Soul practitioner

Snoring + lawing = exam success

May 2011

Ah, springtime. The birds are singing, the lambs are gambolling or whatever, and the world is becoming a generally more pleasant place. Still, there must be balance, and in return for the world becoming a generally more pleasant place, it must also become specifically less pleasant. Much less pleasant. Yes, it's exam time again.

I suppose I should go on at length about how exams are excellent at making you consolidate your knowledge, about how lucky we are that law exams are well-respected and rigorous, but I can't. The fact is, we all know exams are a nightmare of stress and panic. Days spent learning the differences between unregistered and registered land or European sex discrimination directives have a tendency to turn the brain to mush. Which is why it's important to get away for a week or two.

This being Easter and my school deciding that they were going to take the entire month of April off as holidays, I took the opportunity to escape with a couple of friends and walked some of the coast to coast. I thought it would be fun (it was) and cheap (it was not). It's not that I mind paying 40 pounds for a hovel and breakfast, it's that I keep thinking how much more I'd be able to get for my money by going abroad. I didn't have time for much revision, although I optimistically took a folder of land law notes, but I did have fun discovering that you can revise almost anywhere. For example: does the lumpy, hard sack with which you've been presented really count as a bed, or can this constitute a breach of contract?

A better opportunity arose in a youth hostel dorm. As much as I love youth hostels, their dorms are often full of men who snore and I have a very, very limited tolerance for snoring. There are those who, when faced with adversity of this sort, grin and bear it and try to get what sleep they can. I am not one of those people. Much as I admire them, my response follows a well-trodden path. First, begin by sighing loudly and dramatically and/or making loud tutting noises. Next, start grumbling under the breath, gradually increasing in volume to see if this has any effect. Then there is the option of either exclaiming loudly 'who is snoring?' or getting up and making as much noise as possible. Both work very well in my experience.

On this holiday, a third option presented itself. Why not use this as an opportunity for revision? If I throw a shoe at a guy's head, does this count as simple assault? What about if I went over with a pillow and pressed it over his face until the snoring stopped? Murder? Or could I claim involuntary manslaughter on the grounds of a loss of control? Could snoring be my 'qualifying trigger'?

In the end, I decided that banging about and waking the snorer and everyone else up was the best way to go. Selfish and intolerant you might say, and this is true. Still I'll remember this bit of criminal law in my exam, and I got a good night's sleep. Not bad for 40 quid.

Ain't about the ka-ching ka-ching
April 2011

Recently, two things have begun to annoy me when I tell people I'm changing jobs from singing teacher to solicitor.

The first is the response of people who ask me if I'm going to be singing in front of the judge. No. No I am not. The second, inevitable, response (normally from fellow teachers) is something along the lines of 'Wow! You're going to be loaded.'

Er'¦

Although remuneration may be sky-high for corporate lawyers, for those of us with a passion for legal aid work, times are looking increasingly tough, what with the proposed massive cuts to the legal aid budget looming on the horizon. Admittedly, with salaries for newly qualified criminal solicitors in the mid twenties, whipping up public sympathy for the legal profession (always a thankless task) is going to be a hard slog. But despite what most teachers (with their enviable job security, gold-plated pensions, retirement at 60 and 15 weeks holiday a year) think, not only is being a lawyer no longer a guarantee of riches, for many graduates the prospect of a job is looking increasingly remote.

An enormous industry of universities and colleges has grown up encouraging people into the legal profession, to convert their degrees with a GDL and then take LPCs and BPTCs. All very profitable, and the education offered is generally of a very high quality, but there is a growing disparity between the volume of legal graduates and the number of jobs actually available.

This was starkly illustrated with my first careers appointment at the College of Law. Like many GDL students, I was unsure whether I wanted to become a barrister or solicitor. A quick discussion of the number of BPTC graduates who fail even to get a first six-month pupillage (over 60 per cent) quickly made up my mind for me.

The situation may be less dire for trainee solicitors but there are still too many people going for too few jobs. While competition is undoubtedly a good thing (sheep from goats, wheat from chaff, metaphor of your choice), encouraging large numbers of people to spend large sums of money pursuing jobs that just don't exist has a whiff of exploitation, if not naked profiteering, about it.

I may have spent some of this blog (alright, lots) moaning about teachers' privileged status, but many of them say the same things about lawyers. Perhaps I can glibly conclude by saying the grass is always greener. And, as I change from one career to the other, that gets me coming and going.

Katie Price: Attorney at Law

March 2011

'So, why do you want to do law?' asked the solicitor whom I was shadowing.

'Er'¦' was my less than impressive reply. Perhaps my brain was simply frozen in terror as she drove at 90 miles down the motorway, one hand on the wheel, one hand dextrously dunking a chicken nugget into a pot of sauce. 'I guess I need to think of an answer to that,' I lamely replied.

As those of you currently doing the rounds on training contracts will know, it's just one of the seemingly interminable questions you're required to answer by firms; albeit one of the easier ones. It's not enough just knowing your university, A-level and GCSE grades to the nth degree, or even having a snappy answer for the standard "why do you want to work for our firm" question (money, job, rent, food, car, life?).

The ones that I truly treasure are those that seem as if they've been put in just for a laugh: "Which famous historical figure would you like to meet, and why?" being a recent gem. 'Atilla the Hun,' one classmate replied. Hmm, clearly someone has their sights set on commercial law.

I do know that all these questions are a way for firms to sift through innumerable applications, but they must surely be as galling for them to read as they are for us to write. On the plus side, perhaps we can consider it as revenge; they may make us write this rubbish, but they have to read about why Jordan is an inspirational figure for today's young lawyers. (I feel a joke about inflation and assets coming on, but I shall resist.)

So, on that note, I'm off to write about how much Katie Price's willingness to do almost anything for fame has inspired me in my search for legal success. Oh, and think about why I want to be a lawyer. Answers on a postcard, anyone?

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