated on my 'soft skills' (talking to people, handling different situations, being a normal human being!), although the first 15 minutes were spent talking about my military and musical career. Questions included:

Describe a situation where you have recognised a colleague is under pressure and you have resolved it;
Describe a situation where a conflict has arisen and you have dealt with it.

I managed to give some good examples, and asked lots of questions at the end about training and the company ethos, and generally had quite a nice chat.

I was then given a tour with my two competitors, ahem, I mean fellow applicants, and shown all that the building had to offer, including the biggest flat screen television I have ever seen.

The day ended with an interview with a partner who was really nice, and asked me questions set to test my 'commercial awareness'. The scenario was based upon a real estate transaction, which was great as I love Land Law and would love to work in that field, be it at the Bar or as a Solicitor. It also helped that the partner was a property Lawyer and that I had expressed an interest in it on my application form.

So a good day in which I believe I have done well, but could have done better in a few areas like talking about how my time in the Army developed my soft skills, and thought a bit more about the connection between commercial awareness and how it impacts the advice a lawyer gives. I suppose all I can do is wait until the email arrives in my mail box.

In other news I also outdoor clerked on two occasions last just to keep me occupied and in a legal frame of mind, earn some more cash, and do a bit more networking with Barristers.

You can't win them all, but losing still sucks.

My apologies that the first post of the year is such a pessimistic one, and I shall hopefully return to my usual chipper self, presuming that the interview on the 14th goes well.

The reason I am a slightly blue BoB is that I had my first case where the client was served an eviction notice. I will not go in to the details as all information I receive is private and confidential, but suffice to say the interest rate rises coupled with the end of the fixed rate term had left them in an unsustainable position. The only option was to try to achieve as much time as possible to find a buyer.

Although the deputy district judge described my submissions as 'valiant' and told the clients that they could not have been put better, he only gave them 56 days rather than the six months I was asking for. This is however longer than the usual so a small victory from the ashes. The clients were obviously both upset, but thanked me for everything that I had done.

As with all work experience none of it is wasted, and I believe that I have learnt a valuable lesson, firstly about the law, and secondly about myself.

Firstly this has brought into sharp focus the fact that you cannot always win, and that eventually no matter how good you are, the odds will be so stacked against you that you just have to try and achieve something for your client, no matter how small.

Secondly it is has shown me that I am personally capable of dealing with this disappointment, and that I have a strong enough character to take the knocks when they come, pick myself up, and cheerily look forward to my next time in court.

Till next time
BoB