Le Dinner de Con

Last night was the Middle Temple Scholarship Dinner, apparently the first of its kind or so Master Treasurer thought. The evening started off in a pub just off Middle Temple Lane meeting Bar or Bust, for a quick drink, or so that was the plan, however I was quite hungover from the previous day of boozing due to it being results day.

We set off for Middle Temple for the reception in the Garden, met a fantastic Lady Bencher(the first ever lady bencher at Middle Temple), 83 still smoking, the most fantastic voice you have ever heard who knew Lord Denning (or Tom as she called him) and Lord Diplock.

We sat down for the meal, and after 5 minutes of talking I discovered that I was surrounded by commercial barristers, oh, this would certainly not assist in showing off my law of evidence knowledge. What I was most surprised about was that all the people sitting around me had gone to Cambridge, the benchers, the barristers, the students, it felt like a huge over exaggeration, however that may just have been what the Bar was like when they joined.

I overheard some students next to me talking about Criminal pupillage, and where they wanted to go, so naturally after having not a lot to say to the commercial barristers I attempted to join in. I'm not entirely sure if it was because I was trying very desperately to talk to people instead of just staring into my wine glass whilst the benchers were chatting up the pretty lady scholars, and hence not interested in the slightly jewish looking boy, but I didn't feel them as entirely approachable.

Once the barristers had left and the domas' were said (still don't know what Domas means) I had a quick chat to the criminal wannabes again, but decidely left to someone I knew who wouldn't annoy me very much and headed off to get Bar or Bust, who was only sitting next to the woman who interviewed me.

The evening ended after Bob and I picked up the most dispirited and very very drunk aspirant, who was just a bit slightly mad.

I thought the evening was good, the barristers seemed fun enough. Whilst I am not an extraordinary people person, I really do hate networking and sucking up to people I do not know, there seemed to be lots of other people doing it, or maybe they were just like me and a bit out of their comfort zone and wanted to make the most of it.

I has the precious!!

The Honourable (and probably slightly deluded) Society of Middle Temple, have given me a scholarship! Hazaar!!!!

I wasn't expecting one, in fact I repeatedly told my flat mate that I wasn't going to get one, and that my Lady GaGa poker face explanation of criminal practice to the learned panel had probably meant that I had "REJECT" stamped on me.

I thought my paper application was shite and I thought the interview was even worse, so I consider myself very fortunate to come out with something :)

I hope all the other Middle Templers(especially readers from Middle Temple Student Society on Facebook) got something too :)

Official! I am a terrorist & the Scholarship Interview

Yes I am a terrorist...

Yesterday at Mile End station I was stopped under the Terrorism Act 2000. As I was walking into the station to see if they had a photo booth so I could partake in some rather ugly photos of myself to give to the scholarship panel at Middle Temple the next day.

I admit I did look a bit suspicious, a 6ft man with glasses wearing a duffle coat with the hood up because it was raining outside.

The police officer approached me
"Excuse me Sir?"
"Yes" I replied.
"We are asking people to have a voluntary stop and search"
"Right ok.... do you not need a reasonable suspicion to stop and search me voluntarily?"
"No we are stopping you under the Terrorism Act"
"Ah, I see, and what section of the Terrorism Act?"
"Section 44.."
"and what does that say?"
"erm... well basically we can stop you...."


As I seemed to become a nuisance to the police officers (whom I believe were not actual police officers, for they had those funny yellow patches on their uniform.) I was pulled aside by another officer who explained that they wouldn't take my details only my description (one assumes so as not to appear to be targeting the young asian youths that populate Mile End)

After they checked my bag I was free to go, and I walked out of the tube station, which they might of thought of as weird, but I didn't even want to use the tube!

The Scholarship Interview
It went ok.. I arrived just in the nick of time, as I had to make an unexpected change at Bank because of the escalator works.. got there on time and found Middle Temple(which I had never visited before) went up to the main building and asked the very nice gentleman.
"Excuse me do you know where Porter's Lodge is?"
To which they replied "ermm hmmm....." looking directly at the sign that said "Porters Lodge".. I felt a bit stupid however I was glad I was in the right place and just in time too!

As I went to sit outside the interview room whilst the lovely clerk went to photograph my BVC offer letter I could hear the panel talking about how good the girl was who went before me! Nothing like extreme competition to make you more nervous.

I went in they introduced themselves, and lucky me there was a criminal practitioner in there!
They asked me general questions about my work at the LAC, why would I make a good barrister.. what area I was interested in, what the most important thing I had learnt on my mini-pupillage, any interesting legal stories, then about a DNA database.

If I were the panel I would have probably scored me half marks... I had a rather tricky situation of trying to use something creative that I learnt on my mini-pupillage the idea of a "poker face" That when the prosecution is cross examining defendant witnesses a defence barrister will make certain faces in shot of the jury to suggest that the questioning was harsh or uncalled for.

The panel instead said "so the opposite of a poker face?" and I humbly agreed with them.

I then talked about the G20 protest in which the man died, I was asked what charge I would bring against the officer, I said common assault, to which the male barrister said "not manslaughter then?" COMPLETELY forgetting that the man had actually died.

They asked which Law would i reform in the Criminal Justice System and I replied with RIPA. Which caught the attention of the criminal practitioner.

Perhaps a better moment was when I was asked how do I think junior practionners cope at the Bar..

I answered it from a Criminal perspective said with the usual miss match of saying it was very competitive, there aren't a lot of pupillage about(slightly irrelevant) and the impact of the Lord Carter reforms for those people doing legal aid and the fact that it will become a struggle until one is more established...


Though I was a bit weak on the DNA database question, what is a reason for not keeping the DNA evidence if I were completely exonerated of a crime... questions followed from that what is the difference between CCTV and DNA database to which I replied that CCTV doesn't work and DNA is quite specific, which repeatedly came out of my dry mouth as SPASIFIC.

There was no chance to mention my mooting! So after the panel had concluded I managed to slip in that I was a semi finalist in a national mooting competition. The male barrister replied with" oh good you can moot for Middle Temple next year!"

I'm not sure how it all went, the more I think about it the more I try to nit pick and decide that I was crap... I shall have to see when I get the results in a few weeks!

Until then more revision!

BVC Scholarship

Update: I have secured a reference from MrHRCB, who said that he will just make it up, lovely man giving me a reference after I missed his lecture then turned up 20 mins late to when I was supposed to meet him because I couldn't stop a printer from printing out 70 copies of my CV out of the 3200 it wanted to print. Wtf? Mental Note: make sure your alarm is plugged in and you didn't drunkingly pull it out to charge your phone. Also I'm lining up some marshalling, trying to get some outdoor clerking, applying to a few criminal solictor firms, volunteering at the met's criminal justice unit, doing LAC, and mooting (on contract -f'ing yuck) So will be considerably busier than I have ever been in the whole of my three years of doing absolutely f'all. :)

Crikey things have flown past me recently, I've been so busy doing nothing!!
So currently I am going to apply for a BVC Scholarship from middle temple.
A few problems may have arisen such as:

1. I've only just really discovered about this in the past week and the deadline is 7th November. (not really an issue if its all about form filling)
2. I have no idea of whom to ask for a reference, the guidelines for writing a reference are intellectual ability, motivation towards the bar, potential as an advocate, personal qualities.
3. Now the problem with (2) is that I have no tutors past or previous that can get me a sound reference due to the fact that none of them know me very well. I've had three different academic tutors in three years so I'm not particularly close to any of them, except perhaps my 2nd year tutor, however how does he know that I possess certain qualities to go to the bar? Also I'm not the sort of person who dither dathers, sucking up to tutors in order to get a good reference, I do the work, turn up to the seminars occasionally and do alright in the exam. But oh no, now I have discovered that I need to be a complete suck up!
   
4. However I am currently thinking that the references do not have to reach Middle Temple until the first few weeks of January, so if I am lucky, I can persuade Mr Highly Respected Criminal Barrister (now known as MrHRCB) to write me a beautiful reference, as I am going to write him an amazing essay over reading week, and perhaps ask to see him and see if he can give me any guidance to become a criminal barrister. There's that and also I did a mini-pupillage with someone that he did pupillage with, and she seemed to like me so it could all go well.
5. Is there a point of asking someone you did a mini-pupillage with to write you a reference? Mini-pupil masters are more likely to know about your ability aren't they then those who teach you, because to be honest, unless I was to get a reference from woman who organises the moots, (which I only did particularly well in, in the first year) then no one is going to know of my practical skills to make it to the bar.
6. I could ask my LAC manager, however as I am yet to have undertaken a case, there is no point!
7. What is the point of asking for references when I haven't done particularly anything of merit and no-one knows me on a personal level!! How frustrating!!!
8. Finally - I'm not sure if I actually have to try and enrol on the BVC before I get a scholarship or is it just enough that I intend to do the BVC?
   

Apart from that I am going to try and get into outdoor clerking, it seems pretty flexible and I have every Friday off, and can pick to do either a morning/afternoon shift, though how I can juggle doing my 3rd year, mooting and the LAC with an outdoor clerking job seems slightly impractical.
Links for outdoor clerking are
The Court Clerks
Gio Legal Services

Though Bar or Bust has mentioned that solicitors firms are cutting down on outdoor clerking, what with the credit crunch and all! Balls!