Helpful Links

Here you will find some links that have been most helpful to me organised in various sections with a short description if you so care to visit. This is by no means a definitive list, but all the links that I currently have in my favourite. If you have any more to suggest that would be great, I personally hate trawling the net to find these things!

Also most of my stuff is veered towards criminal law, if anyone has any helpful suggestions for civil, negligence, chancery, admin etc all other links are welcome subject to scrutiny!

Barrister Links

Boost your work experience - lists activities you can do to boost your application for pupillage - also very handy if you are looking for things to do to put on your CV.

Barrister - Mini Pupillages - What they are and how to get them.

CV - No idea how or what to write on a CV for a mini pupillage or pupillage useful site gives an example.

Covering letter example - from same people as above giving you an example of a good covering letter.

Time Tabling - No idea of what you are supposed to be doing and you want to go to the bar? Heres a simple helpful guide from 1st year to applying to your BVC.

Voluntering

Admin for Bar Pro Bono Unit - Want to have a bit of admin work on your cv, maybe get to know a few barristers look at cases or something in the mean time? Try this. I tried it though they never got back to me!

Independent custody visiting association - the police hate you apparently much better to look into being an appropriate adult as you get to learn more about PACE, however this could also be an option if you are a fan of liberty and the upholding of values of criminal justice - we all start out as young liberals!

Pro Bono and volunteering - Probably the juiciest stuff here, however remember that most people will already be doing this stuff, so try out the less well known things that not everyone does to make you stand out!

National Centre for Domestic Violence - if you want some real experience in dealing with people who have suffered abuse who may one day be someone you are prosecuting for then check this out.

Witness volunteering - Want to help witnesses round courtrooms and also want to get to know the insides of courts pretty well?

Youth Offender Panel - with growing crime commmitted by younger and younger people you may want to check out your local youth offender panel, and get some experience in your local community

Ohh Bother

Yes bother, why am I looking at work experience opportunities, such as being a witness helper, an independent police station visitor, an admin/paralegal, or even doing some work for the FRU(oh boy would they be up shit creek if I had to defend someone).

I think serial procrastination should probably be a criminal offence, just like having Boris as Mayor should be (I voted for Ken). Not withstanding the fact that I do in general hate bendy buses but they are the only decent way of getting round London at silly o clock in the morning and he wishes to scrap them!

So I have been investigating work experience opportunities, however some seem too onerous for the current time, and may have to wait for my potential gap year after I finish my degree to gain some more experience/live a little. Unfortunately I do not have a CV with a flowing list of relevant work experience(Minx knows shes seen it) however I do generally feel better about myself(what is blogging for?) that some people I know have NO legal work experience let alone an ACTUAL CV. I can be known to be lazy and demotivated, however these people in their 2nd year not actually having any legal work experience or not even contemplating a CV really does give me a bit of confidence that there are probably a lot of knobs that want to go to the bar.

I'm fairly (overly) set on going into criminal law, yes i know poor pay, the criminals in jail will be living a better life than me, so I a hoping that my mini-pupillage with a criminal chambers will help me. However I do wish to explore other areas of law, and had I worked harder this year and not generally covered an entire course in a week, I would have realised that whilst Admin law and Trusts are generally quite boring, when you know everything about it its actually quite enjoyable! Perhaps I should have applied this to the bane of my existence last year (contract law) Which for various reasons of my tutor being the devil incarnate I didn't quite enjoy.

I'm wondering about the potential of other work experience, and I know that chambers also like the fact that if you have volunteered or traveled that this also looks good on your application.
Hence why the BIG plan for this summer is to go interralling round Europe for a month or so!