"According to our very strict criteria . . . "

If I see the phrase "according to our very strict criteria" again, I think, I will most likely throw my laptop against the wall.

It is of course pupillage season and after many rejections, some interviews, and some further rejections on top of that, I am becoming enraged with the lack of feedback or clear guidance offered by most chambers.

1. What is this strict criteria they speak of?
2. Why won't they publish it?
3. It is quite clear that some chambers do not take anything less than Oxbridge, so why not say so?

Chambers could save themselves a lot of time and money by making it very clear who they want, rather than just being extremely generic.

Pupillage Season - Criminal Pupillages

So the pupillage season is upon us (and I am aware I haven't updated this blog in a long time)

I am currently going through the frustrating process of filling in the form. It is irritating to say the least. How much do I say on one particular topic? Is it best to be concise i.e "I worked here for x months, I did X and X" or should we all say "Oh I had a jolly good time with my new BFF HHJ Temperamental?". Concise is the way forward I feel. Short sentences must be used. Explanations of areas of interest must be given. I must re-write the same answer for the pupillage questionnaire at the end 5 times.

I still can't find the appropriate section into which to put my mooting experience.. perhaps the responsibilities and awards section?

I also wonder why I am applying. I am due to be going off to a foreign country to work on death penalty cases for three months and therefore will probably miss all of the interviews anyway :(

In any event I have made a list of all London Chambers offering a pupillage that are either crime only sets, or have it as a specialism.

The list is as follows; I have made note of who the Chambers are, pupillage award and number of pupillages. They are all to begin in Sept 2012.

-

• - 6KBW (£20-£25K or it has been said elsewhere £31,000) NofP: 3
• - 2 Hare Court - (£20-25k) 2012 - 2
• - Matrix (£25-£30k) - 2
• - Argent Chambers (£10-15K) – 2
• - 5 Paper Buildings (£20-25k) – 2
• - QEB - (£20-25k) – 4
• - 3 Raymond Buildings - (£30k) – 3
• - 18 Red Lion Court - (£15-20k) – 4
• - 5 St Andrews Hill - (£10 - £15k) – 2
• - 2 Bedford Row – (£20-25K) – 4
• - 9 Bedford Row - (£10-£15k) - 0
• - 25 Beford Row - (£15-20k) 4
• - Tooks – (£15k – £20k) 2
• - 9 – 12 Bell Yard - (£25k-£30) – 3
• - Charter Chambers - (£20k-£25k) – 2
• - Carmelite Chambers – (£15k-£20k) - 3
• - 23 essex street – (£20-£25k) 2
• - 187 fleet street – (£10-15k) – 2
• - Garden Court - (£15- 20k) – 6
• - Doughty Street – (£25k – 30k) - 3
• - 15 new bridge street *£10k- 15k) – 2

Good luck everyone!

A Box Ticking Exercise

I despair dear bloggers, at the amount of "box ticking" we have to do in order to make ourselves look more attractive. When I was eating lunch with one barrister, he said that in his day, the people who marshaled with judges were creepy, and not that many people did it. The judge I was shadowing said that they had so many marshals that they had to set up new rules about when marshals could sit and eat lunch with the other judges.. I would like to say for the record that I am not creepy, ok perhaps slightly, you'd have to ask Bar or Bust.

I suppose we are all looking for that special "spark" that will make us look good, make our CVs glow with fluorescent barristerial glee, that makes chambers go "Yes! We need him!" rather than "why do all these CVs look the same?" or "how do I choose between all these desperate people?"

I personally don't think (and have had the benefit of receiving independent views of those in the know) that Cambridge will give me that "spark" when applying for criminal pupillage, and it is for that reason that I have decided not to go, because I would rather do something I enjoy. Then again the more I think about it the more I feel a small stress tumour growing inside my head, but decisions have to be made, and with big decisions, there are always big consequences if they go wrong. I hereby fully accept the consequences of not going off to a world class university... (the tumour may have just expanded by several metres)

But my reasoning may be even political and perhaps it shouldn't. At the Scholarship Dinner, everyone placed immediately around me was from Oxbridge, five people all having being to an elite institution(s) was slightly disturbing (I mean no disrespect of course). I would have liked to have seen more diversity, especially from those who wish to go to the Bar now as recent graduates.

In regards to other box ticking, how many mini-pupillages do you have to do to show that you are committed to the profession? Yes they are interesting, but sometimes I have felt that I am in a driving lesson, however my instructor won't let me drive and I just have to sit there and watch. I want to drive the car! (In reality I am absolutely shit at driving, had so many lessons, but hated my driving instructor, perhaps why the analogy is so relevant as it explains my frustration)

I'm not sure how many more boxes there are left to tick and I haven't as of yet applied for pupillage, but I feel that there is considerable strain upon many a law student to fulfil ALL these boxes and perhaps maybe many more, before ever being considered for pupillage. Of course it differs on each individual set, but the bar (excuse the pun) is high, and the dedication we have to show I'm sure is more than any other profession(apart from medicine).. and for what? Months (once you tot it all up) spending free time to further our careers? In the idealic search for a pupillage when you are competing against maybe 100-200 other applicants, with the same achievements? Do chambers even care?

There is of course no point in doing things just to have them on your CV, (but we all secretly know that some of us HAVE to do things we don't like in order to have them on our CV.) I am beginning to feel that my desire to become a barrister has become a big, no sorry MASSIVE box ticking exercise, and I don't feel it should be.

-End-

Dodging Fare Evasion - A Guide

Dodging Fare Evasion – A guide.

This post only relates to Fare Evasion on Buses that are operated by TFL.
It does not deal with Fare Evasion on the Tube, though I suppose you can use similar arguments, but you should be careful to make that distinction for yourselves.

Quite a few of you readers have been emailing me and asking me how I got out of being prosecuted by TFL for fare evasion. Some of you have been nice, and others have just taken my information and run, without a thank you (I hope you get done propa). Though I find it incredibly boring to give people the same advice all the time, and I’m pretty sure I keep missing stuff out, so here’s a guide if you help you getting out of being prosecuted via settling out of court.

Disclaimer: I accept no responsibility for any reliance that you make on this information, it should not be considered as independent legal advice, if you do intend to rely on this information by reading this you promise not to be a dumb ass, not to copy and paste points that I put across, you are free to distribute this information as you wish as long as I am credited.

Update 03 April 2009 - If you get a court summons just ring them up and ask to settle out of court. They will normally let you and you will have to pay around £102.


PLEASE READ THE POST IN FULL AND THE COMMENTS BEFORE EMAILING ME.

Update February 5th 2009 - there is another fanastic website that deals with this, I have yet to verify the information on it, but I consider that the information is still reliable. In addition to reading this guide you should also read the information on the link below.

I have just recently become aware as of February 6th 2009 of this wonderful website
http://busrights.blogspot.com/

1. You’ve been caught
So you have been caught, either it was a mistake or you were deliberating doing it, it really makes no difference. Make sure that you check whatever you sign at the time, this will be used in evidence against you, so make sure that you agree with what TFL inspector, or if you did not know then you may say that you were under duress to sign it.

If the ticket inspector has taken down your details it will be all put in a computer, and I gather that the decision to prosecute is made by the prosecution managers. If you have given a real name and address you are likely to receive a letter, saying that you were caught at X time and X date, and do you have anything to say about the matter.

You should immediately reply, with a grovelling letter of apology, it will also be important to make sure that any correspondence with TFL is printed off or photocopied, and kept in a safe place or folder, you will need this if you need to go to court.

2. The Court Summons
Think that they have forgotten about it, haven’t heard about them in a couple of months? TFL are extremely busy prosecuting people, probably with the amount of people that don’t pay on the buses. As fare evasion is a summary offence a court summons can arrive any time (so I’m told) within 6 months of when the offence was committed. Any longer and I assume you can have the case chucked out of you as the time limit for bring forth proceedings has elapsed, or you could be unlucky enough to have the court summons arrive 4 days before the elapsed period.

2(a) Read

Though you will probably be in shock and perhaps thinking that your legal career is over it is important to read all the documents that you have in front of you, check all the statements provided by inspectors, look to see if they are signed or not, an unsigned statement may not be valid, after all how do we know that someone else has not made this information up? Look also at the statements look for discrepancies, the TFL inspector may have surmised what you have said, or might not have written down what you said at all. Note this down for later.

Also have a look at the Revenue Enforcement and Prosecutions Policy and highlight any sections that you feel are applicable to your case.


2(b) Do I have to respond immediately?http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.bold.gif
My advice is no, do not respond immediately to the court summons as you will be trying to settle out of court. I did not fill out the back of the form or send anything off. If you have already put in your plea it doesn’t matter you can change it.

If you have received a court summons ring up the TFL number provided on the summons and ask for whoever is in charge of your case and ask for their email, this will speed up communication time, as you will not have to put valuable letters within the remit of Royal Mail.

3. Drafting a response to the court summons

(a) Tone and Format
Assuming now that you want to settle out of court, have read through all the information on the court summons, have highlighted any discrepancies in the evidence against you, and checked that the statements have been signed so you can assure for their validity you can now start with your draft letter/email in the hope that you can settle this out of court.

You will need to sound (a) apologetic, do not rant, keep it simple and precise, and (b) it needs to be written in a formal manner, even if its in an email I recon it should look like this found HERE (click link) . Do not use the same adjectives over again, have an expansive vocabulary but do not get flowery.

Here is where you need to develop your written advocacy!! Whilst also being formal, apologetic all that jazz, you need to be persuasive, be persuasive in a suggestive way for example “It could be open to suggest that…” etc.

(B) What to include.
Hopefully if you have read all the above points you will know what to include.
You may want to set it out like this (a) Apology (b) Revenue and Policy Guidelines that support you case (C) The Pace argument (explained later) (D) if the statements are signed or not.

(C) The Pace Argument

The pace argument relates to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. (You may wish to google this) now TFL inspectors are bound by this act and therefore must perform their duties in accordance with it. Depending on your circumstances you may not be even to use this argument, this must be considered very carefully, because if you use it and its not applicable to you then you will look like a dumbass. I suggest you do your own research on Pace.
Now what can you use PACE for. Basically PACE stipulates that any conversation or questions put to a suspect that are likely to produce an allged confession, must only be after you have been cautioned. A police caution in this circumstance being that which you may be familiar with on the bill "You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence." Also see this site HERE for more information.

So if you have been questioned and you have said anything that may be prejudical to your case you could suggest to TFL that it would be inadmissible in a court of law.
If it went to court, you can make an application under s.76 and s.78 of PACE 1984 to exclude such evidence being admitted.

4. The Waiting Game

So hopefully you will nervously await a reply from TFL as they decide your fate! This process can take up to a week. They will either (a) inform you that they are proceeding with the prosecution or (b) saying that they will drop it, if you pay prosecution costs and the fare evaded, an amount which could be between £100-£200. Once you have paid they will send you a confirmation that they have dropped the case and that you do not need to attend the court date.

5. What happens if they don’t drop the prosecution.

Now I never got this far, however I would try and keep communications open as possible with TFL, keep asking them to settle out of court.

If not you can ask to meet with the prosecutor and suggest that they charge you with a caution, if not then you could ask the magistrate to impose an absolute discharge (which is not a criminal conviction) given the prosecution’s hard stance. You could also show how eager you were to co-operate with TFL, and make sure that you have a copy of all the correspondence between yourself and TFL.

5(A) Should I get representation?

Not if you can settle it out of court, solicitors will charge £100 for an interview as fare evasion does not give rise to legal aid! There may however be people who will represent you bro pono.

Contact details are below.

Community Legal Services Direct
0845 345 4345


The Law Society on 020 7242 1222.

Bar Pro Bono Unit
0207 6119500.


6. How will this effect my future career in Law Etc

I have been told that this will probably not effect being called to the Bar. You MUST if asked declare any convictions declare them to your professional regulatory body, either to the Bar or Law Society. If you do not have a conviction then you do not need to mention it ;)

I think that they ask for any previous convictions, not withstanding whether or not they have been spent, so you must declare them. If you do not declare your conviction you risk the chance of being found out later and disbarred, or whatever the equivalent for a solicitor is.

There are two different views on whether or not this will effect your chances of pupillage/jobs, either (a) everyone has done it in London including Barrister’s themselves so it’s not very serious or (b) it’s an offence of dishonesty, “ I wouldn’t want to work with a thief” a mumbling twat would mutter, and with competition for these jobs being so high, its another reason to reject your application.

Now hopefully this has provided you with the answers that you want. If you still have questions you can contact me at lost London law student at googlemail dot com.

Good Luck!!