BAR-barella

I predict a riot!

2010-04-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Well...

FT BVC got to be barristers for a case at Blackfriars Crown Court last weekend. Yes that is the weekend immediately after MCTS! Talk about planning!
Was I lucky enough to be the Sunday? NOPE!
Was I lucky enough to be Saturday Afternoon? Nope.
Sat 8.30am to meet my witness and a 9am start.
I was the prosecution. We had real trainee police officers. It was very interesting. We had real Barristers as judges and friends and family could be jurors. I was iffy adducing the evidence I needed but Prosecution is a nightmare. Lame excuse. I just didn't have time to prepare. I did well though.... apparently! I had a very generous barrister! We got feedback straight away.
My only gripe is a fair one. Most of us had to play a witness in another case. Mine was at 4pm-7pm and given my case ended at 12pm, I had 4 hours to kill. Which I did in a pub, where I watched Tottenham v Man U. Not all bad, I guess.

People didn't do the Crown Court thing I think they were doing OLPAS apps. Honestly although I messed up Cross Exam in my mock (I was fine in court?) I am not too disheartened.

Surprisingly given the timing, (I also had mock advocacy II and III on Monday) I survived the past week. I have been resting since.

Funny conversation at the Court...

Sarge: Are you the prosecution?
Me: Yes.
Sarge: This is PC X she has been training for 6 weeks. She is your witness.
Me: Oh right, hello.
PC X: Hello.
Sarge: It's okay, she is with the CPS, she is one of us!
Me: Um... yup.
(not for sodding long I ain't. Prosecution was not easy.)

So, I detect some animosity between the Police and Defence barristers.... We were ACTING!!

Well, COL done good, despite the timing! It was a fantastic experience. I was better than I am in class. Stop laughing in the back. Just remember I have no mooting/debating experience... yet.

Barb.

x

Don't stand so close to me!

2010-03-30T02:26:00.001-07:00

Out of simple stupidity I decided I did not want to do any mini-pupilages until I finished the course. Stop laughing back there! I have one other w/e that I can extend as I shadowed barristers.
Yup, not my brightest idea but I do find the course challenging (I left my job in December). Plus I am pretty much exhausted most of the time... yes and full of excuses! In the words of Americans I just need to suck it up!

Right now I am revising for MCTS however I have to now fit them in with (lucky 4me a mini) plea in mit comp, advocacy 2+3 mock prep and a criminal (let's go to a real court and perform prep) which happens to be the day after MCTS.
Just don't, I can't take it anymore.

Life sucks, summer's on its way and I have had enough! Oh and I'm sure I'm missing some other crap I should be doing. I just can't recall.

Adios!

Barb.

x

Drafting Everybody in the house of love...
Opinion OMG I did a bad, bad thing...
Advocacy 1 (bad skele/ good advocacy= good girl gone bad?)
Negotiation Wachya saaaaaaaaaay...

An explanation for the title:
All those idiots who think it is cool to tell everyone in very loud voices, how well the exam went for them. FREAKS!! Yes, this is from that jealous place in my heart.

When a judge likes you...

2010-01-20T07:07:00.000-08:00

Exams and snow:

You would think that I would have been grateful for the snow/exams saga but I wasn't. That's a complete lie I took a holiday! It involved kleenex and cough medicine but hey it was necessary.
The idea of doing mocks in your own time at home! It was beyond luck, I think that week I went into the other dimension!

Meeting the real Civil Bar:

Is the BVC full of selfish students or benevolent ones?
I always thought the former however that's not what I've been experiencing recently. I was fortunate enough to totally screw up my skeleton argument in front of a Civil Practicioner, this after he slated me for wanting to go into either Criminal or Family. 'Do you know how many barristers do not get into Criminal law?' What's the big deal? I am interested in these areas of law, maybe I should be interested in a huge pay check, maybe not! Then later in a pseudo general way i got slated for not being sure 'by now' which area I want to go into. Can't bloody win with some people!
Not that he got to me anything. Smug B@##"£d!
Nicest thing about the whole experience? Meeting a lovely guy who went through his own skeleton argument and helped me out after the meeting. He explained everything to me. It's odd but I swear I have never had a skeleton marked! I have done about 3 incorrectly though.

My first moot...

I have my first moot next week. Like I said I was too occupied to get involved in anything like this on the GDL, so boy am I nervous. Good news, I have a partner who knows her stuff.

Oh the title of this rant...
I was on a class trip to a criminal court just outside London. Our tutor told us to ask the judge questions. He arrived and promptly told us that if none of us did, he'd pick on us. So he picked on me.
You there with the beautiful smile.
Me?
Yes, you have a beautiful smile.
Er... thanks

I asked him the same question my tutor suggested. In fact, I think I'll keep that one.
Yes, I could feel the eyes of the hot girls in my class burning holes in my back, only they receive compliments. He he he... Yes, I retell this story often can't blame me either! Truth is, it totally unnerved me!

Barb

xx

About the conference exam...

2010-01-01T14:53:00.000-08:00

Have to say I did clock watch and just managed to cram everything in without running out of time!
The actor was grunge circa 1990esque type, unlike the camera man (hot) so I was fine!

The professional conduct was whether his friend could lie for him. I gave him a stern look and said No, as he had a defence! My friend's response was that it was 'niether necessary nor appropriate!' in a school teacher-like voice. I think my tone was the same??!

I would like to state that I do not spend my time scoping hot guys in inappropriate circumstances. I learned my lesson in solicitor's firm work-experience, with the hot client who I later discovered was charged with Domestic violence offences.
Nothing wrong with looking when you're single.
Although I wear glasses for reason!

The Great Christmas Cram!

2010-01-01T14:35:00.000-08:00

The count down has begun to the mocks. Why, oh why, must they insist on giving exams after Christmas? Have they no faith? Scrooges the lotta of 'em!
You guessed it, I'm moaning because of my distinct lack of revision.
Excuses: Christmas, Gastric Flu (dieter's heaven!) and Christmas, plus David Tennant's final bow as The Doctor!

Bloody MCT mocks or multiple f@#* ups, as my sibling calls them! Plus drafting and opinion writing!

Must dash! Revision to begin!

x

I'm a BVC student, get me out of here!

2009-12-06T06:27:00.000-08:00

I think I should explain myself. It all began a few weeks ago, at an unnamed Inn's Dining session. The first course said chicken soup, but we got what looked like ribena, instead. Barb is not a rude lady, oh okay I am, so when I saw that a fellow student had hers replaced, I thought I'd try my luck. To my amazement I not only got a glorious pea soup, but a fresh spoon too. Yes, those around me looked on with envy! The main was fine but what my fellow student thought was ice-cream was in fact syllabub with a piece of fruit on top. I barely touched mine as did even the truly hungry students amongst us. Bad, bad, day to be Dining, speeches were great though.

Just handed in Legal Research and already I am panicking! I cannot believe that they gave us only one, dummy run! Not fair! On the flipside I have Conference in 2 days and have been given:

Statute (unnamed in a vain attempt to hide my identity)
Plea before Venue/Mode of Trial

That is all the info they've given us?!! Woe is me, I mean WTF?!! So I shall prepare as best as I can. I have an hour of prep before I meet the client (an actor).
Well, I hope the actor does not make me laugh by hamming it up as when we do this in class I can often end up giggling. I also hope he is not a total Adonis just 'resting'. I've heard vicious stories of Conferences going bitterly wrong because the student was faced with an Adonis! Such a bad reason to mess up an assessment.

Must dash, prep to do!
Then it will be Christmas hols for me! I mean revision for mocks, obviously!

Ciao!

XX

Opinion Writing/Hearsay/etc

2009-11-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

Well, I've almost come to the end of what I fondly call half-term. Apparently it was meant to be consolidation week but I can't fathom why, as I was given two assignments plus normal prep to do. Moan, moi?

Opinion Writing for Civil

My first jaunt into this arena was essentially met with the response 'could do better'. Oh the pain and agony I felt on reading the heavily notated opinion. Well, that was until I realised that I'd spent about an hour on it and had a serious case of sleep deprivation whilst writing it.

Civil Advocacy

Dear me, it is something when you're told you were fine until you messed up. I did not need judicial/tutor intervention like my peers! Trust me, some really crashed and burned by comparison (sorry pure schadenfreude as it was the ones who excel at everything and seek to undermine your responses in class). Hey ho at least it wasn't assessed.

Hearsay

Wasn't that a group some years back?
I'm still coming to terms with this one. Unfortunately!

Inns of Court

The course is great! Sorry that should read drinking at Qualifying Sessions are.
QS Highlights:
Grabbing the last gown at 7.00 when dining began at 7.15! Yes, there was a young woman beside me who asked 'are there anymore gowns?' I promptly walked away...

Giving up and drinking my way through my Inns student elections. started at 6, ended 10 something. Yes I voted for whoever my esteemed colleague beside me did.

Making friends with people from other Law Cols. Even got a moot partner now (I've never done a moot).

I made a beeline for the Attorney General at the last QS, nice lady.

My love for QS shall continue, even though I missed Grand Day. :(
4 down and hoping to do 2 more this term. Not bad as I began in September!
A tutor warned us that we'd be well advised to do as many as we can now, rather than once the course gets really intense. Humph! Like it's not intense now?

Ciao!
xxx

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes....

2009-09-09T02:44:00.000-07:00

So as predicted, I um failed the GDL. Some people reading this would think 'how?' True considering the pass mark of 40% I would need to be spectacularly unlucky. Ahem... I was. I had to redo 4 modules. Yes 4 out of 7! I was devastated. To this day I believe I was the only one from my class. However a chance meeting with someone else, could mean that I wasn't.

So my summer was 2 weeks in Southern London at a solicitor's office that gave me every opportunity under the sun, then cancelling a mini pupillage to revise!

Now he comes the real interesting part about my provider. For some reason my enrollment was scheduled for the day the resit results were due. When I asked for advice I was told to 'just enroll' as they'd have my results on their computer! To clarify, show up with your empty suitcase and hope for the best? My resit/LPC buddy asked 'what about the train journey home, Barb?' Suddenly I saw it. Cue the dramatic strings and rain pounding down. A morose looking Barb, dragging an empty suitcase on London Underground, like it contained the bricks of a doomed law career. That was the only thing I needed to realise I was not going through with it. To make matters worse, all my LPC buddies enrolled 3 days after the resits were published!
Mysteriously, when I called again I was told to just send an email with my results and wait to be contacted. I wasn't, so I contacted them to be told I should have enrolled the day after my results came out! What a fuss! So I didn't enrol until two days after everyone else!

Right now I've begun Civil Litigation and Criminal Litigation. To say I'm finding my feet would be an understatement.

This is one heck of a journey I'm on. I just hope to enjoy it more than the GDL. Especially as my other job is far less of a burden than on the GDL.

Best Bits: Going to Middle Temple and getting my card and dinner ticket! Nice classmates.
Pro bono fair where I've decided on 2 areas. Buying a suitcase!

Bloody awful bits: Feeling dumb in class, lack of sleep, and a bad back from a rucksack with the White Book plus manuals. Realising that my class gave up on using rucksacks and bags days ago.

Convo with mate:
Barb: I'm shattered
MAC-lover: You've done well though. You came back.
Barb: Huh?
MAC-lover: You passed your exams! Sweetie, your come back was bigger than Mariah Carey's!

So I guess I am cup half full. Blatantly I have a struggle on my hands (dodgy A-Levels) but I know what I need to do.

xx

GDL Crisis!

2009-06-05T04:42:00.000-07:00

My first post is going to be a rant. I apologise profusely.

So having paid an extortionate amount of money (strictly speaking my bank did) to study at a world class institution in London for just under a year, I find myself midway through my GDL exams and wondering if I will make it. Realising a little too late that there may not have been much law in any of the exams I just took, makes for uncomfortable scrutiny.

I'm one of those people who actually has to study and knows this but would rather do anything else. Not the makings of a good lawyer I know. I am quite new to this studying lark (my first degree ended in 2000 and second a few years after) so I'm not completely academically challenged. Although judging by some of my mock test and coursework results...

My own fault really. I stupidly got contractually bound to do a project whilst on the course that meant my concentration was divided between that and learning the law. Yes, they tell you 'do nothing but this course for the next 9 months'. I thought I could handle it, how wrong was I? I will admit to embarking on the course with the wrong attitude:

'what do solicitors do again?'
Probably explains why I ended up doing a lastminute BVC application.

Do I want sympathy or a way out? All I've been thinking is I should quit. Go back to my previous job and leave the law to the youngsters and those who have just graduated but act like youngsters!

I mean how can I make it when I still say walkman instead of mp3 player?

Bar-barella

x