Tuesday 11 December 2007

Wigs

Interesting talk about Wigs in the comments section of Pupillage and How to Get it.
Reminds me of the Bar Society meeting I went to at my university slightly.
The people running it, couldn't help themselves but slag off solicitor advocates, and say how they are "stealing" criminal cases from baby barristers, and thus are making baby barristers lives harder!

Not sure what my opinion on this is, I did make a comment, however I don't know too much about SGs just that a lot of people don't like them. One friend commented to me "Oh so you can't make it to the bar and get a pupillage so do an advocacy course instead and voila!"

Oh and I have also just received my first ever comment how exciting! (I really was quite excited - makes me feel special!) Thanks Law Minx :)

Sunday 9 December 2007

Gossip and the End of Term

Gossip:
The semi-decent university that I attend on a fairly regular basis hosted an external moot with a recently benched Judge. It was due to start at 6pm however due to the mooting administrative team lacking the understanding that the hosting team has to prepare all the bundles, the moot didn't even happen. 50 minutes later, the bundle for the opposition came in and they wanted to highlight it and what not so the Judge could have her attention drawn to the specific paragraph etc. The tutor in charge of mooting, made a few short speeches apologising for the delay etc, and then went it came to about 7pm she graciously decided that the hosting university should concede due to the bundle problem.

Not really the hosting mooters fault they thought everything was being taken care of by the moot masters. They seemed somewhat furious. As they should be, I can't imagine the amount of preparation that goes into an external moot especially as it was an OUP national moot. Very disappointing really, and it also made our university look crap.

So after the moot that never happened there was a short reception, whilst I plucked up the courage to ask HHR for some marshalling work experience. So as I asked a lecturer what I should do and he said go for it, I strolled up to the judge who was speaking to a the tutor responsible for mooting and said "excuse me, my name is Lost London Law Student, and I am wondering whether or not you are able to offer marshaling work experience?"

I think I caught her honour off guard, as if I had trespassed onto her very soul, she didn't really know what to say. A series of unintelligible words came out of my mouth, such as "I hear you do criminal law?" Big mistake, never say to a judge "you do criminal law" because as she politely replied " I do not DO criminal law" What I meant to ask is that "I hear you judge criminal cases".
My tutor who I think was annoyed or perhaps was trying to help me out (could have been both) said I should let the judge settle into her new found profession and perhaps write to her with a copy of my CV after christmas. I said "thank you very much for your time"

Nerve wrecking really, I had to have two glasses of wine before I could even attempt to do it. At least I hoped to get some form of card (do judges have cards?) I wasn't impolite just very nervous, I decided to bite the bullet and ask, as I knew that I wouldn't get another chance to ask. Ah well at least I tried and I shall be writing to her honour in the new year.

The end of term:
Next Friday I finish law for christmas, back in January. If I am to reflect on how well I have done this year as opposed to last, I would have said that I have done pretty well, only missing a small number of classes (in comparison to last year) and at least have a half decent grasp of the topics we have been through. Though I am probably more annoyed that I will have to spend the whole of the christmas holidays making sure I know everything and this will probably entail rereading lots of texts books which isn't really what I want to do however will probably be essential to me getting a 2:1 . I have even asked for two new text books as xmas presents, that's quite sad really isn't it.

Pretty sure no one reads this blog still, but for all of you that do, have a nice seasonal time, and try not to get to pissed and bring up embarrassing stories over xmas diner.