oxford/Cambridge/Durham/lse

[MommyOfATeen]

Hi
Dd is interested in studying law and then wants a career in politics.
She has being researching lately about alevels and what's best to choose as she will be entering for cheltenham ladies college scholarship exam.
Dd has being researching the law courses and can't seem to answer these questions she has
Why should you study law
What qualities are best suited to law
What books/articles can she read to read around law
And finally..
The colleges at Oxford does it matter which one you go to?

Only £45k Gonegrey? £60 k with possibility of drawing down nearly 1/3rd during BPTC year is not unknown now + help in 1st year of tenancy until fees come in. All to catch the 15-20 most wanted new pupils who get offers at several of the major chambers and have to be wined and dined in order to go to X Chambers rather than Y Chambers.
There's one member of the Supreme Court who definitely wasn't at Trinity Hall - Lady Hale. Back in her day women could only go to women's colleges at Oxford & Cambridge.

Lilymaid hang on!! £60k isn't unknown, you're right, but a) it covers two years not one (the BPTC year and the pupillage year) and b) there are a tiny, tiny number of those on offer relative to the number of those applying. The majority offering that sum are the top commercial sets and competition is deathly fierce. Each of the four Inns do offer a good number of scholarships but to put it into context DD3 interviewed a few weeks ago as one of 400 interviewees at one of the Inns for perhaps twenty scholarships of any real financial significance. Given that most current applicants will also have the burden of their Student Finance Loans, £17,500 just for fees. not London living, is an unconscionable amount. Incredibly exclusive if you don't get a large scholarship.

Baroness Hale was Girton, but the men's colleges weren't open back then. DD sat next to her at a dinner after an Oxford moot and said she was fierce, nice fierce, but very fierce. And shorter than DD, which delighted her.

Have a look at Essex Court's promise of minimum income in the first year of practice, though it is probably a fair assessment of earnings in top chambers. That - and the intellectually interesting work is good reason for not going into politics after a few years at the Bar.

Ferocity of intellect is what I miss most ...

But having done pupillage, getting into chambers so very hard. Nephew with every prize you can think of found incredibly difficult.

Lily there are very, very, very, very few places at Essex Court type places. You simply can't generalize from Essex Court. It's completely missing the point.

ancientbuchanan if your nephew had every prize going it is actually surprising he had a tough time getting a tenancy. Has he found one now? In the area he wanted? 'Every prize one can think of' is pretty impressive and should have singled him out.

Perhaps while we're predicting a smooth transition whereby a Year 10 teenager with varied interests is metamorphosed into a high-earning barrister doing commercial work in a prestigious London chambers, it's worth reading what the life of a junior criminal barrister can be like.

50shadesofaffray.wordpress.com/

Well, in a way, why not look on the bright side host?

Someone's got to bag the 50k pupilage at Matrix . And if you can't dream it will be you at 15, when can you dream? At that age I'd have probably said I wanted to be Prime Minister, let alone education secretary.

I've gone for a lot of absurdly competitive long shots in my life. No doubt many would see them as hubris. But some have paid off...

My view is there is no harm in aiming high, providing you don't have everything riding on it.

I think it's worth remembering that when you're a barrister you are self-employed and if you do get through the long expensive process and find a tenancy, the rewards will be very closely linked to the kind of work that you end up doing. Many lawyers with a passionate belief in the social justice are less well-rewarded financially and are having to juggle their belief in the value of what they do with the fact that access to justice is being squeezed, and the money they take home may be relatively modest in relation to the level of training they've gone through and the demands of the job..

Working in the law is extraordinarily varied - and not just about megabucks. (Although the pursuit of megabucks is motivation for some.)

Oh sure. A dollop of reality is healthy.

But it shouldn't hold you back. Especially not at 15.

Those of you still in the thick of it - d'you think there'll be much legal profession left in ten years? I mean work for people rather than machines. (And not including sitting in Inner Temple library working on the rare thing a computer can't do ...)

I think there's going to be less work and less need for lawyers as the current trend for commoditisation increases.

Perhaps that's as it should be? There are double the number if lawyers now than there was when I qualified!

That said, we will always need those at the sharp end, be that in crime, family or corporate. There will always be work that is too difficult/specialist/ new to be done cheaply in bulk.

Molio: are you saying that college matters more than class of degree? Or are there so many graduates with Oxford Firsts applying for so few jobs that a First from the wrong college means you won't make it?

No of course I'm not Cleebourg. It's obviously not that crude. All I said was that college can matter, for the reasons I said. That it's not necessarily irrelevant.

All I know is that my DH didn't read law, but did go to one of the two top universities. He did the law conversion and all has been well. He got there from a comprehensive school and the one thing he has a bee in his bonnet about is that he hadn't done any Latin at school. He has always felt he had to play catch up with language construction and also early on with the legal phraseology which he felt came more naturally to those who had done some Latin at school. For that reason alone he has made the children do Latin GCSE or IGCE and for that reason alone he refused to send them to any school that didn't offer it.

He stands by that view as a 50 something but I don't know if it's really true or just the way he wears his personal chip on the shoulder. In any event it didn't make much difference to him I don't think.

Neither of our children have shown any interest in reading law although our DS made our jaws drop over the weekend by announcing that he though "he might do a law conversion after he graduates". If he wants to he will do well but I think he really really needs to want to.

DH struggled and nearly gave up. Our DS won't have such a struggle financially (or in the context of contacts if he does decide to go that route) but whether that will make him hungry enough I don't know.

I really think they have to want it enough and if they do they find a way in spite of rather than because of what their parens have done for them.

Wishing your daughter well.

Zero I think the Bar is more likely to still be there in 10 years than Inner Temple Library unfortunately.
Molio I'm well aware that Essex Court only takes 4 pupils per year (it says so on the webpage). The people who get pupillage there and at other similar chambers are exceptional. I put it in as a bit of fun. As I said earlier there are about 15-20 prospective pupils each year who are courted by such chambers.

Lily isn't the point really that this tiny number of pupillage packages which do actually cover the cost begs the question about the whole current system? You might well have put it in as 'fun' but at the risk of being a spoilsport I'd say the whole system was less than 'fun' for many young people whose parents can't bankroll their studies. Word does exactly the same, in her comment about a single lucrative package from Matrix - one swallow doesn't make a summer. Given Word's huge and very public investment in access issues to elite establishments, I find an inherent conflict, which sits ill.

molio you've done well on this thread, even by your standards, with the amount of posters you've argued with (over not very much).

Are you like this in real life? Sheesh. Those long evenings must fly by .

Word you've become very, very personal recently - not sure why. Possibly because I don't pay particular obeisance to you as the fount of knowledge? But honestly, give it a break. And yes, I do discuss things in real life and I talk to and listen to people because I'm interested. I enjoy discussion. I live in a household with eight interesting kids who have plenty to say; there's always lots of discussion even at home. Is that a problem? Your sniping at me must be quite boring though, for others.

On the subject of the Bar, I assume you've read the health warning issued by the Bar Standards Board? Worth reading before anyone, especially anyone without wealthy parents, is advised to 'pursue their dream' regardless. This is as much a matter of access as any other issue of educational access, and blatantly unfair to the less well off.

molio Bingo!

You cause rows on threads (about the square route of fuck all) and then portray yourself as victim!

Hilarious.

And plain for all to see.

I agree it's very dull, all this squabbling over non-points. That's why I didn't even bother responding to your nonsense about whether there was bias in the past vis a vis degrees other than law. No one could possibly care - other than you.

And when I didn't bother to respond/defend the point (because really what's the issue?), you couldn't help yourself. You brought it up again .

And then when I still didn't bite, you tackled me over a joke about Matrix chambers. Telling me off like some bossy housewife .

And finally you play your victim schtick. Give me a break. You're terribly personal. I recall a recent thread where you called me a 'stalker'.

You are, as my Dad used to say, worth a bob on.

OP I know a small handful of (youngish) people who are active in politics and hope to stand maybe next time round. None of them, as it happens, have law degrees. They all went to one of the universities mentioned in your thread title (none of them went to Durham though). The thing they all have in common is that they were all already active politically as teenagers, while at school. Thing is though, in the same way that there are many different paths into the law, there are many different paths into politics. I think it's good to have a destination in mind, at this age, whether that destination has a job title or a professional qualification attached, or whether it's couched in vaguer terms - but flexibility on how you might get there is probably a good thing at your DD's age. It's probably unrealistic, if you have an 8 point plan, to expect everyone of those 8 points to turn out exactly how you would like at this stage. Very few destinations have only one viable route.

There's are many ways to skin a cat gently.

I've always been a dreamer and a planner. I work out what it is that I want, then try to figure a doable route.

But as I'm always reassessing, i soon change my route if it ain't working.

I think my flexibility has saved me many a time.

Agree entirely with gentlybenevolent

My DH was going to be pm when he was 18, Chancellor when he was 25 and went into law as a way of achieving it. He's still in the law where life and his passion for it overtook his initial ambitions.

Word what's utterly plain is that you've developed a significant issue; this isn't about me. I'm fine and not easily patronised. Why don't you stick to the thread and give us all a break.

The issue about access to the Bar is important, not insignificant, and if you're keen to bust myths don't peddle them or you'll get people like me who know their stuff picking you up on the facts. And in fact, there are no particular myths about entry to the legal profession, despite your assertion that there are. The question of finance/ access happens to be extremely important to a lot of talented young people whose parents aren't rolling in money, even if it's of little consequence to you.