I have been most overwhelmed by the positive feedback and response to this new initiative of commercial awareness workshops for students. Surprisingly, other law students have not just remarked how they would like to be seen to have made efforts into learning about ‘commercial awareness’, but have expressed a genuine interest in the discipline of business management as complementary to their legal studies. Feedback has included a genuine gratitude for a forum to discuss these topics using latest, cutting-edge theories and practitioner guidance, in an informal setting, in a social way. It’s been particularly great for our society, in a real way of achieving student engagement nationally, putting students at the heart of the experience. There is currently an ongoing discussion of how best to encourage ‘commercial awareness’ in the legal curriculum, and indeed what commercial awareness might mean, through the ongoing Legal Education and Training Review.
‘Commercial awareness’ or ‘commercial insight’ is an incredibly important skill. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the Graduate Diploma of Law which addresses this commercial acumen, which remains a much sought-after skill in commercial and corporate law firms. Even in the Legal Practice Course, unless you do specific electives in commercial or corporate law, you can easily find yourself missing out on basic commercial competences. However, there’s no avoiding questions on commercial awareness in your training contract or vacation scheme application process. You might be asked to describe a news story of commercial interest on your application form, or in your actual interview. If you have to explain the issue face-to-face in an interview, you will almost certainly be interviewed by a Partner and/or Associate with an understanding of the context of corporate management to the commercial legal matter being discussed.
This unique series of four workshops, called “Commercial January”, will be held at BPP Law School, Holborn. They are being run by the Legal Awareness Society, an independent student society at BPP, but do not constitute official BPP learning material. They are intended as an informal introduction to essential business management competences, by students for other students, but at a Master’s level. The workshops, each an hour long, provide challenging contemporary material, and provide an excellent introduction to key knowledge, behaviours and skills. As such, they are therefore perfect as background for applications to commercial or corporate law firms. These workshops are provided free-of-charge by students for other students. We are indeed we have been given permission to have five external delegates, in our cohort of 29, from other higher educational institutions, including Nottingham, UCL, Essex and Westminster. All of these individuals are law students who have expressed substantial enthusiasm in learning about advanced contemporary business management.
The details of the four workshops are provided in this new booklet.
The response has been much greater than we expected. Local recruitment was through posters at BPP Law School, Holborn, aimed at Legal Practice students there, but all members of the BPP Legal Awareness Society and BPP Commercial Awareness Society. The BPP Legal Awareness Society is especially grateful for the support of Sonia Goodman, President of the BPP Commercial Awareness Society. Finally, the BPP Students Association kindly gave us permission to allow a small number of law students nationally to attend, provided they could provide evidence of their studies, and provided details were provided to security at Holborn. Understandably security at BPP Law School is important, as the site is in a prime location in Central London. Our student society is currently in negotiation about which room to hold our workshops in. I will confirm the precise location as soon as this has been confirmed, but please note that they will take place on thursday evenings between 6.15 pm – 7.15 pm (map here). There’s a possibility we may need the lecture theatre, if available, as we have so many delegates.
Whilst there are around twenty delegates, and we cannot accept any further requests for attendance in our season of workshops, we are pleased to distribute information from our workshops as widely as possible. Regular updates will be provided on the @legalaware twitter thread and the legal aware blog if and when appropriate. Furthermore, extensive reading material will be especially provided for all delegates in advance of the four workshops.
Thursday Jan 10 2013 Leadership
Thursday Jan 17 2013 Strategy
Thursday Jan 24 2013 Innovation
Thursday Jan 31 2013 Marketing
Please contact me if you have any inquiries, legalaware1213@gmail.com
merry xmas, shibley
