MORE certificates required...

I have an English degree. The Inn I'm applying to is asking me for my GCSE English certificate... Crikey, there's a distinct question as to whether or not I even know where that is after all this time. It's hardly my last qual!!

In fact, as I think about it, I recall that it may have had an incident with the all-in-one fax/printer/scanner/photocopier a while back...

And don't even get me started on all the things required to rent a flat. Has the whole world gone paperwork mad?

The greasy career pole and the mild-mannered...

I recently had a conversation with a friend aspiring to the diplomatic service that, while none too startling at the time, has led me to mull over an interesting question that I thought some other people might have experience with/an opinion on.

My friend, let's call him Alex, is hugely dedicated to positive social change and has for the longest time worked doggedly in volunteer positions for various human rights charities and campaigning organisations. As he gears up to make his application via the Fast Stream this autumn, he's now worried that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Is an association with Liberty, for example, or a group that has been doing work in Darfur, going to mark him out as a 'troublemaker', and disadvantage him? Is the DS really rather like military intelligence, where only the quiet, gray, mild-mannered manage to climb the greasy career pole (or even get on it to begin with)?

My answer was that it depends. Associations with Greenpeace or an organisation dedicated to naming and shaming certain countries or groups would probably come across as a black mark on his application. Surely a diplomat should have no such visible (and google-able) ideological affiliations?

If this is true, then, what about for barristers? Where is the boundary line on organisational/ideological affiliations? Judges have to give up any party political affiliations, but how easy is it to disadvantage oneself at the very bottom of the career ladder by being a 'troublemaker' associated with messy campaigns, or 'overly earnest', even?

It would be good to hear from anyone on the subject. I happen to not be a member of anything much in particular, but Alex's dilemma has gotten me thinking about if similar preferences for the mild-mannered show through on certain stretches of the legal career ladder...

The employed bar?

As I set up a cash-flow forecast, I'm finding that I more and more have to investigate the employed opportunities for pupillage simply because schemes such as the GLS' offer such great funding: BVC fees paid plus a stipend? Attractive, obviously, and for the obvious reason: afterward, you have to work for the GLS for several years, and your advocacy opportunities are limited (unlike in the CPS, which is a different kettle of fish altogether).

Does anyone have any advice about these and other employed options? They have the aura of an "easy way out" about them that makes me feel apprehensive about making even speculative applications, but obviously something like the GLS, which takes less than a dozen pupil barristers, must be highly competitive. How would it be to manage a shift into tenancy after a few years there? I'm guessing that the transition from CPS to in-chambers defence work is easier than transitioning, say, from the Home Office into chambers, but perhaps I'm wrong if you're interested in practicing in the right area of law and have gained some experience in it.

New instructions for jurors in rape cases - finally!

There is so much ignorance and prejudice surrounding the issue of rape in our society that these new directions for judges allowing them to instruct juries about the rape myths our society should educate children about (but sadly doesn't) are to be welcomed with open arms. Obviously, it is but one small step, but it's a meaningful one nonetheless.


And, on an unrelated note, I'm not sure why, but Blogger has erased my following list. I'll have to go back and rebuild it, I suppose. I hate it when the internet just disappears things! Oh, never mind. For some reason, it just didn't show up for some reason...

Mini arranged x 1!

Well, I sent out two CVs and got one mini out of them, so I feel like that's a pretty strong ratio!

I've done one mini before within the commercial area, so I'm now trying my hand at a criminal set. In the past year my focus and interests have changed a fair bit, so I'm hoping this mini will help me figure things out a bit more. And it'll be nice to see court, as I didn't get to in my last one. The only minor fly in the ointment is the scheduling. It's not quite ideal, so I might have to rejig my timetable for moving house. Still, take 'em when you can get 'em, right?

BPP's takeover

Insite magazine has brought to me the news that BPP is almost certainly to be bought by an American "education provider" (Apollo Global). Hopefully that won't turn out the way that ETS' takeover of the SATs system turned out, eh?

A great introduction to the world of law...

Can be found in the process of just actually getting to the GDL. Here's what I have to do:

• Apply to the Bar Standards Board for a Certificate of Academic Standing. In order to do so, I have to get a copy of my degree certificate and a copy of my transcript notarised.
  Time: 1 week to get all that arranged; 3-5 weeks until I get the actual certificate.
  
• Apply to one of the Inns of Court.
  Time: likely two weeks? (Anyone got a better estimate?) At least I've got a looong wait in
  which to arrange my character references and the like.
  
• Apply for student bank loans for those pursuing the Bar (which require the Inns of Court membership, which requires the CoAS...)
  Time until they come through: hopefully not too long!
• Pay my fees. At least I'll have ages to decide how to do that -- all in one go? Bit by bit? As I'm a bit of a worrier, I'm generally inclined towards the all-in-one-go idea, but I think that because I'm going to be funding them mainly through loans, I might be better off interest-wise doing the bit-by-bit method...
• Rent a flat. Which I can't really do until some of the loan money comes through, although maybe I could squeeze my savings and do it beforehand if it looks like the above process is just going to run on and on and on.
  

Having worked at a solicitor's some time, I am in no way surprised by the lengthy process of forms and certificates that I need to go through to get from stage to stage. I was very optimistically hoping to have joined an Inn by mid-July. I think I should probably revise that estimate to late-July/early-August, in retrospect...

At least this somewhat solves the problem I posted about previously (too much time on my hands this summer)!

Summer activities

Due to the fact that I took up my GDL place a little later than most, changing my plans from something else entirely along the way, I'm now at a something of a loss for what to do with my summer. This is the not-particularly-exhaustive list that I've got of options:

• Apply for mini-pupillages at the few chambers that are still accepting applications and might still be able to give me something over the summer months (not very many, I know, because most places will have arranged all their mini-pupillages by now, and by their very nature "summer opportunities" can be rather slim in this business).
• Try my hand at volunteering somewhere, a CAB or maybe even with an MP, just for something to do. The lack of funding is a problem, though, as well as location. Right now, I'm not fully set up in London yet, and that's where I'd be best off volunteering at a CAB (to set something up for the full year). Any MPs I volunteer with will probably need me to travel around between London and constituency without much funding for costs.
• The academic part of my brain suggests trying my hand at a few articles and doing a lot of reading. Given that I'm unlikely to produce anything of any real meaning (or publishable quality!), I'm not really sure how I'll explain that later on...
  
• "Meaningful travel" (as my undergrad institution always loved to call it). I looked into the few traineeship/internship opportunities in Europe, actually (at The Hague, etc., as I have a friend who spent the summer there recently), but of course all those deadlines are passed. Any meaningful travel I might plan for myself will likely be too expensive for me to afford.
• Work. Sadly, the industry I'm most qualified for (teaching English Lit/Lang for 14+) is going to be winding down soon. Not very much prospect of earning enough money at this during the short period schools haev left.
  

These, then, are my options. I will certainly sit down with my covering letters and my CV and polish them a bit over the summer, with a hopeful eye towards adding to them if I can, but to be honest, my CV isn't vast enough to spend the whole summer on it! (Is anyone's?)

My provider also recommends that I attend some of their seminar workshoppy things (which might fill up two days, if I'm lucky). There's an additional problem with these in that I already know that I want to pursue the Bar and not the LPC/training contract route. Most of the seminars that are run for GDL students seem to be heavily focused on making this choice, so I feel like they would be a bit of a waste of my time, although the networking opportunities aren't to be sneezed at. I suppose I could try and attend something more geared towards BVC students, but then rather than feeling ahead of the curve (with my choice) I'll just feel really behind the curve (both academically and vocationally), and I already feel a bit like that already.

This is the first year in a while that I haven't had something lined up for the summer months. I get the feeling that in a week's time I'm going to be going a little bit stir-crazy if I don't find something!

The beginning of the journey

So, after weeks of solid lurking on Blogger (Livejournal had heretofore been my locus), reading all the wonderful law blogs on offer (by practitioners and students alike), I thought that I would start my own!

Having meandered around academically for a little bit, I applied to a few London providers for the Graduate Diploma in Law this year, and then promptly dithered, dithered some more, and only finally, at the eleventh hour, so to speak, bit the bullet (and sucked up the deposit fee), and took my preferred one up on their offer. Dithering so long meant little hope of scholarships from either the provider or the Inns, however, and so I am embarking this autumn on an intensive course of study with little to prop me up in my (frankly aspired to) studio flat but student loans. Hopefully, next year I will be a little more fortunate and manage to find at least one scholarship to help me get a leg up onto the Bar Vocational Course!

I'm hoping to use this blog to share some of the experiences of someone coming to the law and its study in a non-traditional (and sometimes scary) way.



Also, for those curious, yes, this blog has been named after Robert Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. From reading the blogs that are already out there, penned by those much further along the course to the Bar than I, it seemed quite wholly appropriate. The GDL/BVC/pupillage progression seems almost as though it may have inspired the line: "that ominous tract which, all agree, / Hides the Dark Tower". Indeed, the online cameraderie here certainly seems to mimic the band of fellow warriors that rallies around Roland in his final approach to the Tower!

This rather gives away the fact that in a former life I was something of a poetry geek, and that's precisely what my other blog is all about! Please feel free to visit it if you want, although it has little relevance to the topic at hand here.