Archive for the ‘law students’ category

Can You Buy a Pupillage?

March 18th, 2010

I have quite an important career related interview in the not too distant future, where a group of very established barristers will ponder if I have the potential to succeed in their world.  Understandably, I’m a little nervous and have been haranguing people at every opportunity, not to mention scouring the Internet, to try to be as prepared as I can for my interrogation.  Hopefully, something working in my favour is the intention to make the Bar a little more diverse and remove the presumption that you ride into the profession on the back of a trust fund (excuse the lazy cliche).

So imagine my surprise when I discovered http://www.oxbridgetrainingcontracts.com/pupillage.php.

Clearly not a modest company, they are happy to announce:

Oxbridge Training Contracts™ is not just for training contract applicants. We also empower people who aspire to complete pupillage, a necessary stage before beginning life as a fully-fledged Barrister, and we have special expertise in providing fully customised Model OLPAS Form Essays and in Editing completed OLPAS Form Essays. We at Oxbridge Training Contracts™ know how hard it is to get a pupillage. Our services are organised so as to maximise your chances of successfully navigating the application process.

We contract a growing team of Barristers, Pupils, and Legal 500 ’Band 1 or 2’ Pupils-to-be to provide applicants pupillage-seekers with a wide range of services, from simple Cover-Letters and CVs or Model Application Essays on the OLPAS form, to a ‘Magic Service’ including Interview Preparation and specialist Consultations, enabling you to find and get into the optimum Chambers for you.

As a guide, they’ll complete your OLPAS form for you for a mere £650, interview prep for £150 p/h,  or a “magic service” for £4,500 (I wonder if that includes the brown envelope and delivery to the head of the interview panel?!*)  If I try really hard, I can almost see the justification for this part of the business.  However, offering the same services for Inn Scholarship applications seems pretty distasteful.  If I was seeking a training contract, I would also be disturbed by the idea of a HR lunch.

I have two problems.  Firstly, I don’t have £4,500, and I don’t think I could persuade Natwest to add it to my professional loan.  Secondly, having had my application form drafted by their “experienced Oxbridge-educated and Magic Circle ….lawyers, trainees and lawyers-to-be, as well as Barristers, Pupils” it will promptly become apparent when walking into the interview that I am none of these things and have essentially cheated my way in.

They contend that those with families in law or attending top universities essentially get the same services for free, and so they are simply levelling the playing field.

Either way, I think I was happier before I knew they existed.

(I apologise to any normal humans for my current fixation on inside-the-profession posts rather than more general topics… It’s just where my mind is for the moment, I promise to broaden my horizons next week.)

* This is a joke, I am not suggesting there is anything dishonest about this company but I can’t afford their services or a libel lawyer, so I’m sure they operate an incredibly professional and decent operation.  This service refers to a very lengthy process of support throughout the application process.

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Posted in law students, opinion

Daily Little Law Links

February 25th, 2010

There is a higher education theme to today’s post.

The Times reports on the case of a lecturer who claimed unfair dismissal from Bournemouth University, which found another marker to review student papers after they had been failed by this lecturer and his colleague. Considered narrowly, the judgement seems to be a good example of an implied trust and confidence term being found, and more broadly raises questions about standards in universities. Law graduates, perhaps more than most subjects, are partially reliant on the perceived teaching quality of their alma maters’ in securing employment, so the doubts raised by this case are unhelpful. At least in theory Qualifying Law Degrees are monitored by the Bar Standard’s Board.

Which neatly leads on to Charon QC’s blog post on the BSB’s inspection of BPP. As this is quite an obscure subject, Charon’s take (as one of the founders of BPP) makes interesting reading. I find myself firmly on the fence with my thoughts. On the one hand, the free-marketeer in me thinks they should be allowed to sell the course to as many as they feel able to teach effectively. The BVC (now BPTC) fees are very high among all the London providers and well beyond the cost of studying a Master’s degree. More places and more providers would increase competition and theoretically lower prices. On the other hand, the next step for these students is a pupillage and there are (I think) roughly five BVC graduates competing for each available pupillage every year. Those four unsuccessful candidates are left with a very expensive postgraduate qualification of limited value for employment away from the Bar. Finally, basic self-interest makes me quite nervous about the idea of them being ultra-careful about the number of offers made this year (though I might reconsider that if it was me forced to sit on the floor during lectures!).

Lastly, yesterday I ranted about the Prime Minister and said that the topic warranted a post to itself. Well, MTPT has done just that, including comment on the guidelines, which were released today. Do have a read…

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Posted in DLLL, law students

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Daily Little Law Links

November 24th, 2009

Students Edition

A short break from the news to bring you three items that have interested or alarmed me recently in student land.

  • Firstly, a mention of the LSE Law Careers Blog, which is excellent, up to date and has some interesting guest posts like this one from James Wakefield of Kaplan Law School.  I wish I was an LSE student!
  • Sadly however, I am closer to the part of the Higher Education sector that features in this article in which we learn that all of the London Met Board of Governors have been asked to “consider their position”. I may have misunderstood, but I think the intention is for that to be read as “we are so astounded by your incompetence and the betrayal of some of the most vulnerable students in higher education that we think you should be ashamed to show your faces in public ever again”. I could be mistaken.
  • Finally UCL, the first University in England founded on a secular basis and to admit men and women on equal terms, seems to be forgetting its legacy. It has invited a controversial Islamist preacher to speak on its campus. Having enjoyed many a beer (or other concoctions during the infamous “Fives”) at the UCL bars, I dare Mr Usamah to repeat his belief that:

” [a] woman, even if she gets a Phd, deficient. Her intellect is incomplete, deficient”

I learned about it from Sky’s Tim Marshall

UPDATE 25/11/09:  UCL have confirmed the event has now been cancelled.

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Posted in DLLL, law students