A girl walks into a bar...

Update

2009-10-21T16:18:00.002+01:00

Hello all (...anyone out there?).

It's been a wee while since I posted. Since then, good news- passed the BVC, woo! After some wrangles with the course provider it was agreed that I did pass as a first attempt, not as a re-sitter as they wanted to mark me as (which would have capped me at a bare pass) and thus my CV is now gilded proudly with the words Very Competant.

Well worth the £14k, I'm sure.

I didn't get the dream job I went for- but was happy to be one of 10 shortlisted out of 300+ applications. Hopefully that bodes well for the future. I think my CV is ok at the moment, as in another recent interview (with an amazing lawyer, who is quite famous and I managed to quite disappoint/irritate/sicken or all the above) she seemed to be quite impressed with it. I say impressed, she said something like 'well, you've won everything going haven't you' in what some might say was a disdainful way but I am choosing to take it as a compliment. Particularly as I haven't won anything really, anything I have got is more a 'well done for taking part' than a glowing badge of honour.

I am working - temping- which is paying the bills and getting rid of debt/helping save for a Masters. Which I am about to start applying for (a grumbling aside - why do I need to pay to apply?!). Boy is well and fingers crossed he'll have his tenancy confirmed shortly and all will be well that end. From him I have learned that criminal law pays not very well, particularly in the beginning stages of a case - not too bad at the trial end. And that it's not considered good form to ask your clerk how much you're getting for something (but surely that may be a factor in whether you choose to accept it, e.g. if you have to choose between 2 cases or if you risk missing a holiday, if we're being honest?).

On the health side things are much better. The benefit of a 9-5 job is that it's relatively stress free and this is easing recovery. This weekend I've the second part of the Amicus death penalty conference to attend- I will review this in my next post. Suffice it to say: Death Penalty= BAD.

Hope all well in the interweb. How the heck is everyone?

-M

Reductio ad Hitlerum

2009-08-20T08:38:00.001+01:00

"A tribute to the 1st amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely disseminated".

Award!

2009-07-31T09:14:00.004+01:00

Somewhat belatedly, I can now share my lovely Blawggie award with you received from the lovely Minx.

How can I not have been shouting from the rooftops about this days ago, I hear you ask? Well, nowt to do with Minxy herself- she v promptly notified me and all. Last couple of days have been a tad mad though, house move, re-sit and V V V V important interview.

Re-sit went fine, interview was a train wreck. New abode working out very well!

I'm at the stage where I'm getting interviews for most things I apply for, so my CV seems to be alright. Perhaps in part due to the full on last year with the New York Bar and BVC and all. My personality and interview skills is apparently holding me back from getting an actual JOB though!

An interesting, paid, temporary job is not quite the golden snitch, to borrow Minx's analogy, but it would be...one of those other things that they fly around after that gets you points in the game, even though getting the golden snitch wins the game? Can I tell I'm not really a Potter fan?

Speech? You want a speech? Well... I'm very happy with the above award thank you, and thank you to everyone who stops by here and makes the odd comment or two. I hope it's entertained you at some point, or informed you about the New York Bar. I have to admit, informing or entertaining hasn't really been the objective (this 'ain't the BBC, yo*) but it's jolly nice to share a rant every now and then amongst the blawging community and encourage each other and everything else. Thanks to the blawgers, to Blogger.com for hosting this technical stuff, Boy for buying me chocolates and flowers and stuff every now and then, and my family, and God and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. *wipes humble tear from my eye*.

Now, best get back to revising!

*Yes, I might be addicted to 'The Wire'.

Is that a naked man at 11 o'clock?

2009-07-22T20:56:00.004+01:00

I had an interesting experience the other day. A friend came up to my end of town (I live in one of the leafier boroughs of London, great schools but useless for things most people in their 20's are interested in, being in Zone 72 and a half - I digress). (In fact Swiss I think you were close to this end recently? Digressing again).

So my friend came up, and we had lunch and caught up on each other's lives. We decided to go to a cake shop in Muswell Hill (regular readers may suspect this is not an unusual activity). This was a fair way away from where we were, and somehow we ended up in Ally Pally (aka Alexandra Palace) where we picked blackberries, sat on a bench and enjoyed the view.

The view comprised of most of London (Muswell Hill being - shock, horror- built on a hill), the usual trees and shrubs and stuff, couple of magpies, and a naked young man. I didn't spot the man, my friend did.

'Is that a naked man?' she said?
'What? where?' said I.
'At 11 o'clock.
'The other 11 o'clock...over there you birk...no, don't stare'.
'Huh. Yeah that is a naked man. And he is...enjoying his nakedness.'

I think it was a private show, seeing as he pulled up his trousers whenever a runner came by. Gosh, I felt special. I really wasn't much in the mood for a perv that day so we just ignored him until he went away, some 10 to 15 minutes later. No idea how long he'd been there.

About 10 mins after that, a couple of local bobbies were walking up and I waved one over. 'Are you here about the flasher?', I asked. They'd heard nowt about a flasher - so we filled them in. It wasn't really important enough to call the police about, but seeing as they were there we figured we should mention it.

I soon forgot the whole thing and expected to hear nothing more about it, but have since received lots of stuff from Victim Support and have been phoned to say they've arrested someone, can I id them and give a statement? I'm pretty impressed that they have tracked anyone down but not sure how I feel about it overall.

Firstly, it's not the most important thing to be arresting people for- the sort of thing the guy was doing was an offence but he didn't come anywhere near us and I don't feel like a victim of crime - as compared to stabbings and burglaries and the like. Second, I'm not sure how I feel about giving a statement and ID information. What if they get a conviction - for something which I found to be a mild annoyance but frankly, hardly surprising to come across at one time or another? Is my natural anti-establishment/anti-authority way of thinking getting the better of me? Or is it more that I think that what he was doing wasn't really a crime? I don't think that's the case, I recognise the need for public order/sexual offences crimes of that sort.

Perhaps it's more of an indictment of how jaded London life has made me that being the 'victim' of such a crime leaves me pretty unfazed.

Swine Flu

2009-07-21T15:18:00.003+01:00

I gots it. First in the blawgosphere.

My prize is a fever, headache, fatigue and sore throat. Wait, what? I don't want the prize...

FAIL

2009-07-14T17:16:00.004+01:00

Are you familiar with fail blog? Here's an example:

Mostly VCs, a couple of competents. 4 fails.

So, I've managed to fail the BVC overall. I need a big FAIL stamp on my head.

I should point out - I didn't attend those exams. I mean, only a total berk would actually fail the BVC, right?

I was ill. For quite a long time. Except I didn't get my evidence in on time. Because I'm a total berk. I shall of course be appealing the decision, but at this stage it looks like I'll be excluded from applying to a bunch of different chambers. Which makes a total shambles of everything I've been working for for the last few years.

On the one hand, I'm seeing my dreams go up in smoke before my eyes and know that I lit the torch paper. On the other hand, with the health of some close relatives apparently failing and other issues, including persistent ill health I'm finding it hard to maintain any stable emotions about anything much at all.

I'm watching other blogs and the Student Room as I'm interested in the progress of others. I've heard some interesting stories, including the one about 4 people invited to drinks at a set offering 4 pupillages (after the second round and before the 31st July, crucially) in a wink wink effort, and the one about the girl who sent in two applications to a non-Olpas set because she wasn't sure they'd received the first one. She received two responses- a rejection and invite to interview.

I'm pretty glad I didn't apply this year- but I'd at least have been able to apply to a bunch more sets than I'm looking at at the moment.

To add insult to injury, there will almost certainly be some exhorbitant charging for re-sits.

Mad as a box of frogs

2009-06-07T20:44:00.004+01:00

I went to the Liberty 75th Anniversary Conference yesterday, "Common Values in times of Crisis". It was a thought-provoking and very interesting day. The Liberty staff and volunteers had cool t-shirts, designed by Dame Vivian Westwood which read 'I'm not a terrorist, please don't arrest me'. She sat on one of the panels and whilst she had a lot of interesting things to say that I don't disagree with, she does come across as mad as a box of frogs. No one really does mad eccentrics like the Brits!

There were excellent speeches by Lord Bingham of Cornhill on the Human Rights Act and the history of human rights in the UK- the gist being, they're a good thing, the Human Rights Act is a good thing, and getting rid of it wouldn't do much because we're still bound by the European Convention (which British lawyers and law contributed to very significantly so it's downright silly to think of it as a 'foreign' influence)- and Nick Clegg, Shami Chakrabati and many others.

I must say, I've never thought of joining a political party but Mr Clegg just seemed so eminently sensible, and his proposals for legal reform so workable, I am tempted to nail my colours to the mast for once and all, so devoid was his speech of the usual political hyperbole and posturing for posturings sake.

The most impressive person I think, however, was Gareth Pierce. Famed human rights solicitor who's worked on all the big cases and issues you'd care to think about in the last 20, 30 years she has the most remarkable way of speaking. I don't think you'd know her in the street, or to look at her would think anything in particular but she speaks in a very soft, and yet incredibly powerful way.

She was on the panel in the 'Terror' workshop, alongside many other distinguished speakers. In the audience and attending the Conference was a Mahmoud Abu Rideh, who I understand is a client of Gareth Pierce. His story was chilling.

In short he has been held by the government for 8 years now, first in Belmarsh without trial until the Law Lords ruled that unlawful and then under various control orders. He has been hospitalised and terrorised by the experience, and before us was a clearly desperate man.

When he came to the UK, he had a UN travel document as an asylum seeker. The document is no longer valid, because of the passage of time, and despite promises from David Blunkett and Tony Blair to provide him with a new one they have not. The govt have said he will be allowed to leave the country, but still keep him waiting and under house arrest.

No charges have been brought against him, nor has he been told of the evidence against him - this is the nature of the 'civil' Control Order: because it is non-criminal the Police aren't involved and your PACE or Article 6 powers aren't invoked.

I urge you all to write to the new Home Sectretary, Alan Johnson (at the last I heard, anyway) on public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk and ask him to provide Mr Abu Rideh with the travel document he has been promised. I will edit this post to include some more details of his case, but I'm sure that you will want to do your own research. Plug his name into Google and various articles and information will come up.

It's pretty shocking that this regime is allowed to continue- it is executive action in its more brutal and unchecked form. There is no way of challenging a Control Order (detention of less than 14 hours has been held to not constitute a breach of Convention rights). Mr Abu Rideh's children and wife have left the UK, although they are British Citizens because they could not take living in this way any longer. They were not allowed a telephone, internet, visitors, and were subjected to random and indiscriminate searches every few days.

I've posted previously on the Palestine-Israel situation, and my shock at the horrors of life in Gaza. This man is begging to be allowed to leave so that he can go back to Gaza.

I think I might heart Obama a little

2009-06-04T13:11:00.005+01:00

I'm a big cynic, frankly I consider cynicism to be a democratic duty. And of course, Obama's speech today was just words and hasn't translated into action - the only true test of a politicians worth.

But what a difference having a literate President makes! Quotes from 3 holy books and well-placed historical references, and not a one of them mangled (by a pretzel or otherwise). I think it was a smart speech and I'm encouraged for USA-Middle East links.

PS- Don't forget to do your democratic duty and vote today! Even if they're all blood-sucking, corrupt scum (according to the media image today), best to have your say, ay?

PPS- There's no bloody point, when the current PM is making Suralan a Lord. Because he's such a great businessman that we all have Amstrad computers at home, don't we? Exactly what the present govt needs.
Any remaining confidence I had in Brown's sense now gone.

Pupillage workshops

2009-06-01T11:44:00.002+01:00

I received a letter from my Inn today, amongst other things it was advertising Pupillage workshops for those who have failed to attain pupillage. Now, I have yet to apply but it seems a useful thing to do before applying. It includes being assigned a mentor to help with applications.

Sign me up I thought! But it's £50. That's a week of unemployment benefit, which I expect to be shortly in receipt of.

Only joking! But I think I will sign up for a workshop when the dates are set. I've been reading other blogs and the Student Room (which I am new to) and it's all making me very nervous for everyone!

Wigs and gowns

2009-05-26T18:29:00.003+01:00

I'm not likely to be buying these items any time soon, but have just been having a look at the various retailer's websites. I have expected the website to have a 'because you're worth it' badge. £145 for a gown doesn't seem so awful.

£525.00 for a wig (or £1,865.00 for a different style with frizzed rather than looped hair on top), however- now that's pretty big money. That's more than the average UK take-home salary.

When you think that it will last you the rest of your career, I suppose it's not so much (or until they get rid of wigs - but I have a strong faith in the length of time it takes any change to filter through in our blessed legal system).

It's still making me want to sneak into the local farm with a pair of shears and give a horse a haircut, mind. It'd be just like knitting! Maybe the Guardian Craft section will even have a posting on how to make your very own wig soon - it's very frucool, you know!

Although based on the above effort, I wouldn't hold out much hope.

Stream of consciousness

2009-05-23T22:52:00.004+01:00

It's been a while. I've been all over, everywhere recently (mentally, not so much physically) except here. How are y'all doing out here?

Some of the highlights of recent weeks:

House moving and new job (both Boy) ; job applications (me from this point onwards); part time work; surprisingly high rate of return of interviews for applications (in fact for 4 odd applications recently I've been offered 4 interviews. Doesn't necessarily say much except that my applications for those positions were good) all of which were legal but not Olpas or pupillage related I should add; illess; missed exams; mucho stress; some dining but still haven't hit the magic 11 dining sessions yet, and not likely to anytime soon; probable likelihood of more missing of deadlines in the next few weeks; exciting Human Rights research; re-alignment of some 'Dream chambers' upon realisation that some really aren't dream chambers and do a lot more work for the government/employers than I am aiming for (Cab rank rule, I know - but we all know the economic power governs to a large extent the location of those ranks!); Mega- exciting Human Rights opportunity coming up (fingers crossed); sporadic crises of confidence; continuing annoyance with BVC requirements; a flop and near fail in one subject, total surprise, but hey it's a pass; weight loss but not much; lack of sleep, abundance of chocolate and painkillers; loss of faith in GPs; and more stress.

Oh, and also:(back to Boy) fights over washing up re quantity, frequency, responsibility and standard of*; and continually wondering where my post and parcels are because Royal Mail insist that I pick them up from their centre at an undisclosed location between the hours of 10.30 and 11.30 weekdays, wearing a red rose and with 5 forms of ID and my primary school report.

Phew. Need a nap. And a new suit (combination of old one getting tatty, and skirt a bit too loose: see weight loss above). Need funds for this. Funding of new suits rather incompatible with commitment to voluntary and pro bono work that seems necessary to align oneself as a Barrister- that-does-helping-people-law these days.

Where do said Human Rights Barristers and other go-getting professionals get the energy?

*Regarding the washing up, this is my position:

I have cooked you delicious food, and so it's not really fair for you to complain about the resulting washing up. I realise takeaway entails less dishes, but its bad for you and costs a lot more.
Further, even if you do the washing up it doesn't count if it doesn't meet my 2-stage washing up test afterwards (dish/implement clean on quick visual inspection, and squeaks to the touch when wet).
Finally, I have done loads of washing up, you just don't notice. In any case- they're your dishes...
The only think more boring about washing up dishes, is talking about it. Followed by posting about it, I'm sure.

References

2009-05-07T19:26:00.002+01:00

Not a funny or interesting post here today* I'm afraid - but a request for advice.

I've asked some people I've worked for to provide me with references (including for an internship I've recently applied for and have an interview for - teasers, it's human rights related and in Europe - eek!).

They've all said they're happy to write references, but that I should write them and they will amend/sign them. I know this is common but still leaves me with a dilemma. I'm modest by nature and not sure where to pitch it!

Any opinions?

* I allow myself the vanity of thinking that some of them are!!

Congrats to all you demon-wrestlers in the ether

2009-05-01T16:42:00.002+01:00

By which I mean, in my obfuscatory and heavy way, a hearty well done and pat on the back to those of you who have wrestled with the dastardly Olpas/PP form and bested it. As I know you have. The deadline (at last I heard) ended today, and so you can all put it behind you for now until those invites to interview start rolling in.

I did not feel quite ready for The (Daddy of All Soul-Destroying) Forms and so I will attempt it next year, when hopefully my chakras will be fully balanced and Jupiter is in Mercury, or the mercury is higher, etc.

But seriously, well done. You should all feel v proud. May you emerge, bleary eyed and pale from all the concentration and enjoy the gorgeous May Day bank holiday!

More good news

2009-04-27T16:07:00.003+01:00

I mention Boy every now and then, but I try not to say too much about him. After all, this is my blog and not his, and so I try and respect his right to privacy and all. However, on this occasion, I simply must tell all and sundry who is willing to listen to me!

Boy left a rather cushy job in another country, where he had a 15 min walk to work and was listed as a rising star in the legal directories there. He left this job to come over to the grim South Eastern Circuit, where he had no guarantee of getting advocacy work and was not interested in joining a firm. He was subsequently a "self-employed person without any work" for rather longer than is comfortable (more than a few months, less than a year). It was starting to look as if we'd both end up Trainee Baristas at Starbucks, any day.

But Lo! A forward thinking and innovative set has decided it will take a chance on him. He had a sort of tenancy, sort of pupillage arrangement. At a set that I could only dream of I should add, because his credentials are rather more stellar than mine. His CV gleams like fireworks in the night sky, whereas the sparks in mine are more remniscent of a toddler sticking a screwdriver in a socket*.So well done him!

* I did once do this. I was not a toddler, but more at the thick end of my teens. I was shot across the room, and the tip of the screwdriver melted. And so ended my flirtations with DIY, and began my relationship with frizz-reducing hair serums and anti-twitching** medication.

PS - I realise, embroiled in applications as we all are at the moment, that this qualifies as the sort of thing that people don't want to be hearing about. But - and this goes out particularly to the mature students amongst you - he is non-traditional. Very non-traditional, and certainly non-Oxbridge/public school. So, it should be encouraging that his set took a punt on him, and reflective of some sort of progress at the Bar. I'm certainly encouraged by this.

**That bit is a joke. But I could still enter a Dom King lookalike competition.

I smell a rucus a-brewin'

2009-04-23T18:58:00.005+01:00

I wonder if it'll get down to 'yo mamma' stylee mudslinging match?

My tutor gave me a copy of the judges comments, which Michael at Law Actually and Charon QC have posted about today. The Solicitor Advocates in question have responded.

They say the judge was:

"“hostile to us all, me included, the whole way through. Much of
this was conveyed by facial expression and vocal intonation, and therefore won't show up on the transcript. It was obvious from the first day of trial; none of us said anything until halfway through day 3, so the hostility predated anything we said or did. He would not look at any of us or address any of us directly; he referred to us innumerable times as "solicitors"in tones of contempt.” By contrast, he treated the only barrister in the case (prosecuting counsel) with perfectly proper courtesy."

Pretty hefty accusations all round.

Starting as I mean to go on

2009-04-22T22:43:00.005+01:00

I've just had my first appearance in a hearing before a real judge in a real case at the Employment Tribunal*.

Even more shocking, it was my first win. This is how it went:

- I was absolutely terrified.

- I was well prepared (this would be a surprise to my BVC colleagues, but apparently I can pull it out for a real life client dependent on me. Yay for not being negligent)

- I said very little (see above, terrified), the Judge took the best possible view on the law which meant that the Respondent had an uphill and pretty much impossible struggle to show that our presentation of the facts was not credible.

- It was a Friday afternoon, and the Judge was mindful that we (he) didn't want to hang about ideally and so was very proactive and crucially, did not let the Respondent dilly dally too much or get away with asking my client any questions that weren't relevant in the strictest sense possible. He didn't know what had hit him.

- The Judge was incredibly sharp. I'm not saying this just because he decided in our favour; I was most impressed.

The potential issues I had prepared for did not come up, but it was there in case I had needed it and obviously, it is essential to avoid any sort of surprise. I was a tad disappointed I didn't get to do a bit more Examination in Chief, and indeed any Cross Examination - but it was a good result for my client on this preliminary issue. It was also a fairly gentle first court room experience.

Finally, I loved every minute of it. In the midst of all the application mumbo jumbo and compulsively cross checking my skills against the qualities required there have, admittedly, been the occasional periods of self doubt as to whether I could actually do this, or whether I would be happy doing something else such as being a solicitor if the elusive pupillage fairy persists in eluding me; the fickle and flighty fae that she is.

Not a bit of it. I'll happily fight the other 1,645** odd applicants to feel that mix of terror and excitement*** throughout my career.

* In Watford. It don't get more real, bros.

** Obviously, esteemed colleagues in the blogosphere, I do not mean you. We can set up our own set where we will champion Human Rights, break ground in Chancery work, right the wrongs of the family law system, and there will always be chocolate Hobnobs in the kitchen.

***Yes, I could achieve this by doing lots more FRU. But I'm sure the terror and excitement is even more when your professional reputation, mortgage, and career are on the line everyday as well as the client's neck.

Police brutality?

2009-04-08T09:32:00.004+01:00

For a modern police force, in the last 10 years the police have had a few major incidents which have very seriously affected their public image. There was the Steven Lawrence case and subsequent inquiries which highlighted institutional racism, and the De Menezes case in 2007 showed up a whole raft of problems- not least, the tendency to cover up problems.

Will the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests prove to be a similar case? Charon QC posted this link today. The video is pretty shocking. It seems Tomlinson died minutes after being pushed about by the police. Earlier police reports made no reference to this incident.
I find the video quite shocking. I lean towards a natural suspicion of all authority figures, especially the police, but essentially I think that our Police force probably does a better job than most. However, we keep being told how they've moved on from the bad old days however, and act proportionately and according to the PACE codes of practice. Has there been a cover up?

Have the police learned nothing from the spate of enquiries in recent years - most crucially the De Menezes case?

If the Police did push Tomlinson unnecessarily, as the video seems to suggest, and this is shown to later have caused his death (I believe he died of a heart attack) what would that mean? Did the stress of that encounter cause that heart attack? The Guardian are pushing for an inquiry, but is there a question of civil or criminal liability? The eggshell skull rule comes to mind.

We've just covered abuse of process on the Advanced Criminal Litigation option on the BVC. I wonder what practitioners would say about Police ethics today.

Thou shalt not make graven images. Not with our toys, anyway.

2009-04-05T11:42:00.004+01:00

I rarely read this publication, but this story made me smile. It's in the theme of Big Bad Company uses legal rights in an unnecessarily repressive way.

A German priest has been using Playmobil (I guess that's lego?) figures to recreate Biblical scenes. Check out Jesus with his crown of thorns, above. It's the wee lego smilie that gets you.

The suggestion seems to be that Playmobil are worried about non-Christians being offended by this usage. Perhaps their fear is not unreasonable given the massive outcry concerning the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed and similar incidents. I don't think it's all that commonly known but Jesus is the second most important Prophet in Islam, second only to Muhammed. They're like, BFFs, in modern parlance. The prohibition against portraying him is just as strong, and indeed in films made in the Middle East an actor playing Jesus, or other prophets would typically have a light beaming from his face or something, so as to obscure his features.

I caught Ben-Hur on the telly last week, and noted that you never saw Jesus' face on that either - or heard his voice. Presumably the Christian audience for that film would also have felt that showing Jesus' face was taboo. Perhaps this is something that has changed over time, I'm not sure.

Nevertheless, I think Playmobil have overreacted a tad. Many people will probably think that it is wrong to represent Jesus and other prophets in any form, whether by Lego toys, in painted glass, or in cartoon form. Most people however, will probably see that the intentions behind this priests actions were not to offend anyone, and certainly meant no disrespect to anyone. And gosh darnit, they're pretty cute.

Although, I do find the smiles a tad creepy!

Results...

2009-03-31T19:15:00.004+01:00

...are out tomorrow for Drafting and one of the Advocacy assessments. Eek.

In other news, mini-applications a frenzy. Well, I have done a list of places to apply to, but not yet actually sent anything out. You see, for all my legal experience of various types I've only ever actually done 2 minis. And one was really work experience when I was still studying the 3 'R's, so I don't suppose that really counts.

Actually the chap I was followed around Snaresbrook Crown Court for a week or two back in those halcyon days was, I suppose, a bit of an inspiration. It's all his fault that I became taken with the glamour of the law, and justice and that malarky. I should probably drop him an email or a letter to say thanks. I'm not terribly sure what to say, though.

Mind you, once this session of applications is up the tone of that letter may change somewhat!

I had another mock interview at City, and apparently my style is much improved. My first interview, I came across as 'lacking passion' and my answers were too short. My answers are still quite short, but I think I showed a bit more of the spark of life about me.

Summer days are a-coming

Will they find me joining the dole queue? Double eek. Must find myself another bar qualification to do...!

I did get an email regarding internship opportunities (interest piqued) in international law (beginnings of excitement) researching war crimes (mouth beginning to froth) allegedly committed by the IDF in Gaza (hang on a minute...).

Umm. Precisely the sort of work I want to do, but that's the same Gaza with the wall still up, and the limited electricity and supplies, and the people being killed and dying every day? The one that the FCO website suggests "it would be foolish to go at this time", and further that they provide only limited consular support to anyone crazy enough to head out that way.

Maybe I am a complete champagne socialist and coward after all. I thought it might work, but then I ran the possibility past my mum, whose response can be paraphrased as 'No. Hell No.' and Boy who similarly said:

"It would be a bit of a pain if you were to go and get yourself shot. That would put a real damper on the wedding."

It does sound awfully interesting though, and precisely the sort of thing that inspires me. Readers of this blog will know that I am a complete international law nerd. Maybe I'd be fine?

Is travel insurance even offered for unstable regions such as the Occupied Territories?

UPDATE - VCs for 3 subjects so far, woo. Legal Research was a big shock, I expected to barely scrape a pass in that one.

Olpas

2009-03-29T18:47:00.002+01:00

Yeesh. Picked up the Pupillages handbook. April is gonna be a bundle of fun, isn't it?

I've just gone through and noted all the sets I'm interested in applying to. I note two things: firstly that I have far more than the 12 Olpas sets that I can apply to. Secondly, there aren't many non-Olpas are there?

Actually, I also have a third point. I hear (and read) of people sending out over 100 applications (like that chap who wrote for the Times, now writes for Legal Week? Alex something? Android interviewed him, you know who I mean?). And yet, there are not 100 sets on my list. about 30 max, and that includes a few *dream* sets that I need to rub off and accept that when it comes to those sets, I'm a bit like one of those Pop Idol/X factor contestants who think they are Britain's answer to Whitney Houston/Mariah Carey/Celine Dion and are actually tone deaf, nasal mouth breathers.

I didn't mean to compare some of Britain's top legal minds to the warbling likes of Carey and Dion. Perhaps a better analogy could be found, but my point is that I think I know my limitations.

So, 100 applications? Surely there's only that many sets out there, and you couldn't possibly coherantly apply to all of them?

Work/life balance

2009-03-22T14:03:00.002Z

I'm working up to having a go at the Olpas form (soon. I need a lot of warming up and motivational pep-talks before I really start).

In combination with the recent engagement, constant talk of mortgages and credit-a-crunching on the news, I've been thinking about work-life balance and all that.

I imagine that like many I will have to go in for the whole kids, mortgage, and Guardian and veg box subscriptions at some point. (On reflection, my walk around Primrose Hill yesterday with its stupendous number of yummy mummies with ludicrously priced Nasa-designed buggies in tow is probably also a factor in this sort of thinking.)

But barristers don't really do maternity leave or anything, do they? If you're not working, you're not getting paid. Can you reduce the amount that you work and/or work from home without damaging a practice that you'll have spent the last many years working all the hours you had to build up?

What do people do? The female head of one of the top sets (this was a few years ago) once told me at a university careers event about popping in and out of court to breastfeed whilst the nanny waited outside the courtroom with the baby. Fabulously dynamic and go-getting as this may seem, I just don't see myself being able to do that.

Wardrobe malfunctions of a highly inappropriate nature would probably ensue in my case. And can you even get milk out of horsehair?

Update

2009-02-26T13:27:00.003Z

So much for my posts on the Death Penalty - I'm not the most reliable of bloggers, am I?

A little update on my life- the BVC is still a magnificent waste of time and money, ICSL practically had to prise their second cheque out of my hands. Upcoming assessments have my nerves all a-twitter.

I'm really disappointed with the Advocacy Training in the BVC. The major skill of a Barrister is surely advocacy, written and oral. I expected much more than a weekly session late-September to February. If assessments were at the end of the year, that would be another 3 months advocacy training. If you're going to make the course a year long, then make it worthwhile.

In other news Boy went ring shopping and when he presented me with a suitably sparkly one, well - it would have been rude to say no, wouldn't it?

I'm so looking forward to all the cake-tasting.

Death Penalty revisited...plus some food...and some complainin'

2009-02-03T19:59:00.006Z

In reverse order to the title above, first comes the complaining. That's probably not a terribly good way to write a blog, I suppose you're meant to hook your readers in a bit? Look at it another way, we're getting the pain out of the way early. Although not strictly true as I will be ending on the death penalty...

Snowed in

Anyhoo. First- snow! So very pretty, and really terribly good fun. I made a snowman and played around with some bits of it for quite a while. The texture, packing together all those flakes of snow, imagining all those 6 pointed crystals jamming together, was really quite lovely. What made it feel a little slippery, slimy as it melts in your fingers? Ionic bonds, covalent something or other? Lovely as it was it did rather make London come to a stand still.

I think it was the combined prayers of ICSL students that did it...

This was a blessing of sorts because dear old ICSL was forced to extend the Opinion writing deadline for a day. This only made me think, ooh I have another day. Perfect time to finish the Blackadder DVD boxset (up to series 3 now, the power-crazed Liz 1 is most entertaining!). And now it has been submitted and I do hope that I've passed because I would happily never do that again. Until I start my practice as an actual barrister, where a significant chunk of one's daily work will involve giving advice and writing opinions.

Am I deluding myself as to my ability to be a good barrister? I hope not. I think there's a crucial difference between the artificial BVC exercise and real-life opinions. Namely that, if I was researching an area that I knew nothing about I'd probably run some things by someone who knew something about it. 'Dave, can I just check that I've understood this rule of X law? Aha, I see - glad I checked, it wasn't entirely clear from the case law/statutes'.

I'm quite sure that my research skills are severely remiss, and I completely understand why we are not allowed to talk to anyone about the subject matter of the Research/Opinion. It does cause a little bit of unnecessary panic though, and a lot of my panicking to understand the law of defamation would have been a lot more efficient, if for example as a pupil I could have talked to a co-pupil, a solicitor friend, or my pupil master.

Progress!

The git has been submitted for now, and fingers crossed this is the last I will see of those two options! I'm much more looking forwards to concentrating on Drafting and Advocacy - things I might, with some luck, get good at.
I hope everyone else is feeling suitably relieved. Special mention to Barmaid who it seems had to deal with a stonker of an assignment.

Food, glorious food

And now for something completely different : I want a sous vide machine because of these chaps and also I saw it on a telly programme. Shame they cost $3000ish. Also, I do feel instinctively that they must make food taste of the plastic it's wrapped in. 90 minutes is also rather long for a steak. I'm sure it will pass, last week I wanted a chocolate tempering machine because of this man's blog. And an ice cream maker, the kind that has its own refrigeration unit. Then I could make gelatos, and sorbets, and creams and ices, and all manner of loveliness. The continuing cake obsession shows no sign of fading, you will be pleased to hear. My doctor will be pleased to hear that I have been tempering this will some sort of vegetable based items - try quarted brussel sprouts, boiled/steamed in a minimal amount of water until bright green (when their nutrients are at a peak) seasoned, with stilton cheese sprinkled on top. Revelation of brussel sprouts + blue cheese = guilt free deliciousness courtesy of The Gruniad.

Death Penalty

Finally, I opened up the proverbial can of worms with my last post. I did say that I would do another blog post, and in fact I don't think that the subject can be treated in a single blog post. Well, it could but it would hardly be easy to read.

Why my interest in the death penalty, you might ask? Well, I've lived here all my life and Britain is clearly a country that doesn't entertain capital punishment and I haven't had any personal involvement with it. Or, I should say with aggravated murder generally. That sounds a bit silly, but what I mean is my life experiences don't put me in either the 'victim/survivor' camp or the, umm, convicted murderer camp.

I have a connection to the States, and I spent a few months working with some of the leading death-penalty lawyers in the country. This was at State and Federal level, and included appellate work and working on live cases, and a fair bit on voir dire stuff as well as extensive research. Really blimming interesting.

The other reason for my interest is the same as many others- I live in society, subject to the rules of law and morality along with everyone else. I am probably a bit of a leftie-human-rights-cheerleader. That's me in context.

So, the Death Penalty in three parts:

1 - The Emotions and ethics behind the death penalty
2- the Death Penalty in practice - public perceptions, voir dire and trials.
3 - the Death Penalty in practice - appellate procedures, costs, and lots of lovely, shiny statistics.

Oh - if it wasn't obvious, I'm not a big fan of the death penalty.

Death Penalty- by way of television medical dramas

2009-01-24T19:39:00.004Z

In my role as part-time complete and utter sad sack (do let's pretend it's only a part-time position) I am a big fan of American medical dramas. This amuses me because I generally do not think much of a lot of American TV, or TV in general (but mind, they know how to do it well- anyone seen Madmen? Or Rome?) and the sight of blood and guts on any real medical show, or even on a British medical drama, has me reaching for the remote before you can say "O-neg, stat!!".

In the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy, the gang had to treat a man on death row. The storyline is by the by, but got me thinking about the issue again.

Grey's is set in Seattle, Washington. A state which I believe has 9 men on death row currently. It is by means comparable to Texas or Florida who execute shockingly high numbers each year, nay- each week. Including some who really shouldn't be - the mentally retarded and the innocent.

Washington is a pretty small state (in terms of population at least) in the Pacific North-West. It's a pretty leftie, Democrat state. Seattle, the biggest city in Washington brought much to the world of music, including Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana. It makes sense that the grunge scene could only have come out of pretty comfortable suburban americana!

But Washington unlike say California or Oregon, its friends on the Pacific coast, does actually execute people. It has since 1993 executed 4 people. 3 of these are what are known as 'volunteers' in that they give up their appeals rights and stop fighting execution. This is the same situation in Oregon, which has executed 2 volunteers since the death penalty was re-instated there, however it has not executed anyone under the modern Death penalty statute who has not given up their appeal rights). This is the man who did not volunteer for execution in Washington:

Charles Rodman Campbell
Hanged May 27, 1994
Convicted of killing 2 women, Renae Wicklund, her neighbor Barbara and Renae's nine year old daughter. Charles committed these murders while serving a prison sentence for the sexual assault of Renae Wicklund. At the time of the murders he was in work release. The state settled with the victim's families for 2.3 million dollars, for failing to notify the Wicklunds of Campbell's release status. Campbell refused to cooperate with the execution. He had to be moved from his cell using pepper spray and had to be forcibly strapped to a board so that he could be hanged. It took prison officials 90 seconds to place a hood on his head and to fix the noose before the trap door was opened.

Washington no longer uses hanging, and I think this case was the reason why.

I wasn't aware- until I watched the Grey's episode and then came to do some googling- that a Darold Stenson was due to be executed on 3 December of last year. His execution was stayed by the Federal Government, and currently there is an ongoing investigation as to new DNA evidence . Stenson has always maintained his innocence, and it is suggested that this evidence will show that he was framed.

I don't know much about the case. I am not suggesting that he is innocent. But if this was Texas, and not Washington, he would have been executed on 3 December. And then what of new evidence, that may have been missed in the original trial? The risk of executing an innocent person, even if it's a tiny risk, that awful risk must be so abhorrent that we cannot accept capital punishment in any configuration.

Obama's doing pretty well at the moment. I wonder if the constitutionality of the death penalty will be revisited under his presidency?

I know this is meant to be a blawg, but

2009-01-16T11:04:00.004Z

...the law does tend to be a bit peripheral here, doesn't it? (except for my generalised complaints about it). Please excuse another further totally non-law post:

Post Xmas diets*. What a pain. Walked 5 miles yesterday - felt good, especially when I looked at the pedometer and saw how many calories that meant I'd burned. I'm trying to make this a daily habit (have been walking about 3 miles a day this week).

But this morning I feel curiously light headed and have all the mental agility of Homer Simpson at the end of an evening at Moe's Tavern. Having a cup of coffee before bed probably not the best idea.

Will just have to have a massive lunch to perk me up. Bang goes yesterday's burn!

I'm trying not to make a big thing of it at home though, just trying to be a bit healthier and feel a bit lighter and perkier. I have a teen-aged sister who is showing rather worrying signs of a very disordered relationship with food and weight, and I'm trying to be a helpful big sister and keep her on the right track.

Hope the other dieters out there are faring better!

*Although it goes back a bit further than Xmas. I brought home a bit of excess baggage from the States, you might say. Damn that pizza joint on the corner!

Waterboarding is torture. Well, duh.

2009-01-15T18:18:00.002Z

The nominee for the US general attorney has said that waterboarding is torture.

I am encouraged by this and Barack Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo. I'm not sure if the AG has the same role in the US as over here ( I'm thinking of Lord Goldsmith and his opinion which helped legitimise the Iraq war) but every little helps!

Legal Research

2009-01-15T09:40:00.003Z

I'm done with my Civil MCT and first Advocacy assessment. Both passed without any significant hitches, not amazingly well but as long as I passed then that's ok.

With Legal research however, I am having 2 areas of difficulty:

1) Not knowing any basic Contract/Tort law

2) Laziness

These are a working against my achieving a thorough and well thought out research answer and opinion.

Back to the grindstone!

Still procrastinatin', sweet relief

2009-01-07T19:50:00.004Z

A facebook friend posted this link:

I'm afraid it's been a terrible distraction and has had me cackling all over the shop. Do pay the site a visit if you could do with a giggle (and who couldn't?)- see particularly the 'Inspiration vs. Perspiration page'.

M.

PS - will not help with January diets! Although some of them look so awful, it could put you off heavily frosted cakes for good.

Getting a proper job

2009-01-06T11:55:00.003Z

It is exam time, and so naturally I am thinking of all things except revision and exams. Sorry, assessments - the lingo is a bit different when you're paying this much for it. (My cynicism re the BVC and value for money knows no bounds).

And so I am looking on to May, June-ish time. I have not applied for pupillage for next year. So what exactly should I do with myself? Being in London, I am sure I can find some sort of para-legal work, but that's not very exciting is it?

Any suggestions welcome.

ETA- Also: To Olpas or not to Olpas? That is the question. I might leave this joy for next year. If you never apply, you can never be rejected!

Proportionality, theme of the day: Gaza, Iraq, and the Civil MCT.

2008-12-31T14:03:00.005Z

The situation in Gaza is very sad. We will be entering the new year with the situation in the Middle East no closer to resolution. For every Israeli killed by a Hamas missile, 100 Palestinians have died. Many further are wounded, and have no access to humanitarian aid.

Indeed, because of the blockades around Gaza, no-one can get in and no fuel, food, medical supplies, trade, or indeed anything else can get in. People lie dying and destitute in a ghetto situation. We complain of the economic crisis over here, but any economic life has been at a standstill for a long time in the Gaza strip.

Discussions on the subject of the middle east are the sort of thing that is best avoided in polite conversation, fraught with sensitivity and difficulty as it is. But this should not mean that the plight of innocent people should be forgotten.

International opinion is split on what the eventual solution should be. There seems to be some sort of consensus that current Israeli strikes are out of proportion, and it is massively objectionable that one of their stated aims is to rebuilt the image of the Israeli army after its surprise defeat by Hezbollah.

Whatever your opinion on the rights and wrongs of the actions of each side, international law is of assistance on these points:

- the taking of land during time of war is contrary to the well established rules of war. All lands taken in the 1968 war were taken in contravention of international law, therefore and it follows that settlement on these lands is unlawful.

- By a 14 to 1 one decision, the ICJ ruled on the illegality of the Wall. Preventing access to food, fuel, and movement of people in Gaza is fundamentally objectionable.
(The ICJ also found that compensation needed to be paid for damage done by construction of the wall, but clearly long term damage such as the total destruction of the Palestinian economy is not likely to be compensated for).

- States are allowed to act in defense of their land, and people under International law. Thanks to the actions of the US, the UK, and Israel itself there is even a developing principle of 'pre-emptive self defence' in international law. However, proportionality is key. A death toll of 100 to 1, and firing directly into civilian properties and densely populated areas must be in contravention of the protective principles.

People often get caught up in saying, a two state solution must be found as if that is the end to a discussion on this matter. Surely that's obvious - no-one really considers that you can wipe Israel off the map, despite hyperbole from the likes of Iran. Similarly, those uber-Zionists who wish to return to Biblical borders and refer to the land of Judea instead of talking about Gaza, and Lebanon must be considered nuts. Obviously, a two-state solution must be found - but international law takes us pretty far in delimiting where we should go, if only people would pay it some attention. Clear the settled lands, stop blockades, compensate people for lands taken and damage done- and then maybe we will start to see fewer civilians dying.

---

Another sad mess in the Middle East is Iraq, and it is expected that 2009 will see the end of a British presence in Iraq. I heard a comment on the radio that by then the Iraq war will have lasted longer than WWII. And yet, have we felt like a country at war?

In one of my bouts of random Wiki-searching yesterday I came upon a page on Lynndie England , who was the female soldier seem in those pictures of torture and mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. She ended up serving 521 days, and is now free.

This seems like a very short amount of time for the crimes she originally plead guilty to. She had pleaded guilty to several offences, and was looking at a sentence of more like 11-16 years, but this was 'tossed out' when it was found that she didn't realise that the "actions were wrong".

I have a couple of comments about this. Firstly, isn't it a basic principle of law that ignorance is no defence? Second, I seem to recall that there were a couple of deaths at Abu Ghraib, and several instances of what we would call GBH and ABH. In the states which carry the death penalty, torture or other felonies (such as Grevious Bodily Harm or rape) are aggravating factors which render murder death eligible. I'm not suggesting that she actually murdered any inmates, but it does seem that these soldiers were involved in at a minimum the negligent deaths of inmates. If memory serves me right, where someone dies as a result of intentional GBH that's murder as well, is it not?
In my usual round-about way, the point I'm trying to make is that had she committed these crimes in a civilian context and been sentenced in a civilian court it is hard to see how she would be in possession of her liberty today.

This contrasts well with the situation of the chap who threw his shoes at Bush - and is likely to be behind bars for a lot longer. The legal systems of both countries seem to have messed up monumentally.

---

Finally, having just about finished with the eating of various poultry, mounds of chocolate coins and shinily wrapped sweets, my mind must now turn to doing some actual work. The Civil MCT is in a week, and the manual must be memorised by then. Only 350 odd pages, easy peasy! Dull, mind you.

Happy New Year to all!

Hope and change in 2009

2008-12-14T21:16:00.003Z

2009 will mean, at some point, the end of the BVC and all the joy that comes with. It will hopefully mean a fabulous new job for Boy, but more momentously for the rest of the world we will be saying buh-bye to Bush.

News story today about his farewell visit to Iraq covered the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at the outgoing President. The most amusing element for me was that the BBC felt the need to comment that in Arab countries, this was a sign of extreme contempt. I'm no anthropological expert, but I feel like this would be somewhat insulting in countries beyond the Gulf and the Maghreb!

Couldn't find a picture of the said throwing of shoes, terrible shame.

FRU

2008-12-11T19:09:00.002Z

I'm still taking every possible opportunity to rant and rave about how much the BVC is poor value for money, and I hate the way it's organised. I'm still by no means doing enough work- I think it's definitely a case of getting as much as you put in this year. With upcoming assessments, I'm not feeling too confident.

I am looking forward to taking on my first FRU case however, I've eventually managed to get all my training bits and bobs done - training day, check; passed the test, check; and visit to the Employment Tribunal, check! Now it's just a case of actually getting on with a case - which given the upcoming assessments may be tricky.

I may spend some of Christmas looking at training contract applications. I'm horribly intimidated by several of my more accomplished and more diligent colleagues on the BVC.

My advocacy seems to be improving however, to end on a positive note.

Top two things you shouldn't do

2008-12-07T02:45:00.004Z

-- Ignore letters from credit card companies and banks.

-- Look up the CVs of people at your dream chambers.

In particular, when combined, you may be struck with the awful feeling that you've saddled yourself with a lot of debt because you were under the very mistaken impression that you, too, could ever make it in this job.

The kind of debt that will take a great many hours to work off at the minimum-wage job you will actually end up in.

Barristers, episode 4.

2008-12-07T01:36:00.000Z

Leaving aside for a minute the fact that this programme annoys the hell out of me, I was watching the finale episode tonight.

'Tenancy decisions are subject to ratification'. Sorry, WTF?

Because there's not enough hurdles in this crazy profession.

Woohoo

2008-11-14T22:11:00.002Z

Passed the New York Bar exam!

Realised the pass rate for foreign students like myself is only about 50% - glad I didn't know that when I went in.

Feeling very relieved!

ETA: Heard unfortunate news of a friend, or friend of a friend, who took the Bar Exam this July as well, but didn't pass. This was his third attempt having also failed in February 2008, and July 2007. Very sad as not only is he spending $3500 and 3 months on each attempt, most law firms will only really give you two shots to pass the Bar and so job prospects significantly reduce at this point, or so I'm told anyway.

The joy of advocacy

2008-11-11T08:52:00.002Z

Seems to be very quiet on the blogging front - is everyone hibernating?

The biggest surprise for me on the BVC so far is how bad I am at advocacy. Shockingly bad. I lead in examination in chief, can't move questioning along without useless questions, don't ask 'tight' enough questions in cross and generally don't seem to be too convinced by my own submissions.

This is a surprise to me because, having gone into the BVC because I was attracted to advocacy I may have assumed I would have some sort of natural talent. Alas, no!

I may also need to work harder at it. Natural talent would only take you so far, in any case.

Made me laugh on a bleak Monday morning-

2008-10-06T07:21:00.002+01:00

I googled 'ICSL' and 'FRU' and my own blog came up as the third link - not what I was expecting! And yes, I realise I clearly haven't honed my research skills, but google is always worth a click or two to see what you find.

I'm applying, as you may have gathered, for the FRU option at ICSL/City Law School. I have to demonstrate why I should be on the course, and what I bring to the course. Not quite sure! Mad skilz, clearly.

To be honest, I intend to do FRU whether I get on the course or not (24 places only), and so being on the course will just enable me to do more FRU work than my schedule would allow otherwise. Not sure if that's something I should mention that bluntly.

Things seem pretty quiet on the blog front, which is hardly surprising as the weather gets colder, and wetter and everyone harbours a partial desire to bed down and hibernate for the winter! Not much going on at this end either, just getting to know my group, and getting on with the course. I don't think I've managed to impress anyone yet, with my stunning advocacy which involved my getting up there, saying 'errrrrr' for a long time and then freezing stock still. Better luck this week, ay!

BVC Week 2 - grumbling over

2008-09-28T23:36:00.002+01:00

So, grumpy as I was last week to have to be dealing with tube travel, and unpredictable London weather patterns again, I'm now much happier on the BVC.

I think the work is going to be manageable, although I'm going to have to push myself to stay on top of it (having been a chronic last-minuter in previous years) as I don't think a last minute cramming will cut it this year!

My group seems a cool bunch, and so we should be able to muddle through the year and maintain a sense of humour. There's a smattering of different accents from around the world, different ages (well, a couple of mature students), mix of lasses and lads, northeners and southerners, and even a bit of totty. (I think that's the word the kids are using these days?)

I heard some girls talking behind me in a lecture the other day (sorry, Large Group Session) about the dismal romantic prospects on the course which I found highly amusing. I had not given this any consideration. It seems there are only 2 men on the course worth anything. I felt rather offended on behalf of all the other lads on the course. I've chatted with a good handful of nice men on the course, so I think some people need to stop judging books by their covers!

Talking of books, having been given a stack of College manuals we are now advised that we are not to use these in classes, but only to refer to the practitioner's manuals in class. Whilst there is some merit in this (it's a good idea to not get in the habit of referring to an ICSL idiot's guide to Criminal litigation in court) I can't help but feel that the motivation is more to try and maintain this idea (for the benefit of the Bar Standards Board) that the course is a Master's/ LLM level course. Given that it seems clear we are to use the ICSL manuals for background reading, and that we are being spoonfed in all other respects, it seems highly doubtful to me that it is infact being taught at LLM level.

As I missed the first week and the first advocacy tutorial I'm only coming round to my first advocacy session this week, eek! Getting butterflies in my tummy just thinking about it. Can't wait - I love that feeling.

Start of the year blues

2008-09-24T21:05:00.002+01:00

So I'm settling into the BVC and have been to my first Inn function. I've met a few nice people, and the diversity on the BVC is a pleasant surprise.

It's hard to face another year of uni (effectively) though. Paperwork and assignments. I must say I'm very unimpressed with the BVC so far - it seems to be a case of just stating the very obvious. Write clearly. Speak clearly. Learn the rules. Why this needs to take an entire year, I don't know. I feel like the Provider throws a lot of terms at us, and makes the learning of core skills very structured so that we feel we're getting value for money, but frankly I don't think it is.

I'm marginally annoyed that I have to give up relatively few days off (when I was hoping to work) in order to go on Court Visits and then fill in the silly questionnaire (about Court decor or something) afterwards. I have been in court as a mini-pupil, as a clerk, as a member of the public observing, and as a juror. I've sat in criminal court, in family court, in commercial court. I've even seen courts in different countries and been in chambers with a judge. Short of being a barrister, or a judge, I'm not sure what other view I could have of a courtroom. Thus, I'm not convinced of the usefulness of these court visits - but I'm open to the possibility of being proved wrong.

Still, I shall throw myself into this and hope to be a better advocate by the end of it! I did have a rush of 'first day at school' excitement when I first walked in, so maybe there's hope yet!

A girl walks into a bar is back...

2008-09-21T12:44:00.002+01:00

Melina is back from a long trip, beautiful wedding, and a few missed flights and is ready to kick some BVC ass! Soon as I can get myself registered...

Hope all's well in the blogosphere!

First week of the BVC...

2008-08-29T11:52:00.003+01:00

Despite my earlier post about there being no posts for a while, yesterday's trip to ICSL has left me in a bit of a pickle.

I'd gotten the term dates a bit messed up (the information I was given ages ago was out by a week), so it looks like I shall be missing some of the first week - if the Registrar even lets me register, apparently I can't possibly hope to get through the course if I miss a single induction or tutorial. Hmm.

I've been reading other people's post on the first few BVC days (Android, yours has been really helpful :) ) but I know that different providers may differ.

Is there really that much to the first few days/ week of the BVC? I don't mind missing introductions anyway, I have the common sense of a dingbat and so invariably end up wandering around aimlessly not knowing where I'm doing with or without the induction!

*sigh* Must do better.

Holiday

2008-08-27T13:18:00.004+01:00

I find myself being dragged away to lie on a Thai beach with a Singapore Sling or five, and so I shall be unable to post for a wee while. I shall return when the BVC starts - in a few short weeks.

I have been reading the comments on a Facebook 2008-9 BVC group and my, my - I simply cannot wait to be in the company of such types as Ms A, who left comments thus:

-'Hello all, I just won X scholarship from Y Inn. I'm very pleased.'
'-I want to find out about options, because I didn't like my options on the BCL. That's the one at OXFORD'.
-'Oh I would like to do that option, they didn't have that option on my BCL at Oxford'.
-'Actually I'm deferring for a year to go do the LLM at Cambridge. Ciao'.

Actually, I am looking forward to the BVC and like to think I've developed a high threshold for over-plumped egos. Hope all is well in the rest of the blogosphere.

-M.

PS - Any holiday read recommendations (or good reads in general) would be welcome!

Thoughts on a shorter BVC

2008-08-25T11:03:00.004+01:00

I'm trying to get a feel for how the BVC will be, through Facebook groups, other blogs and the Provider's website. One of the discussions I came across concerned the length of the course itself.

It had been suggested that the course ought to be made shorter, so as to reduce costs and...well I'm not quite sure why else. Perhaps so that hopeless candidates waste less of their time, and people can see earlier one whether they will obtain pupillage etc. I understand that this has been periodically considered by the Bar Council as well, alongside other proposed BVC reforms.

I'm not sure what my position on this is. Indeed, in the States the Bar Exam is a 2 day exam and prep classes offered only run for 2-3 months before the exam itself. This is all conducted immediately after completion of final years exams, and so by August a student will have graduated from Law School and hopefully passed the Bar.

But the Bar exam is fundamentally different there. No advocacy, research or drafting skills are taught - the whole endeavour is an exercise in memory and exam skills. There are no opportunities to moot or do pro bono work, which may be of more relevance to non-law graduates who have not had an opportunity to moot before. The Bar Exam is the bare-bones of basic legal knowledge; a basic test of competence in that if you can't even get the hang of memorising a few Civ Pro rules you probably shouldn't be allowed to practice. I don't think that the US Bar has the same aims as the BVC.

I get the impression that the BVC has broader aims - to prepare a student for the Bar, develop various skills (as mentioned above, negotiation, drafting, research). Perhaps the longer timescale is needed therefore. The US Bar does not cover these skills and the approach is that new practitioners will learn these skills on the job.

I am told by many graduates of the BVC that there is little point in learning these things on the BVC, because you un-learn or re-learn them in pupillage and thus they support a shorter, pared down BVC. However, I see two problems with this approach:

1- With hindsight, it is easy to play down what you have learned and forgot that the process of learning is as important, at least, as the knowledge and skills you have gained. Even if you do learn to do things in a different way as a pupil, I think intuitively that the BVC must have provided the necessary foundation for this. An analogy for this would be learning Spanish when you have already learned French to a high level; it is much easier than just starting from scratch with Spanish or Italian because you will recognise a lot of the vocabulary and understand how the rules of grammar function, even if they are different rules.

2 - If more of the training is left to Chambers in pupillage, surely this will make this even harder to attain pupillage? I imagine this to be so based on the fact that available pupillages dropped once minimum funding was introduced and so it became costlier to provide pupillages. The costlier it is, the lower the number of pupillages available it seems. In the US, if no-one will hire you it is relatively easy to set up shop on your own. This is not the case here.

These are just some thoughts, I otherwise find the idea of a shorter BVC attractive - the costs of self-funding are lower for a 3-6 month period than for the academic year, and I could do other things in the rest of the year- work, travel, internships etc. I might have already done the BVC by now if it was a short course.

Finally however, depending on the make-up of a shorter course timing would have to be considered. Following a tough third year immediately with a Bar course that requires anything like real brain work would be very tough physically and emotionally. I could see the fatigue in the eyes of my colleagues on the New York Bar exam. I imagine people would adjust to this, they always do, but it is definitely something to consider.

Fighting talk and Resolutions

2008-08-19T12:57:00.009+01:00

Being back at my dull desk job leaves me lots of time to look up things on the 'net that I would rather be doing than amending client bills. And so I have made some decisions.

I am going to apply for some LLMs - prob to Oxbridge, the BCL just for the hell of it (won't get in, but you never know) and to some schools in New York - specificially the International Law programme at NYU. That is my current dream. If I really enjoy the LLM, then I can then consider a Phd but it would be silly to commit myself to that now.

It's very competitive and everybody and his uncle wants to do international law these days. So what- what's the point in working so hard if you're not even going to aim for what you love? If I had a passion for wharbling or tapdancing, I'm sure I'd be wanting to be on Pop Idol or something. I have a passion for international law, and really the Bar is a sort of professional pop idol, is it not? (With about equal chances of success, it might be said).

And then, I will actually apply for pupillage. At those dream sets, where I have a 1 in a zillion chance of getting in. And then I will apply everywhere else, where I have a roughly 1 in 4 chance of getting in. And yes, everyone does think that they'll be that 1 in 4.

But I got onto my uni degree - and 3,000 people applied for 150 places. Out of the people offered places, 50 of those were interviewed for a particular degree course with only 4 spots, and I got one of them. So I've fought those kinds of odds before and made it.

Anyway, isn't the foolish pursuit of dreams and desires what being young is all about? With this in mind, and also because it has always made more sense to me to make resolutions at the start of the academic, rather than the calendar year, here is my action plan and list of goals for the year ahead:

What I will do:

Pass the BVC. Perhaps even do well.
Get a job which will pay for the BVC.
Do lots of FRU. It's been about 2 years ago now that I did that induction day...!
Learn a language. Or rather go up a level in one of my existing languages.
Apply to LLM programmes - on time!
Do some other law work - volunteering or research or something - and some minis (which I have yet to do).
See some of europe - it's so close after all!
Read more - I used to read voraciously but seem to have lost the habit since the LLb taught me to feel guiltly when reading non-law.
Get fit and eat healthily, work on my posture. Generally be fitter, happier, more productive.

Hmm, there should be a No. 10. Maybe I will moot too - and deal with Olpas.

Things I will not do:

Get home every night, watch some telly and fall asleep. Or go to bed and watch tv online...
Become a couch potato (who am I kidding, I mean remain a couch potato)
Fail the BVC (!)
Miss deadlines the way I usually do (but I like the sound of them whooshing by so...)
Similarly, win gold in the Procrastination olympics as I have done in previous years

Have I missed something? I think those are all do-able. No sailing down the Amazon saving orphans or writing a small country's constitution, but you have to start somewhere!

NY Bar questions

2008-08-18T18:54:00.003+01:00

Legally Ginge asked me a couple of questions re the New York Bar qualification which I thought I would answer in a new post rather than in the comments thingy in case it was helpful to anyone else. By the way, if anyone has any questions feel free to ask. Not that I'm holding myself out as knowing anything about anything!

Here goes:

1. After qualifying are you now able to practise in the states, immediately or do you need to do some kind of TC/Pupillage equivilent.

After taking and passing the New York Bar Exam and the MPRE - the Professional Responsibility exam, which is held 3 times a year (to the NYB's twice a year) you then need to apply to be admitted to the New York Bar by showing fitness, character etc, much in the same way as joining an Inn.

After that point you are free to work as an attorney, and subject to professional responsibility rules you can even set up shop as a sole practitioner - if you so desire. So, no, no TC pupillage element is required.

2. Is there a time limit after doing the qualification by which time you must have practised?

I actually don't know this one - I don't think so, but there is a requirement to keep up CPD points and pay Bar fees and the such in order to stay a member of the Bar.

3. Do you need a visa sponsor as a Brit to work there?

Yes you do, that's where the tricky part comes in - finding someone to sponsor you. In the main it'll be a H1B type visa, which is valid for 3 years and starts every October. It can be extended for 3 year periods, and the employer bears all the costs. Or you can find yourself an american boy and become a citizen that way!

4. You mentioned the course you did was mainly DVDs etc, does this mean the course held in London by BarBri is the same?

I had a friend taking the course in Hong Kong by video, in New York you had the live or video option, but I imagine the Barbri course would be the same - you'd have to ask them for specifics, I didn't really look into the course in London much before I signed up.

5. When you took the exam was it the level you expected or harder?

Well I found the exam really hard physically 'cos I had a stonking cold, but it varied in difficulty. There's an essay portion, a legal writing portion, and multiple choice portion. The Multiple choice stuff was hard, the legal writing ok, and the essays were ok as well. I think the course prepares you fairly well for the exam, so it wasn't too much of a surprise on the day. The multiple choice questions I remember being much harder than anticipated on the morning, but then the essays were easier - so I guess it evens out.
If you follow the course you should be fine, it has a really high success rate. The NY Bar itself in July has a 80% pass rate, which is high. In the main the people that fail are those that study on their own, that don't study at all, that have been practising for years and so know old law, and I imagine a fair few foreign students.
Conceptually the exam isn't hard, it's just a case of memorising everything - which is dull but not hard. Having said that, I don't know if I passed or not!

Hope that helps.

Pushmi-pullyu

2008-08-17T21:08:00.004+01:00

I feel I'm at a crossroads. Indecision all around me. Let me apply some Fiddler on the roof style reasoning:

On the one hand, I think I should probably get a job somepoint soon because I don't want to be a student forever.

On the other hand, there's no rush to get to the Bar, more experience and qualifications will only help (to get pupillage, to get better work, and generally to have more life experience before I start work proper).

On the other hand, I don't want to dilly dally about too much before working - and I can't face another 3-4 years studying.

On the other hand, I really do want to do some more studying - at least an LLM.

And then, I'm advised (by Daddy dearest) that I should really just go straight into a Phd or DPhil. This makes sense given the area of law I'm interested in (international law, human rights etc) and the fact that I would like to be able to straddle academia and practice.

But then, on the other hand, that seems like a lot - surely an LLM would be enough? Maybe I should do the LLM, work for a bit, then consider a Phd?

But then - it all matters on where I get into anyway - there's no point doing anything that isn't at a decent place.

But then who's going to pay for it?

But on the other hand it would be an investment in my future...

But do I even have anything I could even write 100,000 words about? Do I even have the stamina, the ability for it? I do like to spend 5 hours a day watching Rab C Nesbitt on Youtube and 3 hours a day eating/cooking... and another 10 sleeping, which doesn't leave much!

But then, if I want to change the world and help people and stuff I should think that I'd have plenty to say - and I did really enjoy my dissertation. In a painful/pleasurable kind of way...

Aargh!

ETA: Perhaps I should go for the safer option given my apparent lack of any usefulness or common sense. I managed to miss the old alarm clock this morning, waking up at 9:24 (when I should have been at my desk at 9:30, an hour and a bit away). Eventually got in looking like last night's dinner, and forgot to put my contacts in. Which means I had my glasses on - which I normally only wear at home, or when I'm doing a face mask.

French Clay mad be very good for the skin, but globs of it on one's spectacles are not a great office look! Oh dear, oh dear...

Modern Education, Grade Inflation

2008-08-15T08:34:00.000+01:00

The combination of the A-level results yesterday, and Simon Myerson QC's recent blog has me thinking about education both in terms of my own experience, and how its general approach has changed over the years.

I went to school during the years where we weren't 'taught' grammar, or at least weren't taught things in terms of the 'past participle' and the 'reflexive verb' etc.
When I have cousins over from France (as they pop over every now and then to work on their English) or foreign friends who ask me how to say a particular thing, they will often frame it in all the grammar lingo. My response will usually be - give me an example?! I think I know how it should sound but I don't really know any of the rules. So, all those books I've bought on how to improve your writing etc (ok, the one book) aren't much use because I barely understand the different between a noun and a verb.

I don't imagine I'm unique, I probably learned more grammar and punctuation from reading voraciously as a child than actually in the classroom, but I think that period of teaching english in schools has hampered both my generations ability to write 'correctly' and our ability to learn foreign language. It's a bit tricky to master the past historic in French if you have no idea what the correlating use would be in English (there isn't one actually). Teaching grammar in a more free way (by not teaching it, but by allowing students to pick up the rules in a more childlike, natural process) only really works for English, I think, because it has so many exceptions to rules. It certainly doesn't work for continental European languages.

In one respect then, I do think that losing some of the traditional elements of education (like teaching grammar in a strict, rules focussed way) has been to our detriment. I think they have changed policies since I was at school though, if my siblings' school experience is anything to go by. My sister still wouldn't know a semi-colon if it dropped in her tea, but there you go!

I am terrifically bored by the perennial A-levels debate however. The fact that A-level passes improve every year must mean that A-levels are getting easier - or that kids are getting smarter. Both positions are clearly wrong in my mind.

When I started my A-levels I remember my Chemistry teacher telling us that A-levels were a game, and in order to do well you had to learn the rules. That isn't to say that it was easy, but in to succeed you had to master the exam style, and learn how to project the information you knew to an examiner audience.

It seems natural to me that in this style of examination, as years pass on, students have more past examinations to rely on, and teachers become more adept at teaching towards the examination style that results will improve. The examinations are not getting easier, but our approach to them is more focussed.

And indeed, I believe the students themselves are much more focussed. Did you need 3 A's to get into university 10 or 20 years ago? Prince Charles certainly didn't and still made it to Trinity College, Cambridge (although perhaps that's a different phenomenon altogether). There was either less competition, or the perception of competition. People who do A-levels largely have already decided they want to go to university, and people are realising that they need good grades much earlier on - at GCSE and A-level level. Look at America, where students who are determined to get into the Ivy League universities will be worried about their 'Grade Point Average' very early on, from perhaps the age of 13.

Having said this, when you consider who sets and chooses the exams it may be that grade inflation should be a concern: the exams are in the wrong hands. The people who select which exam boards to take have an interest in choosing the exam board with the highest rate of success (the students and teachers) because it serves their interests. The exam boards (the AQA's and the Edexcel's) have an interest in having high success rates because this is what the students and teachers - their buyers- are looking for.

The universities (or employers, but generally the universities) however, have an interest in accurate results in order to select the truly brightest and best. Students, teachers and the Exam boards do not stand to lose by inflation of results (not on a short term basis at least) and as long as they are in control of setting the exams, and selecting the exams, there is no incentive for grade inflation not to occur.

The answer would of course be to put the examinations in the hands of those who have an incentive not to inflate results, because they are interested in accurate results. Unis have long done this, with Oxbridge entrance exams, entrance exams for Medicine and Law etc. But the problem with that of course is self-selection - students will only take the LNAT at X Redbrick if they think they are capable of getting into X Redbridge, and students from non-traditional backgrounds (the working class, ethnic minorities, and those without a family history of higher education) will not enter for those exams. So University set exams might deal with the grade inflation issue, but they bring up a whole load of diversity and fairness related issues.

I do think however that the A-level debate largely overlooks the fact that A-levels today are just not the same kettle of fish as a decade or a generation ago. And not because society is going to hell in a handcart, and all our youth do is text message each other about Britney's latest lack of panties, or whatever. It is a different world, in education and in work. A-levels are less focussed on knowing bare, dusty facts than they used to be but more on understanding basic principles, communicating clearly, and writing for a particular audience. These are important skills that employers are always crying out for more of - the ability to work from basic principles, and communication skills.

In short, they test 'softer' skills than they used to, but I don't think they're soft exams. We may still have to get the balance right, but isn't application generally to be preferred over memorisation?

Back to the grindstone

2008-08-14T17:17:00.000+01:00

I got back a couple of days ago, and have since been...basically lazing about. Managed to fit in some cooking for my Dad, a whole season of Mad Men and a lot of sleeping. I'm jetlagged! Look, I know it's only a 5 hour difference and I spent the last week there lazing as well but.... ok, ok, ok, I'm just plain lazy!

I thought I might not do any temping work until I start the BVC...because I'm going on holiday in a couple of weeks (look, I've never been to Asia and when will I have the time again?!) but my agency called me and I'm really bad at saying no, so looks like I will be back at work next week. I was sorta hoping to go from a New York happy daze to a sorting things out at home and chilling daze to a girly holiday in a place that has really cheap scarves daze, but alas looks like I will have to get my pencil skirt on and get dictating.

Shame I can't dress like the secretaries in Mad men do, that would be fun! I was born in the wrong decade, raging sexism and pointy bras sound like a lot of fun!

In other news, my kid brother made his Uni offer to study physics - go bro! And hence the pic above :)

Back in Blightie!

2008-08-14T15:38:00.000+01:00

This was spent...packing and cleaning! We had to get out of the flat, and we stayed in my mate's flat for the last night. We had 40 pounds too much in luggage so it required some inventive use of hand luggage allowance and a lot of repacking (and ditching some stuff) to get it all home.

We had a bit of a dodgy final experience with a private (non -yellow) taxi driver who wanted to charge us $20 just for carrying all the bags- not like she helped or anything! And then she was wittering off in spanish to the guy at base, clearly saying something about us only speaking english or being english - she was annoying. And when we protested, saying she couldn't just make up prices, she went on some guff about how she had a camera in there and the 'other boss' would watch how many bags went in, would work out the cost accordingly and then would let her know how much by flashing lights whether to go up or down?! It's all a bit Bruce Forsyth for me, I'm afraid dear. I may be a Brit, but I wasn't born yesterday.

Anyway we got her license plate and registered number so HAH. Screw you lady!

Other than that, last day was fine - we just chilled out in the evening with Pizza and some films. It was too rainy to go anywhere, and in any case 8 hours of cleaning and packing I was a bit tired.
The person we leased from didn't seem to notice the burn stains and gave us back the entire deposit, which was good. Overall, that was a good experience - I think you have to be careful with Craigslist things, but if you use your common sense and get a good feel for someone it can work out ok.

So, by midnight I was back in London. I've missed home, family and friends- but, blimey the weather's crap!

Final New York Days

2008-08-10T11:43:00.000+01:00

And so my last week in New York comes to an end. Friday I had the MPRE (professional ethics exam) which I'm pretty sure I failed, but will find out in 5 weeks - not too fussed if I have although it will slow down my admission to the NY Bar, and will have to come back and take it again. It was quite tough taking another exam after the relief of finishing the main bar exam!

Anyway, I was much more focussed on actually having some fun this week, with no studying (well, see above anticipated failure - there may have been some studying I should have done, but whatev...) and me and Boy having recovered from our respective colds/manflu.

And so we went - to breakfast, to lunch, to dinners, to the American Natural History museum (dinosaurs and lizards!), the Brooklyn Botanical gardens (pretty trees and flowers, lovely!), Wednesday I visited some chums, Thursday, the Brooklyn Museum - which was a real treat, lots of Egyptian Antiquities. Actually they have an amazing collection, I didn't really expect that (in little old Brooklyn) but it's actually up there with the Met and the Natural History Museums - 3rd best collection, or best museum or something in the whole of the US actually! It has trouble attracting people from Manhattan actually - I guess people have the same prejudice/ misinformation.

So for a lovely day, off the beaten track I strongly recommend a visit to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and the Brooklyn Museum next door. They're both at the top of Prospect Park, in the lovely Park Slope area - and it won't be full of other tourists. If you like Ancient Egyptian or African stuff you'll appreciate it. We just watched Cleopatra (the Taylor/Burton version - not that there's another one...is there?) so it was quite a good point to visit.

I must say, NY museums are quite pricey- I can't imagine going as a family with kids, which is often when you'd want to go, surely, to somewhere like the Natural History Museum? - at generally about $20 admission plus extra for special exhibitions, you're looking at over $100 for the average family - before you've even stepped foot in the cafe or the gift shop! Some museums do have suggested admissions so you can give less, and some have free days once a month or so, but it does make me appreciate the great resource that is London Galleries - all fantastic and free!

Yesterday, our penultimate New York day, was also Boy's birthday. Now for various reasons, we've never actually spent a birthday together in our many years, and given we'd just finished this round of tortuous exams, this was an occasion not to be missed. I asked Boy what he most wanted to do on his birthday - and he said ride bumper cars.

By which I assumed he meant bash the hell out of me in a bumper car, but I was game. And so after gifts in bed, and a fantastic brunch in Downtown Brooklyn (Eggs Norwegian with perfect poached eggs and chips, solid cup of tea (rare, round here - why do they always give you a cup of hot water and a tea bag? Don't they know you need boiling water to make a decent cup of tea? So if you give me a cup of hot water it's likely to be far below boiling by the time it gets to me and I can actually dunk my teabag? And why put the milk in the water if I ask for milk and thus make it worse in two ways - by making it even colder and mixing the teabag with the milk - which is obviously and MORTAL tea sin? DON'T you understand how I need a decent cup of tea? And wtf is with the flipping non-dairy creamer, don't you know that stuff is crap?! And don't you have anything other than Liptons which is just brown floor dust?!! Is PG tips or a Tetley too much to ask?!! -

Woah, serious tangent. Ok I feel strongly about tea. But seriously, know that milk in with the teabag is wrong. Where was I?

Yes - so brunch, mimosas and an excellent (I'm told) corned beef hash. Yummy. Sated and happy, we headed to Coney Island - a tacky seaside area - not quite Blackpool or Margate, but maybe that's just because it was a gorgeous, sunny day and so it looked nice. But otherwise, not a great piece of urban planning - spoils the lovely beach view! We went on the big ferris wheel - with swinging cars that made my poached eggs consider a reappearance - and the bumper cars, where I bumped and was bumped equally.

After some icecream (massive triple-baller, naturally) and a walk along the Boardwalk, we headed back to change and drop off shopping from the morning. Then to Central Park and a dance show - we had thought we were seeing something Mozarty but it actually was a Samoan interpretive dance show inspired by Mozart's Requiem. Yes. Exactly.

Now, consider how much sense interpretive dance usually makes. Now frame that in the context of a foreign language - well poetry in a foreign language, and different cultural references and norms as to movement, music, sound and physicality generally. Add in the fact that we got there just as it was starting and so had no time to look at the programme, it was a tad baffling. Mostly people shuffling about the stage very slowly, or in a quick stepping way that reminded me of our mouse...but very interesting even if we had no idea what was going on. I assumed it was about death, and I think that was in there somewhere!

We had time for a night-time walk through Central Park, which really is a magical place. You really have this feeling of being in the middle of something - somewhere important, and somewhere important in Central Park, and Manhattan generally. Or New York city generally. Then we crossed Manhattan to get to the Brooklyn Bridge, which we planned to walk over to get to our dinner reservation. It was full of Frenchies, and to be avoided if you're afraid of heights (look down through the gaps in the boards and you will see down onto the motorway or the water) but a lovely view of the Brooklyn and Manhattan skylines.

We dined at the lovely River Café, which was lovely. Even though I nearly landed on my face walking to our table on their nightly waxed floor (and on leaving, but we were the last couple to leave so by then it was empty). The staff were attentive and helpful, we had a window seat and a view of the entire Manhattan skyline (think of the view they always show in films - or on Friends - lovely) and the food was amazing. Lobster out of the shell (how they managed it in one piece I have no idea), cooked in butter and I don't know what else - crack, I presume, nothing natural can taste that good). Unfortunately, the floor was a bit overwaxed for my soles' liking and I nearly face planted...on the way in and out.

Oh well - luckily I'm not easily embarrassed any more!

And so we got a taxi back to the flat, then had a nice candle lit glass of wine before going to bed...unfortunately we kinda fell asleep and started smelling burning. A big pillow/cushion thing on the bed had caught aflame...Boy helpfully tossed it on the floor, not realising the drop and roll thing wasn't really intended for synthetic items - and so natch, we had to dump the cushion, and leave burn marks on the rug and floor - slightly affected the ambience as well!

Still, no injuries and overall - a fantastic day, that really captured the magic of a good New York Day. It's a big, dirty grimy, expensive city like any other, so I'm sure that bad New York days really suck. But I can't help wanting to return- and soon. I will definitely look into an LLM programme there.

If only to be able to taste more buttery-crack sautéed lobster!

*sigh* - as they say, I think:

Dreaming of Bonfires

2008-08-06T13:16:00.000+01:00

Had my final class yesterday - on Professional Responsibility, I have a final exam on Friday.

I have one more book to add to my mountain of books - I'm not going to take them back to London, but I have to hold onto them until November, when the results come out.

At which point I can either give them back to BarBri and get my book deposit back - I think not - or I will probably sell them on. They will give you back $250 and scare you by saying that if you sell the books it's a breach of copyright or something - but people often sell them on Ebay etc. I think for about $700, which is much fairer given that you pay $1500 for the books themselves. From this year to next, February or Jan little will have changed (February's Barbri lot use the same 2008 books in fact) so I should hopefully recoup some costs. So now that I've sold the fantastic Albany experience, I'm sure I can entice someone to buy some second hand lovely law books!

Not!

Boy is pushing for a sacrificial pyre disposal method. I think this would be unwise at this stage.

Visiting Albany

2008-07-31T18:10:00.000+01:00

Sunday (21,234 calories, 1 unit alcohol, no cigarettes- though I could have done with some.)

Na. don't worry, I don't go in for that Bridget Jones rubbish. (except for the Mr Darcy bit, obviously!). On the Sunday before the exam, I started to get sick. Seriously hampered my last minute cramming ability as there were several of the small areas I still had to learn - like Corporations, Agency and Partnership and Conflicts. And Federal Jurisdiction.
Ok, by Sunday I still had a lot to learn. I don't think I ever finished the mouse story - I caught the second one on Sunday night as well - which was good as we didn't want to come home to either a kitchen crawling with mice, or the tempting perfume of dead mouse caught in a trap!

Monday I felt a bit better, but it was just a lull in the storm as I would find out. Monday we also took the train up to Albany, which was about 2 and a half hours into upstate New York. Really nice scenery going up there, and the trains were nice and comfy. The river views were spoilt on me though, my brain was so Bar exam-embroiled that when I saw the river all I could think of were the different theories of riparian rights (natural and prescription, if you're interested...).

And so to Albany. It seems every one else had decided to take the same train, because it was full of people cramming Property and New York Practice. We got to Albany station and were shuttled to our hotel. No 5 star splendour for us - all that was left was a Holiday Inn, 4 miles from the testing location.

You see, the majority of people taking the Bar are funded (in the same was as Firms pay for the LPC) by BigLaw lawfirms. And so as the lawfirms do this every year, they book all the hotel rooms (and Albany is nothing but hotel rooms, but more on that later) up way in advance - by January/February you're hard pushed to get a room downtown during Bar exam dates. And so when the self-funded schmucks like myself come round to booking, you get stuck in a Holiday Inn 4 miles away.

Now, don't get me wrong- I'm no snob about hotels or nuffink. But as we were to find out, this town was not ready for 20,000 exam applicants to descend upon it. Taxis would not guarantee times, because everyone wanted one. When you managed to order one to the hotel, people stole it (the morning of the exam). The hotel's 'free' shuttle service? All booked up - and also totally useless, and the staff were no help. This is where staying in a posh hotel helps, because you basically pay for them to get crap done - and be nice to you!

And so, on Tuesday, the New York day of the Exam, we had ordered a taxi, which someone stole and then waited around. When another taxi pulled up, and we got in with another couple to split the ride, she informed us that it would be $12 each. Which is not much, granted, but it sounded fishy. Upon later investigation - i.e. asking a nice taxi driver later - she had indeed ripped us off, and should only have charged us $12 for the 1st person, $2 each after that, and that we should contact the Dept of Commerce! (there were 5 of us in there, it was a big car). It's not the amount that counts here, it's the fact that someone is ripping you off because they know you have to get to a Bar exam and you have no choice.

Waiting to get into the exam hall, was like hell. Winding lines of people who had no idea where they were going, but somehow we knew we were destined for a common evil. Except once you got inside, rather than being hot - it was freezing! We had been advised to bring layers, but I hadn't anticipated needing a bear fur to get me through it! We were presented with green bracelets on entering the room, that were not to be removed for the 2 days.

And so by lunchtime, Albany - normally a dead capital town, with only state politicians wandering around - was filled with thousands of students with green armbands, carrying their belongings in transparent plastic sandwich bags. It's an incredibly anonymous experience.
As for actual lunch, I counted 1 cafe, a Starbucks and something like a Subway. To cater to us all.
The exam itself on Tuesday, was hard. We were 2 to a table, about 200 in my room, which was a small room. I'm glad I wasn't in one of the massive lecture halls. I think I did ok, there was about a 1/3 of each question that I had no idea about, but I think I did ok in the rest of the questions. I did mess up a little on time, spending too long on the first question, and then writing my answers in the wrong booklets (doh). In the afternoon I also made a massive boo-boo by not reading carefully and so my answer was 1/2 wrong in the MPT task. Which would explain why I ran out of time! By the last 5 minutes, I was writing so hard and fast that my writing was illegible and I could hear my neighbour tutting as the table was shaking!

I was one of those people that you hate in exams. Getting up constantly to go to the loo, sniffling, and dropping my pen. And asking for more paper.

But by Wednesday I was worse. Add coughing and sneezing, and a fair bit of groaning to the mix. My cold was hitting its peak of general ickyness and fuzzy-headedness - which was great on the multistate day, which requires you to be able to think fast on those multi-choice questions. The morning was tough, and people looked dazed by lunchtime. I did not like my chances of being any higher than chance on that portion. The prep I had done did not seem to have prepared me at all, the MCQs were so hard!

Luckily, the afternoon seemed easier - which is just as well as I had real problems thinking straight. They were shorter and more straightforward, so I didn't need to spend as long on each. Which for me, meant I could spend longer just trying to get my eyes and brain to focus. Halfway through the afternoon I thought I couldn't carry on because I just wanted to curl up and sleep and/or die - but I powered on until the end. And I was done with the Bar exam!

I walked down Capitol Hill to go find Boy and collect our bags. We were getting the hell out of Albany! The people were unfriendly, the food sucked (the last two days we had had Holiday Inn for breakfast, where the eggs and the hashbrowns tasted identical. As did the coffee and danish, and in the evenings the only option was a Sports Grill bar which just served fried stuff, the most of which I couldn't eat (being a semi-veggie and all)) and you couldn't find a taxi.

We had to wait for a while at the train station, and then the train stopped in the middle of nowhere for ages, and then the subway took frigging ages (as it was late night by then and it was stopping at all the stops) but eventually, we were back to NYC, if a tad dazed and confused, and back to our little corner of Park Slope. Where there are vegetables, friendly shopkeepers and taxis aplenty.

Now it's done with, I think it went ok ish. I think I have an equal chance of passing or failing - MCQ is really not my thing. I'm not too fussed, to be honest.

Just as long as I never have to go back to Albany!

10907 you may leave the exam room

2008-07-30T22:22:00.001+01:00

Finished the exam...less than an hour ago. Waiting for a train back to NYC now.

May I never have to set foot in the Gehenna that is Albany!

Blow by blow account of the horrors to follow. I just plan to sleep for 18 hours or so first....

Walking into the Bar exam

2008-07-28T11:57:00.000+01:00

Bar exam is tomorrow and Wednesday. *gulp*. I'm developing a cold, which should be in full swing tomo/weds. Murphy and his sodding law!

I feel ok ish with Wills, NY Practice, Crim Pro, some of Property, Domestic relations, maybe contracts...I still need to do some work on Corporations and some of the minor subjects (conflicts, Federal Jurisdiction) for the New York day, and then tomorrow night I'll do last minute Multistate questions on the big 6 topics (Crim law/ Pro, Evidence, Real Property, Constitutional Law, Contracts and Torts). I know you're not meant to study the day before, and the night of an exam - but desperate times, desperate measures. Even if it doesn't help it's not like not studying is going to help me. Boy and I have been quizzing each other most of the weekend, interspersed with my moaning 'I'm not weellll, it's not fair....' (you can see the attraction, can't you?).

So...in a few short hours up I go to Albany, where I will be staying in a luxurious Holiday Inn for the exam days. (Everything is booked up well before I thought to book). I will still have to get a taxi to the exam as a result, which is a pain, rather than being able to walk in if I'd found a hotel in the conference district. Anyway, no biggie!

Most people (myself included) assume that a big city like NYC is the state capital. Wrong - crappy little towns elsewhere (Albany, NY, Olympia - Washington (instead of Seattle), Salem - Oregon (instead of Portland) etc) are selected as state capitals in order to boost the fledgling economy there. As a result, the only thing you would go to Albany for is: a conference, the Bar exam, or maybe to file a corporation certificate in person?! I don't know.

Will update on the flat florae and faunae situation - fairly funny story - later!

Wish me luck! Adieu, mes amis!

Eek! A mouse!

2008-07-23T15:19:00.001+01:00

So, I was having dinner with my girlfriend the other night. She had had a big bust up with her bloke, and swanned off for a night in a posh hotel - and naturally she needed my help to fill up the huuuuge fluffy bed and nick all the toiletries. A friend in need is a friend indeed and all that!

So, we were at dinner, and as a pair of London lasses in the Big Apple we were talking about London things and New York things. My friend was just moving into a new flat, in the Upper East Side, an area she had chosen because a lot of the flats and condos were new and didn't suffer the same infestation problems you get in old places, all over the city. Cool places like Greenwich Village, Soho are particularly bad because of the combo of old buildings, and lots of restaurants throwing out a lot of rubbish. So the place is teeming with rodents and roaches. Lovely.

I thought then how lucky I had been to not be somewhere infested, I would not be able to sleep a wink in a house with roaches!!

The next day, it was a dog hot day - I took about 50 showers, incl one just before going to bed. I get out of the shower and head to the kitchen for a cool glass of water when Boy stops me.

"Don't come in here"

"Why?!" (I'm getting ready to get a bit bolshie - no one tells me where to go)

"There's a mouse"

At this point I note Boy's position, sat on a chair with his legs pulled up.

Indeed there are two mice, scampering round a corner of the kitchen, he tells me. He adds that he thinks they're mice... but they could be rats...

You think I jinxed myself at dinner?!

Bill of Rights? I scoff in your badly drafted face

2008-07-22T02:36:00.000+01:00

I hate constitutional law.

No, I love constitutional law. Ethics, principles, right and wrong and all that. Helping people and making society a better place. Good stuff.

I hate AMERICAN constitutional law. Because it is stupid. Really, it is.

The gradual, so called 'protection' and 'rights' that have been developed haven't been done in any principled way, which is what I expected of a country with a written constitution. I'm used to things like the ECHR which says you know - Right to life, in section (er...it's been a while) blah blah, and lo and behold there you will find the right to life, and close by all the other rights, sitting quietly together and eating croissants (they're european init?).

Where will you find rights protected in the Constitution? Under the Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship clause? Not really, that store is all but empty apart from a few dusty right to travel issues. Maybe under the Equal protection clause? Kinda, except only against the local government, not against the big, federal government.

No, you'll find civil rights protection since about 1960...so, er, all of it (what little there is, but that's just me being snarky) under the Commerce Clause. Yes, the commerce clause. It's like the Supreme Court and congress and academics have sat and thought 'Hmm where's a good place to put this that I'll remember easily, that makes sense?' and then shoved it in any old nook and cranny, like a wayward teenager cleaning his room by just shoving everything under the bed.

Or a senile aunt putting the phone in the freezer and not remembering until she goes to defrost a chicken. And also finds the cat there. American constitutional law is as logical as the mind of a senile old biddy.

It's doing this senile biddy's nut in! Maybe I can plead the 5th in my exam - now, that's either the right to not incriminate myself by (filling in wrong answers), or the requirement that everyone sing the national anthem, hand on heart at ballgames. There's no way to know which...

Will do better next time

2008-07-21T14:45:00.001+01:00

I don't know about anyone else, but I've always been a bit of a last minute person. School projects done on the last night, tutorial reading done on the tube or trying to blagg it in class. Prepping for a moot half an hour before each round, promising myself that next round I would do more prep. Even when I got to the final round, when there wasn't a next time.

Anyway, try as I might I simply haven't been able to get rid of this awful habit of not getting anything done until the 59th minute of the 11th hour. Which is why I ended up writing an essay for submission to Barbri for marking on the subway....

There was some logic to this. I thought, rather than spend the full 90 minutes (it was an MPT which is all about 'lawyer skills', not substantive law) I'll do it without looking at the handout and see what I can produce 'naturally', i.e. what I would be able to do if all else fails in the exam. It arrived in the post yesterday - I passed! I found this rather hilarious.

Unfortunately the MPT is only worth 10% - still that's 5% I can count on in the exam. Not sure I can say the same about property at the moment...I'm drowning in vested contingent interests and remaindermen :S Whoever they are.

Next time I take the Bar I really will work harder....!

Anti-social pre-exam jitters.

2008-07-18T14:56:00.000+01:00

A while ago, I met a good friend's new girlfriend. She had been the year above, or a couple of years above me, and upon meeting her I realised that she was the rather surly, serious looking girl I had sometimes seen at uni. Which was fine, all 3rd years seemed quite serious (when I got to 3rd year, I realised why). What did not impress me was that she had once shushed me loudly in the library, when I was talking. I was trying to help some foreign students find their way! So it wasn't a great first impression, as I thought that was frankly a bit uptight.

And now I have become a wretched parody of that. In an attempt to make a dent in the recommended 12 hours minimum work a day (!!!!) set by BarBri (which for me is prob very necessary as I haven't been doing the 6 hours a day to date...) we've been going to the Brooklyn Public Library. Which has a very pretty facade, and is nice and cool inside. But stress makes me irritable - with the result that every slight noise, smell irritates the heck out of me.

Americans seem to think that it's an infringement on freedom to not have 24-hour access to food, so to this end people eat on the train, in lectures, in exams, and even in libraries. Now I think the latter is plainly wrong ( I mean eating in the subway just seems like a bad idea - it's basically an open sewer) but in the library I really do not want a large woman chomping her way loudly through a basket of oranges in my face. Especially when she's dribbling and the smell is distracting.

I mean gahd. And someone in there was BREATHING REALLY LOUDLY. Did they grow up in a barn?!*

If exams achieve one thing, it's to make us Scrooges!

* that part was a joke, Kinda. But the food thing was annoying.

Domestic Relations, monkeys.

2008-07-15T23:53:00.000+01:00

Had my last lecture today - Domestic relations. All about how Harry and Wanda (H + W) get married, have kids, and what happens when things go wrong. Pretty easy going stuff, as the lecturer noted, we are more than familiar in today's society with family break ups and stuff. And a day spent watching crappy daytime tv will probably educate you in all elements of adultery, paternity conflicts, maintenance and child custody spats...!

A suitably low-brow note to end the course on. Bar exam is 2 weeks today - eek! I'm feeling ok about some subjects - Wills and Dom Rel (above) have seemed more straightforward that I was expecting. So I may be ok on the New York (essay) day - which was the day I was really worried about after all, still have lots of work to put in though because there are lots of subjects - Civil procedure remains the impenetrable behemoth!

On the multiple choice side - it's proving tricky with subjects like Torts, where all the answer choices could be right depending on how you judge the situation. I hope in the exam they are clearer instances of e.g., negligence or non -negligence than the practise q's I've done so far reflect!

Post exam- I'll have about a week free to really explore NY. Thinking of a trip up to Niagara Falls, that would be cool. (Or down...? Don't actually know where they are!).

In the meantime I have been listening to the Arctic Monkeys on constant repeat on the old Ipod these days...must download some new music to help stave off the crazy. Am I the only one that needs loud music to dance about like I'm having a fit to in times of stress?

This is when an extra room in the flat would be really helpful, Boy's peals of laughter are somewhat inhibiting! :P

Talking of monkeys though, the BarBri people keep telling us how in many respects, monkeys trained to use 2B pencils could pass portions of the exam, and we are infinitely more qualified than monkeys. Some days I'm really not so sure!

Identity fraud

2008-07-12T18:26:00.000+01:00

Looks like someone has hijacked Minx's blog! It can now be found here.

This is a horrible world we live in. Reading the newspaper yesterday brought me to tears. In one, slim daily section this is the selection of stories covered:

-- Guantamano Bay - How prisoners who are appearing pro se are not being allowed paper (to write motions on). Yay for due process.
-- Wiretap laws in the US
-- Darfur - NGOs and other charities being kicked out of the country because they are accused of 'talking to' the ICC and the UN. Human rights extinct like the dodo.
-- Zimbabwe
-- Iraq - see picture above. Man crying over his father's body after a bombing on Thurday. 4 others were wounded.
-- Number of US soldiers killed in Irag to date- 4110.
-- Fraud by a Housing official in New York, who was selling housing vouchers for profit (the vouchers are intended to go to poor people who can't afford housing in NY, so they only pay a proportion of their salary for rent and the govt picks up the rest. So she was screwing over the government, the poor people paying her, and the really poor being denied the vouchers).
-- Iran, nuclear weapons and falsification of pictures.
-- Story on how Israel won't let 3 Fulbright Scholars out of the Gaza strip to take up their scholarships in the US. They have passed US security checks - several times, (and it's bloody hard to get a Fulbright) but Israel has deemed them a 'Security threat'. Right.
Everyone in Gaza is still not allowed out, and nothing is allowed in. And I thought ghettos were out of fashion these days...

Yes, it's a lovely world. And now everyone's identity is being stolen and all. Great.
No wonder people read Heat and the like. Much easier to think about who has a boob job than consider that today is the anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.

Not a pleasant valley Sunday

2008-07-07T03:38:00.000+01:00

Yay - paper didn't get nicked today.

Nay - had to be out of the house by 8 to get to an all - day mock exam.

Yay - only a mock, so still a few more weeks 'til the real thing.

Nay - realisation that I didn't even know what area of law some of the questions were about.

Yay - umm. My timing was alright? Managed the 200 multiple choice questions in plenty of time (suggested 1.8 minutes per question, I was a fair bit faster than that but then again going 'eeny meeny miny mo...' is a bit quicker than actually than actually thinking it out.

Nay - I have the answers here ready to self-grade and tot up my score. Maybe I'll leave that for the morning, easier to take bad news when the sun is shining...!

PS - Boy made me laugh when I got home. Commented that there was no food in the fridge. But I just did a big shop yesterday?! I said, and then reeled off all the things I'd bought.
'But those are just ingredients!' he retorts. Haha. Guess the healthkick starts (again) tomo. Darn having a pizzeria round the corner. That delivers...

UPDATE-

Ashamed to post this. I totted up my scores and I got...90 out of 200. Okay...89. I think anyway, I scribbled down my answers really roughly on scrap, and some may have gotten mixed up. Either way, it's 90 give or take a few. Well short of the 105 national average.

I mean it's understandable given I've done no work. Actually I was expected closer to 40. And I still have 2 Property lectures to make up so I couldn't have answered 2/3 of 33 questions with anything but guesswork. And for some reason Con law would not go in my head. There are 80 easy questions, 10 aren't marked (test questions for the next year), 20 are really hard, and the others are in between.

A passing mark in the exam is 125... so I have a fair bit of work to do. Just looking roughly, I mostly got questions wrong in Property, Constitutional law, and a few in Torts - surprisingly, cos that's an easy subject. Evidence and Crim I did ok in - which makes sense, as the lecturer in that subject was good, and they were one of the very first subjects. Whereas a week in I already wasn't paying attention I reckon.

Anyway, there's 12 hours of analysis to listen to online...better get cracking!!

Itchy Feet

2008-07-04T00:40:00.000+01:00

Not for want of hygiene, my feet are often itchy. Especially when I see things like this. Isn't it brill?

Hard at work

2008-07-02T22:35:00.000+01:00

The title of the post unfortunately doesn't refer to me, although by now I really need to kick my ass into gear. Slight mixing of metaphors there, but go with me.

Rather, the other day when in the library and I noted someone snoring loudly in the corner, I poked Boy to say 'Look, he's working as hard as you are'. At then we went back to working (or surfing the web, as the case may have been...) for a bit. 10 minutes later, a loud crash is heard and the guy who had been snoring had fallen off his chair. People rushed over, but it became apparent that he had actually just fallen off his chair whilst sleeping. At which point it became a bit funny.

He may have had a couple of drinks, looked a bit worse for wear. In which case it seems a bit odd to go to a library, but there you go.

Yesterday I had a Trusts class, with a rickety old professor who lectured while sitting down (this still all on video). I've actually only got another 3 classes to go, eek! So I learned a few things about trusts.

In fact I probably learned more about trusts than I ever knew. I may have mentioned but I never really 'did' trusts in uni. The night before the exam, I was sure that I could learn it all in a night but then swiftly changed my mind when it became apparent I couldn't. As it was a combined Land Law/Trusts exam I was able to wing it on land law and scrape by somehow.

So I'm not in the best place to tell you what is different over here with Trusts, but a couple of things did strike me:

- the lecturer kept saying that Constructive Trusts and Resulting Trusts weren't really trusts, but equitable remedies. Well, ok in a strict sense maybe, but surely the Constructive Trust was the 'original' trust? Richard the Lionheart and people going off to the Crusades and leaving their property in 'trust' with others and all, wasn't that how it started? (I always listened when it seemed like we were going to get a 'story' in class).

- the Totten Trust. A cheap way of creating a trust, by opening a bank account in your name 'on trust for [Someone else]'. When you die, whatever is left in there goes to them. Until then you can take out, put in, shake it all about whichever way you like, with impunity. I thought that quite nifty. Maybe all this study (or not) is making me soft.

Currently listening to a Constitutional Law for Foreign Lawyers lecture online. It's full of the interesting stuff, the Federalist papers, separation of powers, individual rights, make-up of the Supreme Court, all the big cases (Brown v Board of Education, Miranda, Madison, etc). Constitutional law makes up 1/6 of the multistate exam, and so it's an important area, but those are all multiple choice questions.
Answer choices along the lines of:
X situation is:
a) Constitutional because XYZ
b) Constitutional because PQR
c) Unconstitutional because ABC
d) Unconstitutional because he is wearing a hat.

Riveting stuff. The other essay based exam won't have hardly any Con law in it, because the Board Examiners shy well clear of anything 'contraversial'. I.e. interesting. Only the dry, settled law would be covered. Yawn!

Supreme Court just handed down this week a judgment about the individual right to 'bear arms'. They came down on the side of constitutionality. Hardly surprising given the conservative nature of the present Supreme Court. Anyone catch Justice Scalia on 'Unreliable Evidence' a couple of months back? I nearly ground all me teeth off!

Haven't seen many guns in NYC mind. Prob just as well, I fear the Bar Exam will only get bleaker...:P

Where there's a will, there's a way/ I heart Brooklyn

2008-06-28T20:34:00.002+01:00

Don't get me wrong, Manhattan is v cool. I love going out to all these cool little bars and lounges in the Lower East Side. But this part of Brooklyn is great, I left my flat this morning, walked up my street where there were a couple of guys on the other side of the road fixing up a car, and a bunch of cute little Latino kids playing with a ball. They stopped as I was passing so as not to hit me, and waited until I was well out of reach before starting again - so polite. The cafe I'm in now serves proper tea, in a proper tea cup, is playing Erykah Badu and has big comfy armchairs, air con and no other customers. I like living in a neighbourhood.

Perfect way to laze about on a Saturday. And no-one nicked the paper today.

Unfortunately, I have to catch up on yesterday's Will's lecture which I could not make head nor tail of (as I had missed Wills 1 on Thursday - so all the lingo meant nothing to me). Also it was deadly dull. Deadly, deadly dull. What you can and can't do etc in a will.

Most of it obvious - you can't screw creditors (e.g. Visa) because they take priority, always. Interestingly however, you also can't screw your spouse. Ever. (Unless you're divorced or had the marriage annulled, in which case they're no longer your spouse I suppose).

If you try and screw them out of your estate, they can elect to have the will rejigged so that basically they still get a third. So you can't ever leave them less than a third.

You can however screw your kids in the will. (I think in France you can't even do that actually, but may be wrong). I guess I'll find out next year what the UK Law position is.

Which brings to mind a recent article in the NY times - a millionaire who went through life seemingly hating his kids, but left all his money to poor kids in Panama

Naturally his wife is disputing the will, and his lawyer is being accused of some dodgy dealing. Amusingly though, there is reference to the curmudgeon laughing when his will was referred to (i.e before he died) telling his step kids that they would laugh when they saw his will.

I'm afraid all this girl has to leave the world are a few bits of jewellery and a laptop - nothing to get litigatory over!

Arias in the Park

2008-06-27T16:16:00.000+01:00

Last Friday's Opera in the park event was lots of fun. In Prospect Park, which is Central Park's Brooklyn cousin - and a hop skip and jump from my flat. I hadn't realised the pair of opera singers were actually married, they were v cute. They did a bunch of great arias, and then 5(!!!) encores, which was great. Covered all the favourites, La Traviata, Madame Butterfly etc.

We took a picnic, as it seems did the other million (or so it seemed) people in the park and had a very nice time. There were a bunch of bats (what is a collection of bats called?! A herd, a school? A battery?!) dancing in the air to the music, which amused Boy no end. Boys seem to like fighting games, machines (incl cars) and dangerous animals. These things elude me.

Classes nearly done with -woohoo. This week was Torts (Mon - wed). I think torts lecturers get an easy ride, because it's so easy to be a funny, entertaining lecturer with a subject that deals with cases focussing on people's stupidity and negligence. This guy was no disappointment, I'm sure the lectures would have been half as long without his anecdotes and jokes but they certainly made it less painful.

Wills today- not sure it will have the same humour potential!

Yesterday was a bit frantic, had to get all my documents in to the New York State Board of Examiners. I must say the fetish for paperwork here is almost as bad as in France - and that's saying something! I was waiting on a letter from my old seat of learning. I had requested this in April, May and again this month and yet it seems to have slipped them. So I woke up at 5am to call them early London time and insisted they send it over ASAP. Once I'd had a writing sample notarised, I had everything ready to send off.

I had to write only a short paragraph by hand in front of the notary, but my hand wasn't liking it. This doesn't bode well for a 2 day written exam! I suppose I have become too reliant on the old laptop...

Week 5 - No good every came of an accordian.

2008-06-16T23:46:00.000+01:00

Blimey, this is the start of my fifth week here. Where on earth does the time go?

It always makes me feel incredibly old when I comment on time flying by- because that's what old people (i.e. adults and parents) would say when you were a wee bairn. Do you remember summer holidays, that would stretch on for ever? Good times.

So this week will be all about the music. I'm into my music, although I have neglected it for many years. I plan to see a fair amount of live music here, and really should see more when I get back to London. I don't like massive massive shows (saw the Rolling Stones at Twickenham a few years ago - I was stewarding, and it was so big everything seems to get distorted. In that case, I'd rather be at home with a cup of tea listening to it...I really am old at heart!).

Last night however, we saw a fab show, quite by chance. We went along to a venue in Park Slope, Brooklyn - not far from our modest summer abode - planning on seeing a comedy show that was well rated in the Time Out. It had obviously been wrongly listed, as it was actually a music show. In a basement bar, we heard the incredibly talented Theresa Andersson play. She's from New Orleans, by way of Sweden. Well, that was the way she put it but surely it's the other way round as she moved to New Orleans when she was 18. Either way, the influence on her style of music was clear - she had a fantastic, soulful singing voice, in the higher registers there was a Jeff Buckley esque-ness (I'm not music writer), and had some great songs. (Although I had a listen to stuff online and it was deff better live).

What was absolutely mental about the show, and elevated it beyond your average talented singer with a guitar was that she did all this looping stuff, with drums, guitar, violin, and backing vocals so that she started a song, built it up by putting in the bass line, rhythm, background singing, harmonies etc seamlessly, with the result that it sounded like you had a full band of 5/6 people on stage. Her final song was a cappella ; sounding very much like a spiritual. She had so much energy on stage it was great.

As someone who studied music all the way up to the lofty intellectual heights of the GCSE I was amazed at how she kept all these different rhythms and things going on. Everything (to me anyway) seemed to be in excellent time and pitch, and it was all controlled with her feet, with knobs and dials whilst she was singing her heart out!

Didn't have any cash on me (not enough for a CD anyway, I'm too used to sticking everything on card) but I'll definitely be going to her website to get a copy.

She was the headline act and was then followed by an all girl group. They were called the...walking Hellos or something. Now, as much as I try to not judge people on appearances, their look didn't really match the sound*. I think 'The Librarians' might have been a better name, they had floral chintzy style dresses on, unkempt hair (not the bedhead, toni & guy look, more a family of sparrows live here). And definitely look like they looked after cats. The lead vocalist wasn't too bad, but was drowned out by the accordian player, who stood centre stage, bow-legged and looking like she was on a different planet. She was certainly working to outerworldly musical scale, that's for sure.

If there's one thing I know it's that, indeed no good ever comes of an accordion. Hopefully we won't be seeing any Friday night - which is when I shall be attending an Opera in the Park event - that's Prospect Park, not Central Park. It was designed by the same people as Central Park, a few years ago (so once they'd ironed the kinks out :P) and is located in Brooklyn, about 4 blocks from me. The Opera will be in the North of the Park, and I've managed to get some tickets - looking forward to it, should be great!

* Boy said the sound was of 26 chickens being strangled in a bathtub by a bad guitarist. I thought that a tad unkind.

Some bastard...

2008-06-15T16:30:00.000+01:00

...nicked my paper this morning. How low down and dirty! And it's raining out, don't really fancy getting another one just yet.

Stealing another's Sunday paper is unforgivable. Sundays are all about the lazy brunch and buckets of coffee, a paper big enough to give the paper-boy a hernia, and not getting out of your robe until you get ready for cocktails in the evening... Right?

I hope he gets a really bad paper cut.

Week 4 - Chinatown, Moma

2008-06-15T14:31:00.000+01:00

Having not posted for a while, I apologise profusely and shall now spoil you with a veritable deluge of posts.

I am trying slowly to get around the sights and sites of New York City. It's a bit tricky with the classes, and all the reading I'm meant to be doing...and my innate laziness. I suppose it's a bit different being here for a summer rather than 2 weeks, you feel like you have a lot longer and so you push yourself to do a bit less.

So I haven't been out and about every day, but I have seen a fair bit. Partying in the Lower East side a few nights- reminded me of some cool places in Hoxton if you know that neck of the woods. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a clubbing scene here, it's more of a bar and lounge place. Now that's very cool for 90% of the time, but my girlfriend and I want to get our boogie on to some lame-ass music (you know, the kind that tells you to shake your booty/junk/etc and otherwise offends my feminist, empowered thinking?). I am informed by New Yorkers that 'clubs' here are more full of people standing around posing in sunglasses. I had enough of that in Paris, no thanks!

Chinatown the other night - that was great! My experience with chinese food has been a bit hit and miss and so I tend to be a bit wary of it. I don't eat meat, really, and I'm not a big fan of really greasy, msg-filled food and seeing as the usual offerings are plates of greasy, msg pork, I've tended to be put off. However, there are some really great Chinese restaurants here, and the waiter was really helpful (telling me when I pointed to something on the menu, no, 'pork inside'...'pork inside'...'pork inside') and we ended up with some v delish food. Very fresh, perfectly cooked scallops, yummy squid. And baked red bean buns - I am addicted to these now:

These ones are steamed, rather than baked like the ones we had but still - yummy.

Friday night after class, we went to the Museum of Modern Art. I like my modern art, to be honest (excepting the building itself) I preferred the contents of the Pompidou Centre
to the European Paintings in the Louvre (I know, blasphemy). But a lot of modern art is just about the artist. Usually naked. Some great installations though, and it was a really short trip so didn't see the lot on offer. Recognized a few things - the Warhol, Shrigley, etc. They have a Rothko exhibition on it seems, but somehow managed to miss that. There was a great installation close to the entrance - a fan attached to the ceiling, swinging in arcs, impossible to know (except by complex geometry I suppose?) where it would swing next. It was positioned high enough to not actually hit anyone on the head, but by an optical illusion when it headed for you it seemed low enough to come close to knocking your noggin off, which was slightly disarming!

I don't think that picture is the same atrium at MoMa. We'll have to go back another evening to see more. It's free Fridays, which is why we chose that day.
We had a very classy meal Friday night...a kebab from a street vendor. The variety and ubiquity of street food here is quite amazing. I suppose people are too busy to wander into a cafe or shop!

We're started getting the NY times delivered this weekend, I love love love this newspaper. I'm generally a Times or Guardian girl, sometimes the Indie too, but the NY times seems to cover a lot more in the way of World events.

This really is a country of two halves. One half is the fried chicken, country singing, redneck 'America' that we often mock, and yes there is a vast deluge of dumbed down, diluted and crass food and entertainment on offer. Times Square for instance - is just a tad tacky with the neon and all the chains of not so great restaurants and pizza joints. But for people who read, who take an interest, who are interested in food - there's some of the best food on offer, amazing culture etc, and I think the New York Times and Washington Post probably outdo our papers at home. No? I might just be overly enamoured (enamored?) with the way that the NY Times uses lots of commas in its article titles.

So, a slightly rambling, random post - but life is a bit rambling and random these days! Shall now visit everyone else's blogs to see what you've all been up to!

ETA: Well done on getting to the of the BVC people, (and the GDL Swiss Tony) - good luck for pupillage interviews Minxy and Android! Dream set indeed, you deserve no less!

The exam itself

2008-06-15T14:03:00.000+01:00

Has been a bit of a while since I posted. Not sure why - the first week or so I suppose I was busy, and after that it was 'oh I must post'...but I haven't anything interesting to say, and after this gap it should be interesting. Hmm. I've opted for just posting!

So, I'm about 3 weeks in to Bar classes. I haven't gone into much detail here so far about the course, but I suppose here is as good a place as any to do that. So far I've had classes in Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, New York Practice (i.e. Civil Procedure), Corporations law, Real Property, Constitutional Law and Evidence.

Actually, I missed 2 of the Real Property lectures (out of 3) because my lip blew up to massive proportions. Seriously, I could be an Angelina Jolie lip double on a normal day, but this was ridiculous. It just kept getting bigger and bigger on one side, until I looked like I'd been a few rounds with Tyson. (Ok I'm a wimp, it would have been more like half a round). When we went out to join the gym a few blocks away, Boy noted rather worriedly that he hoped people didn't think he was hitting me! Anyway, I couldn't possibly go out looking like that so no classes for a couple of days.

Lips back to normal size now. I still have these classes to go:

Conflict of Laws
Contracts/Sales
Federal Jurisdiction and procedure
NY professional responsibility
Secured transactions/Commercial Paper
Trusts
Wills
Torts
Domestic Relations
Equity
Worker's Comp

I think that's it. Gosh that makes me realise I'm actually quite far in to the course. I forgot to mention Agency and Partnerships - had that lecture, the lecturer was great. The kind of bizarre that you start off thinking 'oookay then, he doesn't get out much' and by the end you're nearly in tears with the cumulative effect of his quirks. And that isn't me being mean, he was clearly a comic genuis, exaggerating his quirks for comic effect (he noted that he was 'very weird' by the end). Some other lecturers have been dire, making really awful jokes and puns or just having really bad voices. Corporations guy sounded like a gameshow host (I didn't think people really had those voices) and Real Property lady had the whiniest, most nasal voice I've ever heard. Tres New york. In the main though, they've been pretty good.

We are provided with a 'Paced program' (see http://www.barbri.com/app.aspx?cmd=go_home, look up Enrolled Student Center if you're interested, I can't link to it directly) which advises a few hours of work each night. Admittedly I haven't been doing much of this. The distraction of wandering around Brooklyn, or going to the cinema, or indeed anything else has been too great. However, I am here to study and it would be fantastically stupid to fail this so I really must. My last lecture was Evidence on Friday, and the lecturer noted that if we hadn't started studying...now was the time.

The stuff really isn't hard, conceptually. A lot is obviously, completely new to me (degrees of culpability in crim law, all the civil and criminal procedure stuff, evidence, constitutional law, other subjects I didn't study at uni) but it's not hard to get your head around. The content however is fairly staggering. We are provided with handouts for lectures which covers the bare minimum that we need to know for the exam. These usually run to about 40 pages per lecture. I think there are 40 lectures in total, so 40 x 40 = 1600 pages. That can't be right?! Ok, so that's what I will have to memorise. Otherwise, I imagine it's very similar to stuff that people have covered on the BVC/LPC (minus the 'skills' stuff).

There is a difference when it comes to the exam though. Both in terms of how the exam itself is structured and how we are advised to respond. It works like this:

Day 1: One Multistate Performance Test (MPT) question (worth 10%), five NY essay questions (worth 40%) and 50 NY multiple-choice questions (worth 10%).

AM session (3 hours and 15 min.): 3 essays and 50 NY multiple choice questions.

PM session (3 hours): 2 essays and one 90 minute MPT question.

Day 2: MBE (worth 40%). 100 multiple choice questions each in the AM (3hours) and PM (3 hours) sessions.

And in plain English that means: Multiple choice questions in the main.

In the essay questions we have been told not to use cases (yay, cos I don't know any (apart from Roe v. Wade ) nor Statute references, except to refer to for example the CPLR (the Civil Procedure Law and Rules, equivalent to the CPR). We can refer to the acronym without detailing , or indeed even knowing, the full name. Any terms of art, e.g consideration, must be explained. I'm not used to doing that, so I may find that a bit tricky. That's a bit more like Philosophy or Geography - people I knew studying those subjects at uni had to define everything whereas we lawyers could res ipsa loquitor with impunity.

It looks like I may finally have to learn what a trust is. I managed to get through my entire law degree without knowing... !

Law & Order & 19th Century Yobs - NYC Days 7 & 8

2008-05-25T14:46:00.001+01:00

First, the yobs. 19th Century toffs who scratched their names into ancient relics in Egypt. I say toffs because it was only the very rich who could afford to travel back then. And naturally, they thought they owned the world and could go around plundering as they wished. (I have a great picture of an example of such graffiti on my phone, but haven't the capacity to get it onto here unfortunately! - 'Patterson 1821' etched onto a block excavated from the pyramids in Ancient Egypt- he might as well have written 'I woz ere' )

The Met is great, beautiful building. I don't know anything about architecture butI loved it. The stuff on exhibition is obviously great, and interesting and all that, but I wasn't really in the mood to really ponder it much. And having been to the Louvre in Paris, the British Museum, museums in other parts of Europe...I'm at the stage where I can't just look at things and say 'oh that's pretty, isn't it amazing that it's so well preserved?'. I need to actually read some stuff before I go to look at things. So I plan to buy some books and then go back several times to the Met, spending days in there soaking it all up.
Yesterday though, I mostly wandered around just appreciating things on an aesthetic level. A few things stuck in my mind, the pillars and recesses of the building, the beautiful marble floors, stairs and walls, some of the really large exhibits like the Chinese garden and a big re-built Egyptian...actually not sure what it was! In the chinese area, there was this gorgeous wardrobe, dark wood, huge hinges, doors that looked like they weighed a tonne. It looked modern, but was from the Ming dynasty (C16th). Amazing, I wish I had ceilings high enough (and a bank balance to match) to accommodate something like that.

Walked up and down Park Avenue, 5th Avenue, Madison Avenue etc. It would be so amazing to live there, but there are downsides. For example the 'corner shop' (ok, restaurant) served a $20 open sandwich. Which really means half a sandwich. Though I suppose if you like on Madison Avenue you wouldn't baulk at spending $20 on half a sandwich.

And I went back to the Union Street Market where we sampled organic jams, ciders, and the yummiest brownie I've had for a long time. Some really nice fresh produce and stuff on offer, all local etc.

Friday afternoon's lecture was Criminal Procedure: warrants, double jeopardy, trial rights etc. The lingo was (for me) reminiscent of all those American lawyer programmes- Law & Order etc. Some interesting aspects - like how even if a warrant is deficient in scope or validity (in the context of the 4th Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure) it can be 'remedied' by the Good faith of the executing police officer. Riiiight, cos that's a sufficient protection! In my head I kept saying, but PACE allows for this and this...etc etc.

The lecturer told a funny story (to illustrate the point that a magistrate approving a search warrant needs to be free from bias, otherwise the warrant is invalid) about a magistrate in Georgia (I think - might have been Virginia). The State decided that it would be a good idea to pay her no base salary, but then pay $25 for each warrant issue. Lo and behold this particular magistrate ended up having a significantly higher than normal percentage of warrants issues (when considered against the number sought, and issuing percentages of other magistrates in the area).

However, in some instances US Law seems to offer better protections that UK Law. For instance, the 5th Amendment (right to silence so as not to incriminate yourself) attaches to any proceeding, civil, criminal or regulatory in nature. And a prosecutor or jury is not allowed to draw adverse inferences from a defendant's decision to 'plead the 5th', which I believe is no longer the case in the UK. (Of course whether in fact jurors do actually draw adverse inferences is an entirely separate issue- but the fact that judges cannot direct them to do this is important.)

Finally, it's a gorgeous sunny, memorial day weekend - which means no more classes 'til Tuesday, woo!

NYC- Day 6- Burglarizing.

2008-05-23T02:13:00.000+01:00

First day of class today. As ever, I was about 15 mins late (will I ever be organised enough to get myself to the right place in time, for anything?). To be fair we had just moved into our apartment about half an hour beforehand so time was a little tight.

Classes are at NYU, which is in the nicest location- the village. It's really pretty. Class of somewhere between 50-100, I think there were about 5 classrooms on at the same time. So, I find myself a seat and sit down and wait. And wait some more. And people start to get annoyed. Turned out we weren't meant to be in this room, there had been a switch at the last minute but someone had helpfully removed the sign on the door that said this.

Anyway, someone at BarBri eventually clicks to this and comes in. She apologises profusely, and then loads up the DVD.

Yup, we're being taught by video. 4 hours of a video lecturing on criminal law. It was exactly as fun as it sounds. I can't imagine how much BarBri are raking in- if there were about 70 people in my class, who have each paid about $3000 for the class, that adds up to a lot when you consider that all Barbri has to provide is a few books, room rental, and pay the lecturers to tape these lectures. (Some are live- we have the videos of the the live lectures). And this happens all over the US, Barbri is the biggest provider. I'm sure their actual costs run at a fraction of what people pay. Anyway, that's just an aside.

So we pretty much covered all of criminal law in that 3 1/2 hour slot (1st half hour was intro stuff). I think I might get close to your GDL in 28 days record Swiss Tony! We have 30 lectures, each of about 3 1/2-4 hours, and in that time we are expected to cover the 'general' multistate law and the particulars of New York State Law.

The silly thing about the multistate aspect of it, is that for many areas, like today's criminal law lecture, it's not the law of any states really - because it was sort of common law based, whereas nearly all states have gone on to codify their criminal law.

I learned all about the joys of larceny, false pretenses, homicide and -my favourite- burglary today. Which is what you get when someone burglarizes you. I was typing away on my laptop and I had so many squiggly red lines from where I'd used the British spelling of words, I will have to adjust my register accordingly!

But seriously, burglarize?

NYC- Day 4- shirking already

2008-05-19T20:19:00.000+01:00

Went down to the BarBri office today to see about my pass, books etc. They said I could pick them up whenever so I think I'll wait until Thursday, which is when I can move into my summer place and so save myself having to lug a suitcase of books around the city twice. Which is just as well seeing as I don't have a spare case.

Thursday however is also the first day of class, and I think I'm meant to read one of the books before class...looks like I'm starting this in the same way as all my other academic pursuits- lazily!

After going to the Barbri office I wandered round NY, getting my bearings, all bug-eyed like a true tourist. Times Square reminded me of Piccadilly circus...but bigger! High buildings etc. Then I just wanted round, getting on the subway and riding around to escape the rain. I found a cool little organic food market at Union Square, to the soundtrack of a couple of hipster buskers singing 'One more cup of coffee' and 'Jolene'. Good stuff.

I only stopped when the rain got too heavy- I hadn't taken an umbrella so my pretzel was getting soggy!

Boy arrives Wednesday so I have to come up with some cool things for us to do Wednesday night. We can't move in until Thursday, as I mentioned above, so I think I will find a fancy hotel for the night.

Any ideas? I'm thinking I could find a rooftop bar where we could admire the skyline and sip a champagne cocktail?

PS- People keep stopping me for directions. I must have that kind of face.

NYC- Day 2

2008-05-18T14:31:00.000+01:00

I'm staying with a family for my first couple of nights here - although it may turn out to be for a whole week (but that may be overstaying my welcome, we shall see!). It's actually the brother of my dad's friend and his wife and kid. (It's an old-country thing, you know someone somewhere connected to someone in the family, and you can probably count on them for a place to crash or an invite to dinner!)

So there's a kid, 10 or 11 I'm not sure, and he's really cute. I expected a yank 10 year old to be a total brat but he's really not- yay for beating my expectations. And yesterday we went to a kite festival- so much fun! I felt like a kid again. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and we flew a kite for a while, lost it several times, ate sushi, rode the subway lots, and wandered round Williamsburg. Williamsburg is a really artsy, hipster area of Brooklyn, v close to Manhattan. It's great for people watching. Lots of cool kids (in fedoras?) that look like they could rock out or have a deep conversation about Nietzsche or feminist art.

I love Central Park! It's great for people watching too (I'm thinking NY is generally- either that or I'm really nosy). There's a John Lennon memorial thingy, that was cool, there are athletic types cycling, running, boarding, skating, you name it they do it in sweatbands. Saw where John Lennon was shot. I'm totally gonna hang out there before/after classes. It's huge too.

This blog is meant to be a law blog (or rather, the blog of someone trying to get to be a lawyer) so I will be posting about the NY Bar stuff, learning about American law, maybe some comparative perspectives (but probably just moaning about how hard it is). I don't start classes until Thursday though, so until then my NY experience will prob be touristy family fun! I'm not taking pics yet, but when Boy arrives I will nab his camera and maybe I'll post things that I see.

Tomorrow I pick up my books for the course. I have been advised to bring a suitcase as there will be about 50 pounds of books! Except a pic of what looks like a stack of Archbolds!

NYC- Day 1

2008-05-16T20:02:00.001+01:00

So, I've been in New York 24 hours. I arrived last night, but this is my first full day so counting starts here. I'm pretty pleased with myself as I've managed to:

-find an apartment
-open a bank account
-eat a real New York bagel.

Obviously the last one was the most noteworthy- it was a good bagel (with "schmear" haha).
I think that was quick working on my part, given than I've spent at least 5 of the last 24 hours in the subway!

Managed to get past immigration pretty easily, although I think they were confused by my planning on spending 3 months in the country, not working, with no family connection here. I didn't mention the NY Bar as I'm not 100% sure that I'm allowed to do it on a visa waiver...but I'm sure that's fine. Once I'd shown the guy an American Express and a Visa card he seemed ok, and told me to not overstay my visa and to have a nice day.

People tell you that a lot here- so far everyone's friendly. Listening to people's accents and watching how New Yorkers go about their day is keeping me entertained.

So day one and things are going well- except I seem to have brought the weather with me, it's cats and dogs outside!

This girl's off to NYC!

2008-05-13T22:04:00.000+01:00

So:

Bar prep class = $3200

Bar exam and costs = $700

Flights to Newark, NY = £350

Anticipation of getting on that plane and hitting the Big Apple tomorrow= Priceless.

Ok, so the above doesn't factor in all that stuff on all my many to-do and to-buy lists (crap, still have to get insurance...), and the fact that I still have to see the dentist, doctor and the bank manager before I go tomorrow but...that wouldn't have fitted the Master card ad format!

I also have a very important final rendevous tomorrow- with the barman of a swanky London cocktail bar and some friends. I figure I won't get any sleep on the flight anyway, and the only thing that will make those awful in-flight movies bearable will be blind drunkeness. I intend to hit NY with a massive hangover- starting as I mean to go on.

Posting may be intermittent 'til I'm settled!

To do list

2008-05-07T22:22:00.000+01:00

It is May. This has, for the last 7 years, been the time of exams. For 7 years, the beauty of a summer's day in London (particularly the nice leafy, green parts of North London where my rents live) has been downright spoiled by the need to bury one's head in a book that one would really rather kick into the (inviting) long grass.

Until this year. This May, I have no exams. No dissertations, and nothing to revise. Hooray indeed. Freedom!

Except, I'm still waking up every morning in a panic and have that constant flood of adrenalin in my stomach. I can't stop stressing out! What's wrong with me? Is my body just doing what it's learned to do over the last near decade of degree, A-levels etc? (No it didn't take me 7 years to do Alevels and a degree, I was adding GCSE's for effect and I had a year abroad...anyway, back away from the tangent!).

I have a ma-hoosive to-do list. I leave in 7 days for the Big Apple and I still have to pack, sort out travel money, find a place to live, work out how to pay for the BVC from abroad, apply for a loan, get payment from jury duty last summer, whoops, finish off some work from my internship loooong overdue, bajillion letters to write, apply for a whole bunch of jobs...crap crap crap I still haven't joined an Inn so I have to get all those forms done in my lunch hour.

The last is an issue as the uni administrator is particular cranky and unpleasant. And it's not the last as there's lots more on the list- including sorting out my utter utter pigsty of a room.

For practical reasons (as I've been moving around so much this year) and financial ones (a well-stocked fridge is nice to come home to) I've been back at home this year. This means that my poor mum has to put up with my room being more of a hovel. I, the slob that I am, can put up with just clearing a space in the general area of my bed to collapse onto each night. But this really cannot do, I'm meant to be a sofisticate, init? This is the blog of a 22 year old, not some stroppy Kevin teen!

The only problem with huge to-do lists is that I think about all the things I have to do and then go 'I couldn't possibly do all of that eeeeeeek' and then proceed to get stressed and do nothing. Thereby giving myself the same stuff to do in less time. With less hair, as I will have pulled it all out by then.

See earlier post on exam stress!

I think I'm one of those people who are always claiming to be busy, but never really get anything actually done...Must do better! Going to clear at least 5 things* on the list before bed tonight.

Now, must find paper and pen to write said list. *Mel ventures into Room. She may be gone a while*

*Writing a list totally counts as one thing.

Disillusionment

2008-05-03T17:50:00.000+01:00

Mel is very sad. We had the choice. Lots of choices, but really only a choice between A and B.

A- had experience of dealing with a budget of billions, gained the Olympics, got crime down 5% year on year, and was working to improve transport.

B- had funny hair. Said he would do a bunch of things which sound good but when you think about it, don't work. Like making it illegal for tube-workers to strike. Like in NY, where they go on strike anyway.

And resoundingly, Londoners went for B.

I blame Angus Deaton. If only he'd kept it in his trousers, none of this would have happened.

London Elections

2008-04-30T20:27:00.000+01:00

I'm certainly ready to vote tomorrow. I'm frankly petrified at the idea of Buffoon Boris getting in. I think it will mean a disaster for public services, crime and anti-terrorism, and ethnic minorities. And London being taken seriously as the capital ever again.

A Facebook group shares my sentiments.

Having just spent 2 and a half hours getting home from central London to my suburban family home, I can safely say that we need all the investment in London transport that we can spare. At the moment, there's too much congestion, too many rubbish bus drivers, and simple things like rain manage to put the whole system in meltdown.

Surprisingly, I'm still in a good mood after all of that!

The actual voting process looks pretty complex, with 3 separate ballots and a second-choice section - I wonder how many people will invalidate their ballots?

Bureaucracy, ici? Mais non!

2008-04-29T21:02:00.000+01:00

'Ze Gallic shrug - key to blending in amongst the locals.

A comment on my post below, from Mr P, reminding me of the need to keep records of dining sessions, had me harking back to my time at a Parisian Uni.

I was ostensibly there on an exchange programme, but for various reasons (incompetence of those in charge of the programme factored highly) I ended up having to do a lot of organising myself.

For a city that is only two and a half hours away from my native Londres, it was a world away in terms of the student experience. We all complain about how dire University administrators are, about how the library never has enough copies of X textbook, or how the computers are really slow, how lecture rooms are cold, Facebook petitions and Student Union motions to complain against an electronic timetable online that provided some people with the wrong dates for example at my uni. We are a nation that is becoming expert in the art of the complaint.

But, proving Maslow's theory, I started to think back on how lucky I had been at my UK uni. Slow computers? At least we had computer facilities- French students had no such luxuries. I recall being the only student in a lecture room of 600 with a laptop, the locals were all scribbling away on their funny graph paper notebooks.

Yes, that's right 600 students in a lecture. At least, that's what the people who wrote the timetables decided would work. Without consulting the facilities people who might have told them that that lecture theatre only held 450 people, including 50 sat on the floor/ stood up. Through a 2-3 hour session. Which inevitably meant turning up half an hour early for classes if you wanted a look in. This is the socialist 'equality of opportunity' approach, it seems!

Having previously preferred the fashionably late approach to lectures, I quickly learned to change my habits. Especially as lecturers (if that's what you can call people who stood at the front reading from their book- verbatim) shunned the use of microphones, and so if you were in the back you really were there only to be in the spirit of things than to actually hear/learn/take any decent notes.

So, no computers, libraries with few up to date books, exams where you had to bring your own paper (no joke), over crowded lecture theatres, lecturers that didn't care about what you had to say unless you had at least 10 years higher education - which was surprisingly common, given the seemingly stupendous amount of over-qualification of the French student body.

That was one of the things which struck me about the whole experience. High unemployment levels, it seemed, but yet the workforce seemed massively overeducated.
For most purposes over here, a degree is more than sufficient. 3 years study in France, the 'license' level might as well have been A-levels. I knew one guy who was tutoring students privately who had a Phd and still couldn't get a job. This in a country with no split profession (i.e couldn't get a job as solicitor or barrister). And I say overeducated rather than overskilled- a lot of the students in my tutorials were certainly 'book smart' but were no good at problem questions, or thinking outside the box.

In many ways, I wonder whether entrance to the Bar is going the same way: i.e. ever higher standards needed to get in. Where a decent bachelor's used to suffice, the sharp competition now necessitates Masters, LLMs, previous career experience, and Phds, which now seem much more commonplace. The difference is, of course, that in Paris, it cost me 160 euros to sign up for the year, and would have been a similar price to stay on for further years. So it's no great loss financially to stay on at uni there to improve your prospects, whereas over here you're talking tens of thousands of pounds for the GDL, BVC, LLMs etc. 'Qualification inflation' here, given the costs and investment required surely threatens diversity in a way that simply doesn't apply in France, not to the same degree at least.

The other thing which sticks out in my mind is the abiding memory of paperwork. On actual paper, using old fashioned carbon copies, written in curly cursive. The weeks it took to actually enroll on the course, the signing and countersigning of documents, and finally triple signing in a different department in a different part of the city. Heaven forfend that you lose a document (I got a severe dressing down for this- organisation has never been a strong point, you may be getting that sense!).

And after signing up for the course, you had to sign up for the actual lectures/tutorials. I'm not sure how big the 'year' was- probably 1-2000, but there were about 600 in a subset following a particular branch of law, myself included. We were told that registration for tutorial sessions for this subset would be done within a 2 hour slot on a particular day in room A23.

We, and the other 600 students turn up to room A23 where we are promptly told that they will be taking a short break because they haven't had a lunchbreak yet and will be back in 5 minutes. 45 minutes later, they open the door. The single door. In the office are 2 people waiting to fill in, by hand, the timetable details for 600 students, a process probably taking 10-15 minutes per student. They had 1 hr 15 remaining in the 2 hour slot.

I was luckily at the front of the queue, by serendipity rather than design I might add, I have no idea what happened to the many who presumably were not seen.

Later on in the year, I was talking to a woman in administration and asking her how the levels of red take and bureaucracy didn't drive them mad. She looked at me askance and I assumed I had mispronounced something, or used the wrong tense. No, she explained , my question was grammatically correct, it's just that they didn't really see this as being 'bureaucracy', they would use that word to describe communist Russia or something...!

So, clearly, it's all relative!

Dining

2008-04-27T18:55:00.000+01:00

In my eagerness to be Super-Efficient-Bar-Student next year (I will do the BVC, work evenings, do FRU, learn a language, and write the constitution for a small country or two) I may have overlooked a few things.

Like the need to dine. That will be restricted by whatever evenings I'm working, doh. It's a shame, I think I'd have clocked up about 3 sessions already if I'd thought ahead. Although they were at Middle and prob over 3 years ago so may not count. Oh well, dining will be fun - the food will be good at least! And it will be very nice to go back to Cumberland Lodge if I get a spot there.

I may have to go shopping for new suits etc. I could take my parents to dine a few nights, that would be nice. I could even take Boy's parents (although Boy is being a pain in the unmentionables at the moment so maybe not).

I do hope I'm not surrounded by a bunch of keenos though. (my own keeness is irritating enough). Last time I went on one of those dinners, I was sat next to two very nice barristers (one a judge actually) but the student opposite had the biggest chip on his shoulder. He insisted that he was much better off for having gone to Manchester rather than Oxford (the alma mater of one of the barristers I do believe) and then continued on to name drop that he was related to David Pannick, QC. Which is fine, except that when the barrister tried to talk about Pannick's work he seemed spectacularly ignorant of it. I mentioned his Times articles in an attempt to further the conversation and was brushed aside.

It seemed to me (and I am in a spectacularly bad mood today, so my hindsight may be more black-than rose tinted) that he was a snobbish boor who had no social skills whatsoever. Being an 'oxbridge reject' is only a problem if you make it one. And going on about how Manchester was soo much better and he was soo glad he hadn't gone to Oxford just smacked of sour grapes and defensiveness. It's also never a good idea to put down the achievements of others- i.e talking about how 'rubbish' and 'narrow minded' an Oxford education makes you...when sat with an Oxon grad! I do wonder where the slightly simian fool, with all his gold rings ever ended up.

Murphys law suggests he'll be in my BVC group!

Bring it on in any case, I can't wait- I'm longing for some intellectual stimulation. All this temping is, to put it most delicately, doing my nut in!

Cutting it fine

2008-04-24T19:23:00.000+01:00

In retrospect it was probably a bad idea to book my flights before checking whether I needed a visa. I had assumed I wouldn't need one to do the Bar Exam in NY, I've gone over before on the visa waiver programme and as you can stay for 90 days I thought I'd be fine.

I actually ended up booking my flights for longer than I'd initially planned, because I realised a bit after signing up for the Bar course itself and planning flight dates that I would have to stay a bit longer to take an additional ethics exam (to actually be admitted to the Bar) and so this means staying 10 days longer than anticipated. But because I'd dismissed the visa issue as being an issue in my mind I totally forgot about it.

Until today when I suddenly realised that mid-May to mid-August may very well take me over the 90 day limit- possibly about 92 as a quick guesstimate. Cue panicked search for the US Embassy online, which tells me that a visa can be processed in 5 working days.

That's good, I thought, I'll have time to spare. Cue call to the US Embassy to book appointment to arrange said visa. Upon which I'm told they don't have any slots before the END OF MAY. Except I'm leaving on the 15th. And starting my course on the 22nd.

Got my tickets and calendar out again, and recounted the days to see how much I would have to change my flight by (assuming I would have to pay over the odds for a new outbound flight).

On recount- I'm off for 89 days. Hope glimmers in my eyes. Recount, and it's still 89 days. I'm not sure why I was so out the first time!

Phew!

I'd rather not be messing about with US immigration, thank you very much!

*kisses passport profusely*

Now, onto the next very important issue. I could do with a fancy passport cover...maybe Penhaligons do a nice leather one...

Clearly, I have my priorities in order! Oh well, maybe when I grow up I will be more organised. I will even keep my room tidy.

Exams and all

2008-04-22T20:38:00.000+01:00

Lots of blogs, or rather their lovely authors, are caught up in the joy that is exams, or assessments. (As an aside why do they totally change the lingo for the BVC? Exams become assessments, tutorials are small group sessions or SGSs, ditto lectures...does a rose by any other not involve exactly the same amount of preparation/boredom...?).

Reading these, particularly Swiss Tony and Android (and indeed the devotedly absent for revision, Legal Lass!), has had me thinking about my examination experiences. I say it's had me thinking, but breaking out in cold sweats and tossing and turning through the night would be more apt.

My experiences have, as I imagine is common, been a mixed bag. I am by nature, more of an 'exam' person than an 'essay' person for two reasons. I have issues streamlining all the craziness and confusion in my head onto paper when I have what seems like vast swathes of time ahead of me. In an exam there's only so much time for loopiness to spill out on the 'copie'. Secondly, I'm a bit of a lazy bugger so urgent cramming at the end of the year much more suits my style than working continuously all year.

However, until last year I've always found that I did better when I didn't really care for the subject much. If I found it interesting, I tended to ignore the basics and go for those flighty, pretty, interesting peripheral areas of interest. Case in point, my first year at uni I studied Constitutional and Administrative law. Now, I do heart the Public law. Grand themes, ideas, philosophy, history, and above all you can legitimately be totally cynical about government and power. I remember reading lots of things, that weren't at all on the reading list (I may have lost my reading lists quite early on anyway, organisation never a strong point niver) and trotted it all out joyfully in the exam. And as for my dissertation, I planned to wow my examiner with a thoughtful redaction of a new theory of constitutional law.

Only two problems with this. The stuff I wrote in the exam was obviously completely irrelevant and ignored what the question was actually after. As for the essay...well it seems dear old Kelsen might have gotten there first, and in significantly better style. Apparently a Virgina Woolf stylee stream of consciousness was not what the professors at my uni were looking for.

Fast forward to the third year, (skipping over the general disaster that was my second year where I managed to miss all the exams for medical reasons and had the joy of waiting all summer to sit them in September- not an experience to be recommended).
Now, I had a dissertation on human rights, and a module in International Law. I heart the human rights and the UN, and all things to do with how people should be nice to each other, and high flighty ideas about statehood. Ringing any bells?

I didn't pay much attention to the reading list, and followed my interests, getting quite into the subjects. I may have actually *gasps of shock and awe* enjoyed a few moments of my third year as a result. But don't tell anyone.

So fast forward again to the examination, and in an experience frighteningly similar to the first year, the exam was actually...ok. It verged on enjoyable. My ideas flowed, and I couldn't write fast enough. I had an argument in response to each question, and I thought I was able to use my wider reading to good use.

I leave the exam room, chatting with others (always a bad idea). 15 minutes later I realise several things. First, there are a lot of people in tears. There is talk of complaints to the examiners that subjects covered in the exam were not represented by the syllabus, or indeed any published materials. Which makes it difficult for a poor undergraduate. Secondly, people were talking about things in questions that I had TOTALLY missed, and I had seen completely different issues in the problem question. Thirdly, and most stomach-lurchingly, that was exactly what had happened in my first year exam.

So you can assume I was a little bit worried come results day. My first year enthusiasm and interest in Public law resulted in that being my lowest mark of my degree. Amazingly, and I still think to this day that it was a typo, I did rather well in the international law exam. In fact higher than I had ever done on an exam, or in any assessed essay.

So what do I take from this? A couple of things. First, that it's always a bad idea to do a postmortem of the exam with other people because it only makes you feel bad. Second, that you never know how an exam really went (ditto interviews) unless it's something like you left half way through. Finally, I think I actually might have learned something on my degree if I could write well enough to get my ideas across this time!

What I haven't learned however is how not to break down into a complete panic crazed, sniveling wreck the night before an exam. Or for the entire two months of revision period/exams. The Boy (I often meet in bars) will attest to the many phone calls at all times of day and night that ran along the lines of:

'I can't possibly do the exam I can't I will fail I don't know anything I haven't done any work it's so awful I wish I had worked harder why didn't I work harder Oh My God my whole future lies in the balance and I didn't do any work and now I only have myself to blame because I will go in and I won't know anything and I won't be able to answer anything and it'll be awful and I'll I won't get my degree and then I won't get a job and then I will have to work in a shop for ever and that will make me depressed and I'll get sacked because I hate working in retail and I won't be very good at it because it won't be interesting and then I'll get fat and I'll be unemployed and have no money or self respect because I'm too lazy and I'll have to live at home for ever and my parents will be so upset that I'm a failure and it's my fault I didn't work harder but now it's too late because I can't learn EU in 3 hours and my life is over because waaaaaaa'

That's the abridged version. Clarity of thought was not aided by the mountains of caffeine, lack of sleep, exercise, daylight, and failure to consume anything that wasn't made primarily out of chocolate, cheese, or biscuit. I'm surprised Boy is still around.

Oh dear. I hope everyone else has some better coping strategies!

The nature of the beast

2008-04-19T01:24:00.000+01:00

Have a good weekend!

Working 9-5, not a way to make a living.

2008-04-18T19:35:00.000+01:00

Wannabe barristers probably share a few common traits (at least in their own minds). Intelligence, eloquence, liking the sound of their own voice, and a distinct rejection of authority and being told what to do. At least I assume the last one is true, it certainly is for me. I can't wait to be my own boss again!

Have had a week of hell temping in a law firm which was quite nice, and in employment law (which I like) but a couple of real jobsworth types managed to make my week hell!!

Argh. Working for the man is no way to live. I reckon I could write a book on how to manage people, and how best to support and motivate your employees to get the best out of them. It basically involves not treating them like crap, and assuming incompetance, dishonestly, and showing utter lack of faith and trust in them.

I think it's a self fulfilling prophesy - treat people like you don't expect much from them, and you won't get much from them.

Anyway, all that doesn't matter because I will be in NY in less than a month!

And then I will be a girl walking into a (New York) Bar Exam! Can't wait....

So, I have to like...use my brain?!

2008-04-14T18:30:00.000+01:00

Little to do at work these days, so have been working on my first FRU opinion when bored.

I realised today: Law is Hard!

I hadn't realised how tricky being a lawyer actually is! It's not like a problem question, like we had at uni, you have to consider the power relationships, and whether you want to keep the employer on side, whether you have evidence to back up the claims and what ultimately your client (hypothetical still, mind) really wants and what's best for them. It's quite a game, balancing it all and trying to work out what the other side will do...

And before you can do any of that, you have to REALLY know what the law is. Can't fudge it as you did in the good 'ole exams (or more aptly, smudge it...which was a tactic used by a friend when he couldn't quite remember a case name so left a squiggle of ink, smudged with his finger in the hopeful the examiner would give him the benefit of the doubt).

And the law really is a complex matter.

Oh dear, it's a bit late for these sort of revelations!

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing...

2008-04-10T11:56:00.000+01:00

A friend from uni, lovely girl, had some landlord problems recently which has resulted in her and her boyfriend being threatened by the landlord and he now wants them out.

They sent an email round seeking advice, and I responded that if they wanted to stay there then they should try and maintain amicable relations, maybe write him a letter explaining the situation (because in person wasn't working). It seems they disregarded this and responded with a letter written as if they were solicitors involved in an aggressive litigation. Which only put his back up even more.

I got two solicitor friends to advise them, and pretty much their advice boiled down to: assess what you want, look at your contract, if you want to stay, keep it amicable and don't go in guns blazing.

They seem to have completely disregarded this advice- from 3 separate people, and it's just not helping the situation.

I guess when you are able to use a tool like legal knowledge, it can be tempting to overuse it at first. However, being litigious isn't in anyone's interests in this kind of problem.

The sad result will probably be that they will continue to be hassled by the Landlord, who is now himself seeking legal advice in response to their (basiaclly amounting to) threats of litigation (he had some threats of his own) and they'll end up needing to find a new flat whilst in the middle of exams.

I feel really bad for them, but I've done my best and they seem to have disregarded my advice, and the advice of 2 professionals who kindly gave up their time to look at the issue.

Signed up for a year of pain

2008-04-10T11:52:00.000+01:00

Handed over my deposit cheque at ICSL yesterday. The poor secretary might have needed to pry it out of my hands, but they have it now.

So I'm officially signed up for the BVC next year, woo!

Actually quite looking forward to it too.

Wonder what I'll do along side it...open to suggestions.

Gots to pay those (BVC) bills...

2008-04-09T22:51:00.000+01:00

So, part of my 5-year plan (that always makes me think of Stalinist Russia, is that just me?) is to do as much as I can before actually attempting to get a pupillage. Load up the old CV, and frankly try and learn more about the world. If I'm going to be locked into a profession for 30,40, 50 years then I want to doss about for a bit longer, thank you.

So on graduation, I didn't follow on the conveyor belt to LPC or BVC along with the other 95% of my year. Firstly, I wanted to get some experience. Second, I wanted to work out what area of law I actually wanted to practice in (seems so different in practice than when studying in your degree). Third, I wanted to get some better references having fallen out with my personal tutor (that's a post for a different day, probably one when I'm feeling bitter).

Also, I wanted to earn some money. Part of my plan for the year involved gallavanting around the world. No Thai beaches for me, but maybe some legal type work in Europe or the US?

So I temped for 5 months, earned enough to pay my overdrafts and credit card and to fund a stint on Death Row in the States. I keep referring to it as that, I of course mean that I was on internship, not that I was incarcerated unfairly. Or that I killed anyone, although have harbored such thoughts for previously mentioned tutor....Moving on!

The internship and few months in the US was AMAZING. It was so nice, and interesting, and really lit a fire under my bum. Figuratively speaking. I am so committed to doing good, social interest work. I always have been, but before you really see what it's all about, it's easy to plump for the security and shoe-buying power of corporate work.

I'm now back, and have to temp for another month to cover my costs for my next 3 month stint in the States (New York this time).

Going from really really interesting work to admin is really soul crushing. Going from working out a way to bring down the Death Penalty, and preparing cross-examination tools...to filing and typing. Total culture shock.

Still, it's a means to an end!

PS- I don't really have a 5 year plan. I'm kinda just stumbling along...

Law students, competitive? Surely not!

2008-04-09T22:42:00.000+01:00

My first post arose from my awful interview (thanks for the kind comments saying it probably wasn't that bad).

Before I was going in, I was thinking about why I was nervous. Was it because the Bar is an incredibly competitive profession, particularly at the lower end and especially getting into it?

Not really. I've never been too bothered about what anyone else is doing. That probably sounds quite arrogant, but why should I care- if everyone else gets a first in an essay and I barely pass, my only concern is what did I miss? I've never been one for the blood-thirsty fight....can't we all get along?!

In theory, competition should make us better. Like companies, it streamlines processes and makes them more efficient. For me, wanting to get into a profession where everyone has a double first, has scholarships and prizes coming out their ears, and has written the constitution for a small country whilst singlehandedly saving a class of orphans and sailing down the Amazon...(well it feels like that).

So, my philosophy is not to be intimidated by other people's CVs and achievements. Look up to them, yes, learn from them, yes. Let that make me feel bad because I didn't quite realise early on how I had to maximise every contact and opportunity? Life's too short.

Anyway, there's always room at the top!

Now there's fighting talk. I may just have recovered from that interview. Even if it involved talking about sexual offences and unprotected sex to 3 middle aged men for 15 minutes (bearing in mind this is an issue I studied 3 years ago).

And I may have forgotten the meaning of some words in the interview and used them anyway *cringe*.

Right, back to the fighting talk! Bar, here I come!

A girl walks into a Bar...

2008-04-07T21:00:00.000+01:00

...and hasn't the foggiest why.

"Why law, why the Bar?"

These were the first questions asked of me by 3 lovely-seemings barristers today, at a scholarship interview for a BVC award.

I respond with a rabbit-in-the-headlights look, and didn't really improve much beyond that throughout the remaining 25 minutes.

Did it go well, you ask? Well, I bought a lot of chocolate on the way home. A lot. Course, on the way home I also thought of all the bright, keen things I should have said to sell myself better. And then I decided to act on Law Minx's suggestion of starting a blog, if nothing else than for cathartic relief after that horrid experience.

So, this is me. Mel. Why do I want to go to the Bar? Lord only knows- apparently the easy life is not for me.