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New timetable for BPP Legal Awareness Society May – August 2012
These details are currently being finalised by BPP Law School, Holborn. Please confirm date and time on this page before you attend any of our meetings. They last no more than an hour, and are freely available to any past, current or future student of BPP (at any of the sites, and any of the disciplines).
To join the BPP Legal Awareness Society, please sign up using the link on the foot of this page. This is the only way to become on our list.
All meetings are held in BPP Law School, 68 Red Lion St., London.
We discuss, with reference to contemporaneous events, the importance and relevance of corporate strategy to the decisions made by companies, and explain how it is necessary to comply with law to create competitive advantage.
As such, this independent BPP club/society is ideal for law students doing their GDL, LPC or LLM, wishing to be considered by a City firm for a training contract, where teamwork and commercial awareness are key competences.
Thursday 28 June 2012 Room 2.6 6.15 pm Employment; verbal reasoning
Thursday 12 July 2012 Room 2.6 6.15 pm Commercial disputes
Thursday 26 July 2012 Room 2.6 6.15 pm Equity finance
Thursday 9 August 2012 Room 2.6 6.15 pm Debt finance; verbal reasoning
To join our Society, please go here ; but note that the timetable on that page is incorrect currently (the one above is correct).
LegalAware Review of the Year 2011 – Part 3 (Oct – Dec), disability and inclusivity
In the final three months of this year, I wrote more about psychometric testing (for example in the proposed BCAT and psychometric tests for training contract applications), human rights (for example the future of the Human Rights Act as discussed in a meeting of ALBA at the Inner Temple), and book reviews (for example on affect and legal education and happiness).
However, in these three months, I did become very interested in disability issues, accessibility and inclusivity.
October
The BPP Legal Awareness Society published its timetable for meetings to be held at the BPP Business School, St Mary Axe. We held all these meetings successfully in October – December 2011, including flotations, debt finance, international arbitration and joint ventures.
In October, I started blogging, in addition, for ‘Legal Cheek‘, an alternative blog look at the legal education and legal life in general. I wrote an article outlining my feeling that disability is the legal profession’s white elephant.
In this article, I argued that embracing disability was a good way of improving the quality of law schools.
All law schools deserve to be scrutinised very carefully in their response to the government white paper entitled, ‘Students at the heart of the system’, over the issue of whether disabled students are seriously disenfranchised. The formidable white paper, which was published in June, sets out proposals for a higher education sector which is sustainably funded, delivers a “better student experience”, and contributes fully to the efforts to increase social mobility. The ability of a disabled student to get a job is a massively significant factor in that individual’s social mobility; virtually all individuals do not aspire to sustain themselves through the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) itself. An adverse effect of the legal aid cuts may be to put off disabled applicants from applying for the DLA. Good law schools will wish to embrace theNational Student Survey, and participate in it to the full.
November
In November, I argued in an article for ‘Legal Cheek’ that the term ‘diversity’ is an unhelpful one, not least because it means different things to different people. My conclusion was follows:
I believe that an useful first-step in advancing the diversity debate would be to phase out the word ‘diversity’ from the terminology, because, far from encouraging individual differences, clumping people together – inappropriately – inadvertently abolishes key individual differences.
Continuing the theme of disability, I developed the argument that law schools could take practical steps to make the wellbeing of disabled students much better:
The agenda for disabled law students under the government’s new framework is very much set by the law students. One way of getting involved is through the National Union of Students’ recently-launched petition calling for the establishment of a national advocacy service for disabled students (disabilities usually include long-term illnesses, mental-health conditions and specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia). In fact, if you’d like to set up your own disabled students’ group, you can email them for advice:disabled@nus.org.uk.
Still, I also feel it is up to the individual learning provider to be pro-active in responding to what disabled law students aspire to. At the bare minimum, they can simply comply with the white paper. But learning providers which wish to add social value may wish to do more to understand what disabled students aspire to and are legally entitled to. Certainly, it would reflect well on them to do so.
Meanwhie, back on the LegalAware blog, I was becoming acutely aware that the overlap between law and politics was becoming much closer. The legal aid cuts agenda remained at the front of my mind:
‘Sound off for justice’ and ‘Justice for all’ maintain that their campaigns are not political. However, senior people I talk to in law centres in London come to a conclusion that it is not possible to divorce politics from legal aid funding. Poverty unfortunately is political, as the Shadow Attorney-General, Emily Thornberry MP, suggested yesterday on BBC’s ‘Any Questions’. It happens that access-to-justice could disproportionately affect people on the basis of their income, in that cases of access-to-justice could become much harder to obtain for poorer people for certain problems. With many law centres set to shut down altogether, the legal services for immigration, housing and asylum, and welfare benefits, look set to be affected. The question is whether the poor will suffer disproportionately. Rich people will possibly be able to afford superinjunctions as before, as the evidence that the top 1% of the population have been affected substantially by the recession is lacking. This top 1% includes some (at least) well-paid lawyers in London.
However, colleagues of mine found it hard to discuss the political issues in an open way, but the funding of legal aid had unfortunately become a political isssue.
Whatever – I personally think all legal practitioners should be given support, acknowledging that funds are limited. but funding bodies will have to prioritise unfortunately. In fact, a focus on funding may have the beneficial effect of providing better precision to all stakeholders in their strategy and core competences of their legal services, whatever sector they are in. However, fundamentally, I most agree with the observation that, at this late stage, arguing over a sense of entitlement is totally unhelpful. It is desperately important that we fight until the end for our common purpose in protecting legal aid. I would find it very hard to support law centres if they wished to campaign at the expense of CABx or other stakeholders, but they should think about how they differ from other stakeholders when applying for London Borough grants for community investment or structural upkeep, I feel.
December
By December, I had come to the conclusion that a more radical solution had to be developed to improve access to the legal profession
It’s my fundamental belief that people are written off far too early in England and Wales at present. We have an education system that seems to punish certain bright people who fail to get perfect grades at GCSE and A-level. It doesn’t help that students are forced to make very specialised educational choices for their 16-18 studies at an age where they may not be totally convinced about their career choices.
I feel that the education and assessment environment needs an overhaul to prevent recruiters from using arbitrary academic achievement to ‘sift’ candidates out of sheer laziness. Talented people are being deprived access to jobs in the legal profession. Instead, we should be encouraging people to learn how to learn for themselves, and know where to find relevant information.
To this end, I feel law firms should be able to hire people straight out of school, if they wish, but also to take advantage to a greater extent of the enormous breadth of experience from other spheres of life mature candidates might offer. Unfortunately, we’re not in a place where that sort of flexibility can happen.
What will the future hold? 2012 begins soon.
What is 'commercial awareness'? A student's perspective
What is ‘commercial awareness‘? Nearly all law firms call this ‘commercial awareness’ in recruitment (it’s on their website); Freshfields call it ‘commercial insight’ with a semantic difference that is important to them.
My understanding of commercial awareness has evolved somewhat with time. A very nice follower on my new thread @tc_applications wondered if one could put my BPP Legal Awareness Society as a legal tweep to follow. I was of course honoured, but the answer is clearly ‘no’ as I doubt any legal recruiters have heard of our student society at BPP, the BPP Legal Awareness Society, although we’ve had a year’s worth of successful activities promoting the importance of regulation to corporate strategy. Besides, there are far more authoritative threads to follow, such as @GdnLaw or @EU_Commission. That’s from the perspective of a legal recruiter, mind you. I cover a lot of social justice, corporate and legal issues on my @legalaware thread.
So what about that dreaded question? Can you bottle ‘commercial awareness’, similar to ‘Eau de Commercial Awarenesss’. In a sense, yes, you can give somebody the tools to be commercial aware, but, given that I am physically disabled, I will never in my lifetime be able to beat Yusain Bolt in the 100m. Like other aspects of business life, you can run courses and workshops in subjects such as marketing, corporate finance, leadership, and even corporate awareness itself.
My framework for understanding ‘commercial awarneness’ has changed over time. To begin with, it was very much ‘being seen’ to attend events, to demonstrate commercial awareness. However, it’s clearly more than that. I don’t even think it’s to do with the huge amount of international commercial law I learnt in my LLM at the College of Law, or business management I learnt in my MBA this year. We covered all ‘the usual suspects’ ranging from leadership to international capital markets and loans.
Asking a future corporate trainee about commercial awareness in a sense is like asking a future junior doctor, who’ll be doing 5 billion phlebotomy sessions in their time, whether they like the actual subject of medicine before subjecting them to an on-call covering the Bank Holiday weekend. Or maybe it’s similar to asking a future cardiology registrar to write 200 words on their awareness of the physiology of the heart and cardiovascular system.
For me, I have learnt most about corporate law life, without any of the mundane aspects of doing the job for real, by keeping my ears close to the news. I understand the vocabulary of law and business from my degrees, but it’s very different to doing the job.
For example, I set up a website this year, ‘Legal Recruit‘, to help individuals tackle their online training contract assessments. This has been very successful, as I’ve had to consider carefully issues about pricing, quality, marketing, e-commerce, budgeting, and operations management. I have had to understand also intellectual property in delivering this, in particular being meticulous about the fact that I should not infringe intellectual property, and also I have considered carefully the branding issues, in making it extremely clear that it is an independent venture from students in my student society, and nothing to do with BPP. It has therefore be a minefield, but this is real life. I have gone through the motions of incorporating my own private limited company with Companies House, and therefore the Business Legal Practice course will mean something to me when I start it at BPP next week (as part of the Legal Practice Course).
So can you learn it from a book? Probably not. It’s for legal recruiters to mark it using whatever ‘matrix’ they wish. I feel it is about living a life that understands ‘competitive advantage’ for corporates. I believe that understanding, anticipating and implementing law and regulation all contribute to giving a corporate competitive advantage. Take for example the fact that BPP has a Business School, but the College of Law doesn’t (and to build one overnight would be impossible). This has implications for how they can organise commercial awareness curriculums (sic) in their law courses. I am currently doing the LPC, and I’ve been struck how little commercial awareness my student colleagues appear to have, simply in terms of knowing what’s going on in the business world around them.
A view from North of the Border: Law Firms, Law Students and Twitter by @LegalEagleMHM
A view from North of the Border: Law Firms, Law Students and Twitter by @LegalEagleMHM.
In this vlog, Michelle explains what Twitter is, the potential benefits of law firms embracing Twitter (especially with regards to Scottish law firms), personal benefits for using Twitter in the context of road traffic law, and, finally, the uses of Twitter by individuals and corporate firms.
Michelle feels that Twitter is not the ‘be-all-and-end-all’ and is merely one marketing tool, raising the profile of law firms, students and law firm employees. Michelle feels that Twitter gives law students an opportunity to establish interest and knowledge about a subject, and also that Twitter can even generate networks of lawyers who know where to go for specialist advice. Michelle has used Twitter to download legal sources, to do legal research, to enroll students for special projects, to build a personal profile, and to establish rapport with fellows. Michelle however advises that it’s very important to conduct yourself professionally at all times, as what you write can reflect on you personally, and your firm; not to be of an opinion of being critical, but to be collaborative by re-tweeting if appropriate. Michelle feels that it can be used as an academic resource, solely for information gathering, or leverage for blogging (practitioner, academic or otherwise).
Michelle provides that a single tweet can make a massive impact – this is a point that appeared to be made previously by David Allen Green in his evidence in the Commons Select Committee.
David Allen Green: Strictly, the number of followers is irrelevant. If you have a single tweet that is of any interest, it will go round the world very quickly, regardless of how many followers the particular tweeter has.
Winter Wonderland featuring legal tweeps
As Christmas gets closer, LegalAware intensifies its wacky Christmas card campaign. Here are the usual suspects, @alexaldridgeUK, @legalacademia, @paulbernaluk, @colmmu and @legalbizzle in a ‘happy feet’ showcase.
Legal aid debate in the House of Lords
The BBC Democracy Live website will carry the Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill debate in the House of Lords. It is expected that the Coalition government will win this comfortably. This article was first published on this LegalAware blog on September 27 2011.
This morning, @paulwaugh chaired a #fringe meeting at #Lab11, as part of a series of non-partisan panel discussions to promote awareness of the new Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill. He started off the morning’ proceedings by introduing a @soundoffjustice video about the personal impact of #legalaid cuts to begin, #lab11 #fringe. The panel this morning consisted of Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, Vice President of the Law Society, Steve Hynes from the Legal Action Group (Justice For All Coalition; please listen to @charonqc’c podcast), and Andy Slaughter MP (Labour MP for Hammersmith and Fulham). The event was hosted by DODS, and chaired by Paul Waugh (Editor of PoliticsHome.com).
The video presented the wider impact on children and families, explaining that these cuts were hitting the most vulnerable people in society, at their most vulnerable time. The presentation, consisting of personal stories, emphasized that the legal aids are not a ‘cost saving’ at all, and may end up costing money in the long run.
Steve Hynes explained that the campaign is highly dependent on parliamentaries. The video demonstrates the decimation of civil law, leading to 50% of the service disappearing. This gives the impression that the legal aids are in fact ideologically-driven. Steve explained the need for the campaign to pick its ground. Jackson never wished to preside over the reforms with the cuts occurring. The report from LJ Jackson indeed is very comprehensive as reported by @TheLawyerKaty. Medical negligence is one such area. Steve Hynes thinks that amendments are possible in social welfare for law, involving the higher tribunals, in the House of Lords. The Tories took the view that the higher tribunals were considering conflicts of facts, but Steve argued passionately that this is clearly not the case. Steve feel that it must come into scope. Jim Sandbach succeeded in a Liberal Democrat amendment, getting social welfare back into scope.
Their Lordships apparently understand the need for disabled people to have rights. There must be independence in legal aid entitlement, and reforms of the LSC could mean that ministers make judicial reviews of their own departments, which is a nonsense. There should be no bias in decision-making, which will affect the credibility of both ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ decisions. The Coalition considers that it must consider ‘exceptional cases’, but the reality is that 50% of the family living aid firms will be getting out of the legal aid system – it is therefore fine to talk about ‘exceptional cases’, but it is essential to consider what sort of network there is to support legal aid. Labour when it came into power had a vision of the ‘community legal aid service’, which Steve considers to be a good vision, which the ‘Justice for all’ coalition would like to be part of – Steve will fight for concessions, and needs to campaign for the future. This is about maintaining the ‘rule of law’ and can only be achieved through a civil system.
Lucy Scott-Moncrieff considered that ‘there is a hearty need for a good practical response’, but there should be a consideration of the social justice ideals underlying the debate. The proposed cuts undermine the rule of law; no-one is above the law, and the flip side is that nobody is outside the law. The European Court of Human Rights suggest that rights are ‘practical and effective, not theoretical and illusory’. Litigating should be a last resort, as it is complicated and uncertain. Going to lawyers is a good step because they can litigate, and the opposite side take the case more seriously. Non-lawyers do talk about their frustration. Children and adults under the age of 24 (@SoundoffJustice) need help. Lucy remarked that it is a good idea to get this publication off the Law Society website (the Law Society has a very active section of its website devoted to legal aid funding). Lucy cited an example of ‘even a 17-year old would be unable to get support’, ‘a person whose identity was stolen and experienced debt problems’, and ‘a student who was unable to access special educational needs’. Lucy also considered welfare benefits through the example of a person who had been given disability living allowance and needed the welfare benefits to prevent eviction – he did not have the legal and medical knowledge to represent himself optimally.
Furthermore, the criminal justice system also currently relies upon lawyers who can obtain the proper evidence. The Coalition has a responsibility to ‘will the means’, in addition to the rights. The Jackson Reforms must be borne in mind. Legal aid is only a benefit to a very small sample of society. There are lots of people who rely on ‘conditional fee agreements’ – the loser pays the winner costs, and now the winner has pay for his or her own costs. The purpose of damages is to put the person back to the pre-contractual position, but the person is still going to have to pay fees. The “telephone gateway system” does not appear to make intuitive sense, because a person may have difficulty in using a telephone (e.g. a person in ‘community care cases’ in care homes). Where are people going to go if the CAB sytem? They’re going to go to MP surgeries, or councilors. Sound off for justice are continuing to fight.
Lord Willy Bach explained that Labour never threatened the criminal law system as a Labour minister. As a criminal lawyer, Willy feels – in what he has now formulated as ‘the justice gap‘ – that the abolition of criminal law, getting early advice, is ridiculous – as legal aid is meant to address early intervention, upholding defendants’ rights. A lawyer should be able to say whether cases are nonsense, or whether they should progress. It’s practical and moral nonsense. What is the point of ‘rule of law’? The Bill is going to come to the Lords, but the Lords will do their best to mitigate against the effects of poor legislation. Lord Bach urged the need to support the @Soundoffjustice campaign, especially through the use of cros-bench peers or LibDem peers.
Andy Slaughter MP had just done a fringe meeting for the ‘Young Fabians’. The Bill does not have a prescriptive agenda, and is a sense an extension of what has gone before. It might have a rouse to cut the prison population. The Jackson Reforms will cost the public money. The AA have voted against the Jackson reforms, and this is interesting as motorists constitute a large group of consumers. Restricting access to justice, and tipping the system away from private defendants appear to be unfortunate consequences of the Bill when enacted, according to Andy, therefore all the campaigns promoting awareness of the legal aid cuts are worth supporting.
Situational judgement test practice for training contracts and vacation placement applications
These are the questions to test competences described in the LegalRecruit blog. This test is similar to other situational judgment tests, often used by recruiters to see whether you are suitable for the culture of their organisation. For each test, you will be presented with 12 scenarios. For each scenario, three options are given. Choose one of the options, corresponding to what you feel is the best course of action to take given your available choices. Try to answer the question honestly, not what you feel the recruiter might be looking for necessarily. No specific knowledge or training as a corporate lawyer is required to be able to answer the questions but you will need to consider the safety of themselves and others and use the information provided to decide how best to respond. General common sense would be of great value for this test. You will get no immediate response, however there will be within a few days a complete breakdown of the results of the 72 questions, and the answers you were supposed to give.
There are a huge number of questions, and preliminary results show that the results you have decided are pretty clear-cut. This is what the people who set these questions call ‘validation by an expert group’. Please do let me know if there are any particular questions which have caused undue confusion using the comments facility below. They will be remedied as required.
The six tests are:
Leadership and attention-to-detail
Communication and negotiation skills
Good recruitment works well, for both the candidate and the firm, but a lot can go wrong in the process. Ideally, recruitment should be exploring which candidate has the most potential to fit into the organizational structure and culture of that firm, but too often it ends up being a case of ‘damage limitation’. The utilisation of this approach is most dangerous for firms which aim to encourage innovation or entrepreneurship, as many firms in the City claim to be. If truth be told, they are often looking for reliable ‘fee earners’ instead. It is perfectly possible for you to ‘train’ to become good at these tests.
Competences
Law firms tend to have a very clear idea what they’re looking for. These are called “competences“. ‘Situational judgement tests’ look at competencies.
Outstanding problem-solving skills
Do you have the mental agility and intellectual rigour to analyse problems and apply this analysis to develop novel, unexpected solutions?
The problems you face can be large or small, simple or complex, and easy or difficult to solve. Regardless of the nature of the problems, a fundamental part of every trainee lawyer’s role is finding ways to solve them. So, being a confident problem solver will really important to your success a trainee lawyer.
Much of that confidence comes from having a good process to use when approaching a problem. There are various methodologies which you could use to improve your ‘problem solving’ ability: the ‘Mindtools’ website http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_00.htm. With a consistent method, you can solve problems quickly and effectively. Without one, your solutions may be ineffective, or you’ll get stuck and do nothing, with sometimes painful consequences.
There are four basic steps in problem solving:
1. Defining the problem.
2. Generating alternatives.
3. Evaluating and selecting alternatives.
4. Implementing solutions.
Steps 2 to 4 of this process are covered in depth in other areas of Mind Tools. For these, see our sections on Creativity for step 2 (generating alternatives); Decision Making for step 3 (evaluating and selecting alternatives); and Project Management for step 4 (implementing solutions).
Proactive mindset
Are you naturally inquisitive with an openness to new ideas and the initiative to turn them into practical results? Initiative is often misunderstood because it is simply not about meeting performance goals or targets; it’s often about going the extra mile. Initiative may be about identifying a need and championing a solution for the benefit of the law firm, without being asked to do so. Initiative involves a sense of responsibility for the company’s well-being and a few guiding principles. Initiative is about taking steps to make the law firm better, and not about wasting time tackling unimportant matters. To make the distinction, try determining the impact a certain action would make on your team’s performance, the company’s bottom-line or the company’s long-term vision.
Being proactive means thinking and acting ahead – basically, this means using foresight. It’s a great method for avoiding more work down the road but also can be extremely important for averting disasters, planning well for the future and for instituting systems at work, in study, and at home that make life easier for not just you, but others as well.
Consider whether your working style is more “active” or “passive”,
http://www.eatyourcareer.com/2010/08/how-be-proactive-at-work-step-system/
An excellent, friendly, article on showing initiative is here, http://uk.askmen.com/money/professional_100/137_professional_life.html.
This article also gives a very interesting perspective on questions you might ask yourself to develop a “proactive mindset”, http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Proactive
The difference between “reactive” and “proactive” language is indeed an interesting one: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2004/11/be-proactive/.
Commitment to excellence
Do you hold yourself to the highest standards of performance even when the going is tough? And are you passionate about continuously raising and refining your own performance levels? Do you persevere when pursuing a project, but remain flexible if there are obstacles in your way?
A ‘commitment to excellence’ is broadly defined to mean that an employee ‘adopts a conscientious and proactive approach to work to achieve and maintain excellent standards’. Every member a corporate law firm must strive to achieve and maintain the highest professional and personal standards, thereby enhancing both the competence and cohesion of that law firm.
It is interesting to have a look at various law firms you know to see how they present their commitment to excellence. There are in fact various ways in which law firms can commit to excellence, and you should search for the term ‘shared values’ on the corporate website. It’s interesting in fact how law firms can vary markedly even in their taglines: http://www.lawmarketing.com/pages/articles.asp?Action=Article&ArticleCategoryID=6&ArticleID=173.
Many law firms believe that community and social responsibility (corporate social responsibility) involves an understanding of the impact our business has on the environment, the welfare of individuals, the community and the sustainability of the world’s resources. This means that running a business goes beyond making profits and acquiring wealth, and law firms increasingly acknowledge our obligation to consider the wider interests of our clients, employees and the community in which we function. In economic terms, responsible approach in these areas can lead to greater efficiencies, lower costs and an improved reputation as a responsible service provider and employer.
The SRA Handbook sets out the standards and requirements we expect our regulated community to achieve and observe, for the benefit of the clients they serve and in the public interest.
The Legal Services Board (LSB) approved the Handbook on 17 June 2011. The key implementation date was 6 October 2011.
The SRA’s approach to regulation is outcomes-focused and risk-based, so that clients receive services in a way that best suits their needs. More about outcomes-focused regulation
Read Outcomes-focused regulation at a glance online
Table comparing old and new approaches
It is really important that you make every effort to stay in good physical or mental health for our own health and well-being and also as a personal responsibility towards people you work for/with. It is our responsibility to develop our own and others’ professional understanding of how air corporate law is most effectively applied and how it can remain relevant and capable in contemporary environments.
Strong communication skills
Can you communicate fluently, clearly and concisely? Persuade and negotiate with others in both group and individual situations? Make complex information understandable to clients? What will you do if you find there are problems with communication?
A really helpful website is at http://law.gsu.edu/Communication/ Entitled “Effective Lawyer Client Communication: ?An International Project to Move from Research to Reform”, the authors describe that the goal of their project is improve lawyer-client communication by combining what has been learned so far within legal education with empirical social science research. We have selected the initial client interview as the focus for the pilot project. The initial interview is, of course, the one unit of service that is constant across all forms of legal service delivery. It is also one of the most critical units of service. The initial interview: (1) shapes client perception of the lawyer; (2) defines the service to be provided in terms of both problem and goal; and (3) is an important opportunity for client education, e.g. confidentiality, substantive legal rights, what the client can do for himself or herself, and the need to preserve evidence.
Professor Clark Cunningham is the Director of an international collaborative project, based at Georgia State University, on lawyer-client communication: Effective Lawyer Client Communication (ELCC): An International Project to Move from Research to Reform, http://tinyurl.com/64csb2g.
The goal of this project is improving lawyer-client communication by combining what has been learned so far within legal education with empirical social science research. The project has the potential to change the way client communication is taught around the world.
Prof Cunningham refers to William Felstiner, former Director of the American Bar Association:
“He gathers from these sources the conclusion that lawyers frequently fail to treat clients with respect, do not consider the nature of interpersonal relations with clients to be an important aspect of law practice, are motivated more by financial returns than by professional values, are inaccessible and unresponsive, are poor communicators, do not know how to deal with clients effectively, are indifferent to clients’ feelings, and are indifferent to the pace of clients’ legal affairs.”
Irene Leonard has produced ‘7 steps’ for effective communication:
http://www.coachingforchange.com/communication-skills-for-lawyers.html
She comments that:
“The practice of law is highly dependent on good communication skills, especially persuasive verbal skills. Mastering these seven keys will allow you to connect with your clients in a more meaningful way and solve problems more effectively. You will have more successful presentations and depositions. Even interactions with your staff will be improved.”
Teamwork
Do you have the confidence to collaborate, seek feedback, share ideas and build credibility through your interaction other people?
A good overview of the relevance of teamwork to legal reruitment, and beyond, is for legal recruitment purposes Is given on the page: http://www.wikijob.co.uk/wiki/teamwork. However, a much useful article serving as an introduction to teamwork is http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadtem.html, which features a discussion of the ‘elements of a good team’. Candidates with good teamwork skills are normally able to see the bigger picture and grasp the concept that employers value the outcome achieved by a group, more than that achieved by any one person.
You might like to look into certain areas such as:
1. Conflict resolution
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_81.htm
2. Maximising your contribution (see in particular ‘Belbin’s team roles)
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_53.htm
3. Using ‘small wins’ to motivate other members of your team
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/progress-theory.htm
4. Managing in India
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_18.htm
There is a well-known model of working in groups, which you may be interested in:
http://www.chimaeraconsulting.com/tuckman.htm
Often quoted, Bruce Tuckman’s classic description of the stages of group development is easy to understand and remember, but it helps to go back and look at what’s behind each stage. Tuckman is a respected educational psychologist who first described the (then) four stages of group development in 1965, soon after leaving Princeton. Looking at the behaviour of small groups in a variety of environments, he recognised the distinct phases they progress through, and suggested they need to experience all four stages before they achieve maximum effectiveness.
The importance of “teamwork” to law firms is described in a very elegant article by Bob Bookman entitled “Teamwork: Outlawing the Lone Ranger Partner”,
http://www.bobbookman.com/articles/article_3.htm
Teamwork is a good mechanism for sharing the workload. Luckily, for the corporate world, most humans gravitate towards team work; they prefer sharing the workload (http://www.helium.com/items/344790-the-importance-of-teamwork-in-the-company ). Humans have discovered, since the earliest of days that many hands make for a much lighter load. An excellent analysis of why teamwork is otherwise important is given in this article, http://www.the-happy-manager.com/why-is-teamwork-important.html.
Teamwork also constitute an important part of competence interviews later in the assessment process:
http://humanresources.about.com/od/involvementteams/a/team_questions.htm
Attention-to-detail and leadership
Can you manage your own workload, stay organised under pressure, pay attention to detail and be relied on to complete each task accurately and completely?
Corporate law firms need trainees who can handle both the small and large parts of a task. Such individuals won’t overlook what needs to be done and can be depended on to do each task accurately and completely.
Proofreading is an example of where attention-to-detail is critical – this is especially important whether you are a medical writer, for example, or a legal draftsman. It’s well worth looking at “top tips” for how you can be a good proofreader, and bear in mind that legal recruiters will go through your application form “with a fine toothcomb” to look for any mistakes. A website providing useful tips is:
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/8-proofreading-tips-and-techniques/
The following website page from the University of North Caroline offers an useful checklist about what might be included in ‘attention-to-detail’:
http://www.uncg.edu/hrs/detail.htm
For example, the trainee solicitor:
- Keeps a project checklist, covering all the details that might be overlooked.
- Checks, and rechecks work for mistakes before sending out.
- Follows procedures exactly to make sure all parts of a job are completed.
- Compares finished work to what is expected.
- Performs routine or repetitious tasks with care and attention.
- Reviews work carefully for completeness and accuracy.
- Makes sure equipment is working before it is needed in a project.
Legal recruiters are often looking for ‘future leaders’, although they do not give a coherent description of leadership qualities they are looking for. Here are some useful basic web resources which serve as an introduction on leadership:
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcon.html
Leadership styles
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html
Visioning
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/visions.html
Examples of questions for the ‘situational judgement test’
88 individuals took the LegalAware SJT test, and here is a breakdown of the results. This is described in a blogpost on the LegalAware blogpost, http://legal-aware.org/2011/09/legalaware-the-situational-judgment-test-a-test-used-by-clifford-chance-and-eversheds/.
EQ1 You are a trainee. You find that a document summarising the background of a client, which your Managing Associate has prepared and circulated to your group, contains some factual errors about the client. You know the client’s history well as you once did a research project on them at University. You are at a meeting, with your Managing Associate and Partner present. Which of the following courses of action do you take?
Half-way through the group meeting present your own Powerpoint presentation outlining the Managing Associate’s mistakes. (0%)
Have a private word with the Managing Associate early on in the meeting, to ask what he would advise. (91%)
Immediately seek the attention of the Partner to express your concerns. (9%)
EQ2 It is your first day on a team of a trainees consisting of four people (including yourself). Your Managing Associate has asked your group of trainees to find the relevant cases relating to a transaction you are about to start. He has previously given you a list of the cases. This is an area which you studied in a module at University, and you feel you know it well. What do you decide to do regarding finding the cases?
Assemble your own list of cases, and obtain case judgments for all of them, and photocopy them. (7%)
Introduce yourself to the other trainees, and discuss with them how they wish to proceed in finding the cases. (90%)
Find your own list of cases, and ask the other trainees to find them for you. (2%)
EQ3 Your friend, who has always been your competitor at law school, is about to give a Powerpoint presentation on share acquisitions in Korea as a trainee, and you know that the Managing Associate is looking forward to this presentation with interest. However, there appears to be a mechanical fault with accessing Broadband, and the only copy of the file is an email which she sent to you to check yesterday. You saved it on your memory stick, which you happen to have brought to the meeting. You know the memory stick is compatible with the computer she is using for her presentation. How do you decide to proceed?
Pretend you have forgotten the memory stick, and you cannot help. (0%)
Offer to upload the presentation on her computer using the memory stick, but to offer also to download the file from the internet if that fails from a neighbouring computer. (94%)
Ask the Managing Associate for help, to demonstrate that you enjoy teamwork. (6%)
EQ4 You have about sixty documents relating to a financial transaction which you have inherited this morning. It is your first morning in a new seat with five new trainees, and one of your two Managing Associates (the one who was due to meet you) is late for work. What do you first?
Introduce yourself to the other members of your team. (86%)
Phone the other Managing Associate, and insist on him or her being there to lead your business meeting this morning. (1%)
Arrange the documents into five piles of twelve documents, and ask each member of the team to provide details about them for use in an Excel spreadsheet. (13%)
EQ5 You are a trainee, nearly concluding a very important transaction. Your client has asked you to fax to him a copy of a document, but the only person who has a copy of it is your (only) Managing Associate, but he is on holiday in Tenerife and is completely unavailable. All the other members of the team are currently listed as ‘available’ in your head office. Which of the following people would you like to contact first for help?
Another trainee (16%)
An associate (67%)
A partner (17%)
EQ6 You have written a report on private equity in Japan, and you have ten minutes before the deadline, to send it to your supervisor. You are aware that there may be some cases with incorrect citations referenced. Which of the following do you do?
Check thoroughly for spelling and grammar errors. (5%)
Identify urgently the references in an accurate way, and amend your report. (78%)
Ask for an extension (a few hours in addition) so that you can vastly improve your report potentially. (17%)
EQ7 You are close to the final weeks of your first seat in technology in London. Your team is considering proposing a new office in an international jurisdiction to further your commercial interests abroad. The other trainees have asked you to present what you think is the most important aspect of that proposed office, as collectively your Supervisor has asked you to assemble a report on the subject by the end of the week. Which of the following factors do you think might be most important for opening this new office, which you choose to include in your report?
The quality of legal services to be offered by your firm in that particular office. (58%)
The price of legal services to be offered by your firm in that particular office. (4%)
The range of legal services to be offered by your firm in that particular office. (38%)
EQ8 You are a trainee in the corporate finance seat in London where all team members are extremely busy. You have recently been liaising with ten particular clients on an almost daily basis in France. Your Supervisor has asked you to canvass for opinions of various clients in different countries towards the recent fall in stock prices in the European markets. You feel you do not have time to do this task on your own in time. Which of the options do you consider first?
Seek help from other trainees to help you to write the report, and ask other trainees which clients should be contacted. (24%)
Seek help from other trainees to help you to write the report, and contact some or all of the ten clients to ask them for their opinions. (47%)
Research the information which could be obtained from the clients and punctually write a report. (28%)
EQ9 You passed your advanced elective in intellectual property in your Legal Practice Course. You are in a small team of five trainees, and you are all working on an urgent case the preparation of which must be concluded by the close-of-play tomorrow night. Your Managing Associate has asked you to consider where a series of claims in a patent diverges between your client and the party making a claim against your client. She is experienced in intellectual property. You have not looked at the case yet, but already three people think the claims diverge at step 12, but one person thinks the claims diverge at 23. Where the claims diverge is important for your case. Which of the following options do you pursue first?
Analyse the case first to make up your mind about where you think the claims diverge, and discuss further with your team. (93%)
Ask all other members of the team to compile (and email to you) a written report to send to your Managing Associate so that she can decide. (4%)
Ask your Managing Associate to meet up with you urgently to resolve the dispute. (3%)
EQ10 You are a trainee in a law firm, and your best friend is working in a rival firm. You get on well with your Managing Associate, as your firm is reputed to be ‘small but very friendly’. She is very good at keeping secrets, according to your colleagues. Your friend is acting in the team for the opposing client, and has told you informally that it is widely believed in fact that the share acquisition does not fit in with their corporate strategy, despite what is reported in the Financial Times. She has asked you not to tell anyone, but the information could make a critical difference to the success of the transaction of your client. What do you do?
Decide to keep this information confidential, but consider the information as part of your preparatory research, as available from public sources. (58%)
Tell your Managing Associate immediately in private, but request politely that she does not tell anyone. (11%)
Ignore the information, as it could be totally untrustworthy anyway. (31%)
Disability
It’s really important to realise that if you have a reading disability or visual impairment, the test administrators, designers and corporate law firm are obliged to enter into both the letter and spirit of helping you. Once you have all the ‘reasonable adjustments’ successfully implemented (if and only if, rather), it is perfectly possible for you to ‘train’ to become good at these tests.
Reading difficulty (dyslexia)
Dyslexia can be a legally recognised disability depending on its severity. Therefore, when applicants or candidates are being assessed, the qualified test user should have due regard to the employment provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act (1995)or Equality Act (2010); this makes it unlawful for an employer to treat a disabled person less favourably than a non-disabled person without good reason.
Discrimination is outlawed in a wide range of employment activities including selection, promotion and training. Employers have a duty to make “reasonable adjustments” to selection processes and working conditions so that disabled persons are not placed at a substantial disadvantage
The definition of the British Dyslexia Association mentions the impact dyslexia can have on other functions as well as literacy.
The BDA defines dyslexia as:
‘A combination of abilities and difficulties which affect the learning process in one or more of reading, spelling and writing. Accompanying weaknesses may be identified in areas of speed processing, short-term memory, sequencing, auditory and/or visual perception, spoken language and motor skills. It is particularly related to mastering and using written language, which may include alphabetic, numeric and musical notation.’
In selection for a training contract, an individual with dyslexia is likely to encounter difficulty with tests of verbal reasoning, spelling and functional literacy. The law requires that accommodations are made for disabled people including those with dyslexia to ensure that selection procedures do not disadvantage them. The employer is concerned with eliciting accurate information on abilities to use in making decisions.
The standardised nature of these tests is one of the main contributors to their effectiveness and objectivity. Arbitrary modifications to the test or administration procedure are likely to invalidate the results and render standard norm groups and score interpretations meaningless.
A common modification for individuals with dyslexia is to adjust the timing of the test. However, the amount of extra time required will depend on the way the dyslexia manifests itself, its severity, the test(s) being used and their relationship to the job requirements. Only a relevant professional can determine what is appropriate.
Whether adjustments have been made to standard test procedures or not, careful administration can help ensure that individuals with dyslexia have a fair opportunity to demonstrate their skills.
As with many disabilities, stress may exacerbate the impact of dyslexia. Therefore, a calm and understanding approach on the part of the administrator is important.
People with dyslexia may have difficulty with test instructions. This can be due to reading difficulties, or to a difficulty with short term memory and/or sequencing which is common with dyslexia.
Useful contacts
The British Dyslexia Association
Contact details here
National Helpline
For all dyslexia related enquiries.
Tel: 0845 251 9002
Email: helpline@bdadyslexia.org.uk
Our Helpline, staffed by volunteers, is open from 10:00a.m. until 4:00p.m. Monday to Friday, and open late on Tuesday and Wednesday from 5:00 – 7:00p.m.
Specialist Teacher and Accreditation Enquiries
Tel: 0845 251 9003
Email: accreditation@bdadyslexia.org.uk
Office and Administrative Enquiries
Tel: 0845 251 9003
Fax: 0845 251 9005.
Postal Address:
Unit 8 Bracknell Beeches, Old Bracknell Lane, Bracknell, RG12 7BW.
- Admin and customer services: admin@bdadyslexia.org.uk
- Helpline: helpline@bdadyslexia.org.uk
- Accreditation: accreditation@bdadyslexia.org.uk
- Conferences: conference@bdadyslexia.org.uk
- Quality Mark: qualitymark@bdadyslexia.org.uk
- Training: training@bdadyslexia.org.uk
Equality and Human Rights Commission
Our Helpline
England: 0845 604 6610
Textphone: 0845 604 6620
Email: englandhelpline@equalityhumanrights.com
Scotland: 0845 604 5510
Textphone: 0845 604 5520
Email: scotlandhelpline@equalityhumanrights.com
Wales: 0845 604 8810
Textphone: 0845 604 8820
Email: waleshelpline@equalityhumanrights.com
Visual impairments and the law
A person who is registered or certified blind or partially sighted is automatically regarded as disabled under the Disability Discrimination Act (1995). However, even without registration, it is likely that a person with significantly limited vision which is not easily corrected using glasses or contact lenses will be considered disabled under the provisions of the Act.
The DDA makes it unlawful for an employer to treat a disabled person less favourably than a non-disabled person and those who provide services must make them accessible to clients with disabilities. When tests are being used in connection with employment (e.g. in making selection decisions) employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments so that disabled persons are not placed at a substantial disadvantage.
Disabled individuals have the right to expect the same quality of service, including accuracy of diagnostics and assessment as other users of the service.
About visual impairments
Visual impairment covers a wide range of conditions.
Even a person who is registered blind may have some residual vision, e.g. the ability to discern light from dark or even quite good acuity within a severely limited field of vision.
Partial sight also covers many different types of conditions. These can range from very blurred vision to loss of some areas of the field of vision. For some people the act of focusing can be difficult, this can mean that reading difficult, as it is necessary to constantly refocus on the next portion of text.
A visual impairment may occur alone or in combination with other conditions.
Some people are born with visual impairments or have lived with the disability for a long time and have been taught or developed their own strategies for coping with both the practical difficulties of living and dealing with information usually presented in text form. For those with more residual vision, texts are typically accessed using large print and/or various magnification and lighting aids. Aids can include powerful spectacle lenses, free-standing magnifiers placed on top of a text, often with an integral light source.
Impact on testing
Any task where materials are presented visually, whether on paper, computer screen or as objects to be manipulated, will cause difficulty for a visually impaired person. This will include the vast majority of psychometric tests.
In order to assess a person with a visual disability, it is likely to be necessary to
- make adjustments to standardised test administration procedures, use alternate
- forms of materials, or both. However, such changes to a test cannot be made without affecting its reliability and validity.
The standardised nature of psychometric tests is one of the main contributors to their effectiveness and objectivity, and arbitrary modifications to the test or administration procedure are likely to invalidate the results and render standard norm groups and score interpretations meaningless. Some test takers may want to bring along some special equipment or ask for specific lighting conditions.
Practical advice during the testing session
Whether adjustments have been made to standard test procedures or not, careful administration can help ensure that the test results for someone with a visual impairment remain valid.
- A calm and understanding approach on the part of the administrator is important.
- If test administration times are greatly extended consider whether breaks are needed to prevent you / the candidate from becoming overtired.
- Make a note any adjustments made, or any other non-standard occurrences.
- If further advice is required in interpreting the results, make sure you consultant the recruiter from your corporate law firm, who may wish to contact the test publisher or consult with a Chartered Psychologist with expertise in visual impairment.
In fact, as part of your preparation for doing these tests, you might find it fun to get used to reading stories of varied cultural material – test yourself at seeing how many correct inferences you can make from the subject matter given! The advantage of such material is that they are all written with high-quality, and peer-reviewed/edited for spelling, grammar, and general style.
Good luck!
Scrapping the Human Rights Act might mean more petitions to Strasbourg – ALBA and the Bingham Centre at Inner Temple
Scrapping the Human Rights Act has become a incredibly hot potato with Theresa May’s recent announcement. Theresa May, a geography graduate from St Hugh’s College at Oxford, announced triumphantly, “We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act, the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because – I am not making this up – he had a pet cat.” This unfortunately led David Allen Green, the leading legal blogger, to propose that, “The Home Secretary’s conference speech shows she does not know what her own department is doing”, in an article published yesterday on a blog for the New Statesman. As Allen Green himself provides, ” it has already been dealt with by respected critical sites such as Full Fact and Tabloid Watch.”
Reviewing the precise value of the Human Rights Act 1998 in the jurisprudence of England and Wales seems to be a worthwhile exercise, irrespective of it having turned into somewhat of a ‘political football‘. For example, parts of the Telegraph, latterly not particularly sympathetic towards David Cameron or Ken Clarke perhaps including Cristina Odone, have supported this ‘attack’ on the Human Rights Act, even proposing that Theresa May is a lioness who could find herself in Number 10. Such jurisprudence issues are extremely complicated, and leading commentators such as Joshua Rozenberg, Britain’s best known legal commentator according to very many, appear to advise that the debate must be conducted in a different light from the political grandstanding (article here). Rozenberg assessed the situation involving our Lord Chancellor as follows, “When Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, was asked at a fringe meeting for his reaction to May’s speech, he insisted he was “completely comfortable” with the idea of replacing the existing legislation with a British bill of rights.” However, Rozenberg says straight-up that there are legal cracks within the foundations of the Conservative part of the Tory-led government, “May is deliberately distancing herself from her coalition colleagues on human rights – including the justice secretary, Ken Clarke, a firm supporter of the Human Rights Act.” However, only a few weeks ago, the Daily Mail observed nervously that, “The Deputy Prime Minister won his loudest applause with an impassioned defence of the Human Rights Act – insisting it would never be scrapped while he was in government.”
It is within this context the open discussion at the Honourable Society of Inner Temple last night could not have come at a better time. The seminar is jointly hosted by the Constitutional and Administrative Bar Association (ALBA) and the new Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law. The speakers included Lord Justice Laws, Lord Pannick QC and Professor Philip Leach, London Metropolitan author, and author of numerous publications including the book “Taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights“. The session was totally packed out, and the speakers took many questions from leading practising international barristers and academics. It is easy to overstate the opposition towards the Human Rights Act, but it was pointed out only two countries are openly questioning the legitimacy of the European Convention of Human Rights – Russia and the United Kingdom.
LJ Laws has long been in favour of developing domestic jurisprudence in the context of the Human Rights Act and common law. John Laws felt that “the cases were beginning to speak, but the Convention was an useful guidance”, and reaffirmed the influence of a graduated approach to proportionality, an argument which Laws noted had been accepted by Bingham (see for example Regina v. Secretary of State For The Home Department, Ex Parte Daly). Laws reminded the legal audience that we, as a country, have always been in a position to influence Strasbourg, as for example the Pretty v United Kingdom case (a review of this is given here). Laws mooted, however, why should the judges be deciding upon social policy. Considering particularly articles 8-12, Laws provided that often lawyers had to decide where to strike the balance in certain issues between competing interest, but fundamentally lawyers were there to establish the framework and issue – however Laws warned that the nature of this exercise in jurisprudence gives rise ultimately to issue of a philosophical nature.
Lord Pannick charted the history of the reaction to our history right legislation, in relation to Strasbourg. Pannick reminded the audience that criticising the Human Rights Act, in relation to Europe, was not a recent phenomenon. In relation to the Gilbraltar incident, Michael Heseltine – as far back as 1995 – said, “We shall do nothing. We will pursue our right to fight terrorism to protect innocent people where we have jurisdiction, and we will not be swayed or deterred in any way by the ludicrous decisions of the Court.”
According to Lord Pannick, prisoners’ voting rights and the use of hearsay have also produced conflicting opinions from the UK and Strasbourg, and indeed these legal conflicts appear to be ongoing (see for example the present case of Zainab al-Khawaja, where the original argument was heard by the Court in 2010). Lord Pannick proposed that this conflict arose from various sources. Firstly, Lord Pannick felt there is a general resentment of European law amongst Conservative “elements”, and many of the population. Secondly, the objection to the European Convention of Human Rights could part of a wider objection to foreign law. Lord Pannick indeed reminded the audience that a Conservative MP, lawyer and judge, David Maxwell-Ffye, was instrumental in drafting the European Convention of Human Rights. Lord Pannick then identified a possible perception from the UK voting public, that judges should not be deciding on social policy: for example, the argument for prisoner voting is not a matter for judges, but should be a matter for parliament. Fourthly, the European system does not appear to be working well operationally – the strain of its backlog affects the time that can be devoted to cases. Lord Pannick felt that the setting up of the Joint Commission of Human Rights had been a welcome step, particularly for the screening of appropriate human rights cases and appointment of suitably-qualified judges. With the chairmanship of the Council of Europe only meant to last six months, Lord Pannick felt that there was limited damage which could in fact be inflicted by the UK on the jurisprudence of the rest of Europe.
Lord Pannick did not feel fundamentally that the criticisms of the HRA amounted to much. For example, the HRA expressly recognises that the UK Parliament is not bound by the Convention. If Parliament wishes to exclude voting by prisoners, the Human Rights Act does not prevent this. The judges can decide whether the defendants comply, but, according to Lord Pannick, it is equally important that the last word lies with parliament. Lord Pannick instead felt that a much more difficult issue is the relationship between parliament and the Strasbourg Court. Theresa May even if she repealed the HRA would still leave the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court intact – our own judges have no effect on the jurisprudence. If the 1998 Act were to be repealed, as parliament is overeign, the number of British cases to Strasbourg would increase according to Lord Pannick. Lord Pannick felt that an useful to look at the relationship between our Supreme Court and Strasbourg would be to look at the ‘control of its docket‘ jurisprudence, in other jurisdictions of international law.
Lord Pannick ultimately felt that the power of our parliament to define power Strasbourg as a body is limited. It would be unprecedented for us to withdraw from the European Convention of Human Rights, incompatible with membership of the EU, or Council of Europe. According to Lord Pannick, the concept of European minimum standards is of vital importance to us. There may be be occasions when national or international considerations are that our judges do not originally recognise that human rights are being breached (e.g. gays in the military) It would be difficult for us to expect that other countries such as Russia should comply with the Convention, if we do not. Lord Pannick therefore felt that the situation now required an accommodation on both sides. The Strasbourg is supposed to overrule a National court only in cases of fundamental significance, where the national supreme court has made an error of principle. If Strasbourg does not follow this principle, it may risk the growth of political opposition. However, likewise, Lord Pannick identified that the Supreme Court should not supinely follow Strasbourg, either. The Government for example accepted the DNA ruling in preference ot the House of Lords. If the Supreme Court were to be asked if the voting rule asked about the prisoners’ voting again, Lord Pannick felt that the Supreme Court would be unlikely to say it is compatible with the European Convention of Human Rights.
Professor Leach discusses in some detail the impact of the Greens, Hirst and Scoppola cases (please keep an eye on the blogs from @carlgardner and @adamwagner1). Professor Leach emphasised Lord Hoffman’s observation that “human rights are universal in abstraction but national in application” , made in his seminal speech entitled, “The Universality of Human Rights” as the Judicial Studies Board Annual Lecture on 19 March 2009. This was described in the Solicitors Journal on 7 April 2009 as follows,
Lord Hoffmann, one of the most senior law lords, has launched an extraordinary all-out attack on the European Court of Human Rights.
Giving the annual lecture at the Judicial Studies Board, he accused the Strasbourg court of trivialising and discrediting human rights, directly criticised its president, Judge Jean-Paul Costa, and warned that its four-year backlog of cases is growing.
No journalists were present when the speech was made last month, but it was published later on the JSB’s website, a step which could not have been taken without the law lord’s blessing (see: The Universality of Human Rights).
The discussion from the panel and the members of the audience was very thought-provoking, but it was a constructive one representing the genuinely diverse opinions in the community of the Barristers.
"Have you been Aldridged?"
After I had posted an article on the use of Twitter by lawyers, things were said and noted, and I deleted the ‘unhelpful’ article on Friday evening. The intention of this article was to explain why legal tweeting might or might not confer a ‘competitive advantage’ using “Porter’s 5 forces” theory developed at Harvard University, and that was it. Meanwhile, @charonqc published his article yesterday evening, entitled “Postcard from The Staterooms: #Alridgegate edition …. Have you been “Aldridged” and some other b*ll*cks“. This was in response to an article which attracted much attention amongst legal tweeps entitled, “Lawyers enjoying tweet taste of success” which emerged on Friday afternoon. I certainly do not believe that the generic subject of how lawyers, in training or otherwise, engage with Twitter is a “sacred cow“.
Where we do all most definitely converge is our passion for education. In reply to @CharonQC’s question which is clearly not aimed at me, I can say that “I have been Alridged”, and in my case it was an entirely constructive experience. Last Friday, my first ever legal podcast came out, courtesy of @AlexAldridgeUK. I had a very rewarding and intelligent discussion of the many positives that law firms demonstrated in trying to embrace diversity in recruitment, and Kevin Poulter, a solicitor, social media enthusiast and columnist for ‘London Loves Business‘ (twitter account hereand website here), extended the scope of the discussion to include members of society, who are disabled, working in law firms.
I was invited along as the organiser of the BPP Legal Awareness Society (my twitter thread is here), which equally has a passion for enmeshing legal and business education. It just happens that I am disabled. The thread is continuously busy; we discussed the Final Independent Commission on Banking Report this morning which was published at 0615. My article, published at 0640, is here.
As others have given aspects concerning “the Aldridge article” considerable air time on Twitter already, I thought it only appropriate to give some airtime on my carefully arrived at thoughts about diversity, which I am happy to say have been recognised in a positive manner by @SundeepBhatia2. Sundeep is a Law Society Council member, and whom I respect enormously. His excellent podcast (no 193) with @charonqc can indeed be heard here. I would very much like to advance meaningful discussion about this, so a ‘realistic‘ picture emerges without any unhelpful intervention of recruitment consultants who are protecting their clients – their paying law firms.
Is BPP suffering from the "Stockholm Syndrome"? Roll on Friday…
I don’t do ‘undue deference’, which is why I once felt uneasy when a partner at a firm in the Magic Circle carried my bag from one room to the next, when moving rooms in a training contract interview.
That’s why I suppose I love ‘Roll on Friday‘, which, according to them, “provides news, views and gossip on the legal profession – including the top firms’ salaries.” ‘Roll on Friday’ is essential reading for me, as I am thinking about (remotely) applying for a training contract this Summer. However, I am taking my MBA much more seriously, as it genuinely interests me, unlike the training contract application process. We cover in huge detail “organisational culture“, i.e. the importance of what makes a corporate tick to how it involves its members and individuals outside the company. A really useful introduction to corporate culture is given here in the Times newspaper.
This is precisely why I devour articles by ‘Roll on Friday’ which provide insight into culture in the City: e.g. on international corporate law recruitment here, “There were red faces at recruitment firm First Counsel, chosen by Slaughter and May to advertise its vacancies, after it posted a pompous and apparently xenophobic job advertisement.” Or this, for example (!), “A City law firm has announced a “great temporary opportunity’” for fresh-faced law graduates to, errr, work as catering staff.”
And this is precisely the cheeky humour I love, when ‘Roll on Friday’ (@RollOnFridayWeb) tweeted us the following on 28 June 2011 (status here),
“Stockholm Syndrome? RT @legalaware: @carllygo @seeyouatthebar @_millymoo @jfierce_mighty haha. I think BPP is brill #justsaying”
I found this incredibly amusing.
So, what is “Stockholm Syndrome“? Not being as cultured as ‘Roll on Friday’, I had to look it up on Wikipedia. This is the current entry for the condition:
In psychology, Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a real paradoxicalpsychological phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors; sometimes to the point of defending them.
Are members of BPP then showing ‘Stockholm syndrome” towards BPP? Looking at this legalistically, we have to be showing a positive emotional response in conditions of extreme stress. Otherwise known as “terror bonding” or “traumatic bonding”, one has to identify what the extreme stress of being at BPP might be? Is it teaching or studying the GDL, LPC, LLM or MBA, for example? Or is it the highly demanding nature of the exams?
And why my outburst that “BPP is brill”? This boils down to my reaction to a rather vociferous article provided by David Mitchell in the Guardian with the rather aggressive title “When it comes to the crunch, private sector knows best”. David climaxes towards the end with this ‘pièce de résistance':
It’s not expertise, it’s ruthlessness, it’s the prioritisation of profit. What Lygo is offering people running universities is the opportunity to divest themselves of many of the problems inherent in their jobs. If you don’t want to take the tough decisions, he’s saying, if you doubt you’ve got the backbone to make the efficiency savings, then we’ll handle them for you. Pass your troubles on to those of us untroubled by conscience. Not only would this be a dereliction of the universities’ duty, it would also help perpetuate the myth of the private sector’s omnipotence and the public’s doltish money-burning idiocy.
Mitchell is of course entitled to his views. He was, indeed, at Cambridge, which some might say is the world’s best University in the World, beating Harvard. Well, actually, to be accurate, he was there for three years, and I was there for eight as a student (doing several degrees, not re-sitting the same one). Mitchell is talking nonsense if he believes that Oxbridge does not have any commercial drivers. Indeed, the Institute of Economic Affairs has even in a blog article mooted the notion that Cambridge University ‘should go private‘.
And yep – I really enjoyed my GDL and LLB(Hons) because of the huge amount of personal pastoral care I received after my life-threatening meningitis (I was in a coma for two months during my GDL), and Carl Lygo, CEO at BPP, has argued, until he’s ‘blue in the face’, that institutions such as BPP and Cambridge operate in different areas of the education sector, but that ‘there’s room for both of them’ (paraphrasing wildly). Anyway, I think both institutions are great. Maybe I am, in fact, exhibiting “Stockholm Syndrome” towards Cambridge, having been set free from them after nearly a decade? Anyway, please keep up the brilliant work, “Roll on Friday”!
@legalaware can be followed here. @RollonFridayWeb can be followed here.
