Legal Research

One of the required elements of the BVC is legal research. You will be given a scenario by your over worked Pupil Master who has asked you to look into what will happen to their client. Its a case of dumping the file on your desk, leaving a note with a few questions on it, and then departing to the Caribbean for a month while they take a holiday, safe in the knowledge that you will discover everything necessary to get answer the problem.

Therein lies the problem with being a Barrister. How can you ever get on when your Pupil Master is an over optimistic idiot. Surely they know that you are an inept bumbling fool that shouldn't be left in charge of making a cup of tea, let alone offering an opinion on a legal issue.

OK, so first thing to do is to check if anyone has a number for the hotel in the Caribbean. Second thing is to let the wave of panic run its course through your veins. Third is to cry.

Opening the file, you will find that the problem isn't quite as bad as you feared. Then you read a bit further, and discover its so bloody complicated and has so many twists and turns that it might just be time to call it a day. You have bluffed your way this far, but you have met your match, you cannot keep up the pretense any longer. You realise that admitting defeat is sometimes an honourable thing to do.

Maybe, just maybe, and you will have to humour me here, its worth making a start? Write something down and see what happens. It might flow, it might convince someone that you know what to do. Stop that manic laughing, give it a go.

Summarise the problem. This is relatively easy, but not for the feint hearted. You have to read the 50 pages of bumf, and summarise it in a logical and easy to follow way.

OK, Mr Smith is a guilty scumbag and got drunk and beat up his wife. She is in hospital with broken ribs, and he says she fell down the stairs. He was arrested, and in the car on the way to the cop shop he said to the copper, I will give you ten thousand quid to let me do a runner. Copper accepts a cheque and lets him out the door as they slow for the traffic lights. As Mr Smith runs round the corner, her trips over a dangerous Pit Bull dog and cracks his head open on the pavement. The policeman realises that he can't turn up at the cop shop without a prisoner, so he goes to the park and arrests a deaf dumb and blind tramp called Kevin. Kevin thinks he is being mugged, so punches the copper who falls backwards and impails himself on the railings outside the parks public convenience. Two man gainfully employed in using a cubicle in the toilets for a pupose not specified to the Parks Committee, hear the screams of the dying policeman and rush outside and nick his wallet. As they run off, one of them gets hit by the ambulance rushing to assist the Policeman and dies. The Policeman is taken to the hospital where he is placed in a bed alongside Mrs Smith.

OK, that was OK. See how it all comes together once you make a stab at it.

Right, what does the idiotic Pupil Master want me to do? Ah, investigate the dangerous dogs act, and advise on what can be done to clean up the park.

Go online, check the cost of a flight to anywhere that doesn't have an extradition treaty with the UK, and go. Just go. Get out of here, because sometimes the law is a bitch and a complicated one at that.

Does anyone ever actually pass Legal Research? Seriously, is it possible?

Bloody hell, I can't read the cost of the tickets through my tears.

Swine Fever and OLPAS Fruits

Swiss is a worried man. Yes, truly worried.

Listening to the radio during breakfast this morning, he nearly choked on his bacon sarnie. Swine fever is at pandemic proportions. Apparently, the honeymooning coupe who first caught it have recovered and gone home, but they passed the lurgy to a friend who is now in hospital.

The figures announced were that FIVE are in hospital, but they still expect 750,000 deaths, and 1.5 Million hospital admissions. Swiss doesn't like to swear, but what the fuck? What sort of distortion of a story is that?

Knowing that the media have been allowed into Family Courts, he wonders at the sort of stories they will come up with for cases they are allowed to see, but are not allowed to report on. (What the fuck?)

Swiss allowed his mind to wander at how reporting would appear in the newspapers and on radio for the OLPAS Fruity Pupillage Portal. He can imagine reports of 250 Million applications being made for only 5 places. The Ministry of Justice has reported a Pandemic and the imminent collapse of justice in this country. All Judges will wear masks, and defendants will appear in Court in isolation tanks whipped from hospitals due to the risk of spreading disease. Solicitor Advoctes will be shipped to Mexico (so not all bad news then) and bacon sarnies will no longer be served in Court canteens.

The government will legislate on pork chops and dogs will no longer be allowed to eat pigs ears. Any child with a bedroom looking like a pig sty will be sent to a Youth Detention Centre until they mend their ways. Members of Parliament will be given an allowance for setting up decontamination facilities at their first, second and third homes.

Anyone caught giving a child a piggy back ride in public will be given an on the spot fine for £5000. If they are talking on their mobile at the time they will be shot.

You may wonder why Swiss is worried? He has heard that Gordon Brown, stateman, world saver and marvel of government has taken charge. Be worried. Be very worried. It is slowly dawning on Swiss why it is actually possible that what is currently only 5 people with the sniffles could result in 750,000 deaths. Gordon is dealing with it.

As if things couldn't get any worse, Swiss was emailed this article which has been released by the Bar Council.

"The Pupillage Portal has had its deadline extended. Whilst we accept that it has been open for applications for over a month, and we are seeking applicants with a bit of common sense to not wait until the deadline before crashing the system, potential barristers who understand the need to be prepared, to manage their time so that they can do what's important, to prioritise their lives, to bloody well meet deadlines, we will give them another days grace."

Swiss has said it before, he will say it again, 'what the fuck?'

Swissle

Made to make your mouth water!!!

There is a rumour going around that the Pupillage Portal will be renamed after this round of applications to the Starburst Portal.

Why can't they just leave things alone.

Well, I am not mentioning the word, but I am done with it. I have chewed, tried all flavours, removed that little bit of paper that always managed to stick to the sweet and only revealed itself after a bit of chewing, and am not going back for a month or so.

Good or bad, Swizzy has done his bit. If they can't see the benefits of having me on their team, then sod them. In fact, before they reject me sod them anyway. Nah nah nah nah nah, I got in first.

Back to my day job in ASDA, and I am once again, saying nuffink.

Jobs a good'un

Swizzlestick

OLPAS - I aint saying nothing, right!

It appears to me that too much is being written, and complained about with OLPAS at the moment. So I have decided that this Blog will be an OLPAS complaint free zone.

Therefore, I have nothing to say on the matter.

I did look for a picture of Marcel Marceau to illustrate the silence, but decided that this picture of me working hard in another of my part time jobs was a better way of putting it.

This is me outside BPP, which I have found is a very lucrative place to stand at weekends for change to be thrown in my little pot. It seems that BPP students are desperate to pay anyone anything to get ahead, so money pours forth from their grubby little hands. CLS students ignored me in a superior way, and CofL students nicked my hat and pushed me off the box.

Its disgraceful, the state of education in this country.

So, I will not mention OLPAS, here, now, tomorrow, or thereafter. I will do it, if I can summon the enthusuasm and work out how to log on, but for now, I am keeping schtum.

You aint seen me, right!

Swizz

Its enough to give you a headache

Whats the big difference between studying a subject full time or part time?

Its just clicked. I know it takes me a while for obvious things to sink in, but I have realised this evening what the MAJOR disadvantage is in studying the BVC part time. I was happy go lucky until now.

Three weeks ago I was given a pile of homework to do. Admittedly, by the standards of BPP it was a teensy weensy little pile, but to me it was a mission. Lets not forget that I have a full time job to hold down, and my part time job as a strip-o-gram to fit in.

So Criminal gave us four items. Civil gave us four. Ignoring the weekends, because I don't want to study during them if I can help it, so we have fifteen evenings available.

What I usually do, is apply myself to homework between say 5pm and 7.30. Then I stop for din dins. Sometimes I do more, often I do less. I have always managed to do whats been required, I have seldom been able to do more than is required, but that has been the gist of my academic life throughout. I am desperate to change that, desperate to shine on the BVC, but its just not happening, life keeps getting in the way.

Anyway, three weeks ago I did the first session of homework, read the text books, made some notes, checked on-line a little, thought about it, worked out my plan, and job done.

The next evening I was out, but the following one I did session 2. Etc etc.

Now, the evening before the weekend of lessons, I have looked at the first piece of homework I did, and I can't remember doing it. Not one part of it is familiar, and the reason that I think I wasn't responsible for it, is because it is shite!

As my dad would say, Shite on a stick!

Mum would say that if it looks like shite, it is shite! (My parents have a way with words)

So three weeks ago I knew it, now I don't. Tomorrow I will turn up for classes, and be clueless aver something that I did know, but have forgotton.

Had I been doing this game fulltime, I would have read it tonight, gone to class tomorrow, done the business, been given the next piece to do, and how easily it would have flowed, a steady drip drip of homework and lessons, all intermingling into a simple, straightforward delight.

Biggest scare of all, is what happens at exam time? I have flicked through past work in panic to see if any of it did sink in, but its not looking good.

I have a feeling of impending doom before me.

I have a headache.

Swizzle (on a stick)

Don't like it

I am not sure that I quite like the exercise I am currently working on, and have a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I have a very strong desire to restrict my submission to a single line 'I have nothing to add your honour'

I am representing a young lad who has beaten up a gang rival in a pub fight. The other side want to bring in evidence of him having been previously arrested and convicted for being drunk, and for fighting, and for drunken fighting, and being a general tosser. They think it will convince the jury that he is a bad'un, a naughty boy that has a propensity for getting drunk and fighting.

I am arguing for the poor lad, sticking up for him because nobody else will, but he is a scumbag drunken twat. I know it has to be done, and innocent until proven guilty and all that, but he is soooo guilty that bad character evidence or not, he did it. I can smell the alcohol on his breath and I haven't even met him yet.

Give me five minutes with him in a cell, and he won't be drinking anything except through a straw, M'lud.

Criminal Law is just not for me i am afraid. Any areas of law that involve pressing pretty wild flowers and making daisy chains?

I just don't like it.

Buggered if I know what to do!

Further to my previous posting about persuading someone to my point of view in 100 words, I have been set a new challenge.

What part of legislation or area of law would I change in 750 words.

Blimey, where to begin!

There is so much that makes me angry. So many things that reduce me to a state of apoplexy. People should avoid me when I even think about some of the stoopid rules that govern this fine and beautiful land.

Trouble is that as this is for a pupillage application, and I just don’t think getting up on my soapbox, or punching people is the way forward, once again the problem becomes harder to deal with.

It needs to be well thought through, considered and eloquent. Not something I have ever been famed for doing. It also needs to be something that I am not that bothered about changing, because when I tried writing about the main antagonising issues that create a red mist across my eyes, I end up bashing the keyboard so hard the letters go all wrong.

So the real question is, what area of law am I not that bothered about, don’t give a flying fig about, but can manage to write a couple of pages about without getting too angry or shouting about.

That excludes ASBO’s. To be honest I quite like them. Mine is hanging in a frame behind my desk. It excludes the death penalty which I would introduce, especially for drivers using the phone on roundabouts. It excludes anything related to driving actually. Parking in disabled spaces is the thing that REALLY makes me mad. Speed cameras… ooh, I am getting annoyed again.

It excludes most laws that we have, but not anything in Blackstones, which are all proper laws and don’t annoy me whatsoever. Ah, so that’s where I need to begin my search. The Big Book of Law. Normal laws, find something with an edge to it, and then write about how I would change it.

Nothing too off the wall because I don’t want the pupillage committee thinking I am a nutcase. Let them find that out once they select me, but not at the interview. This needs some cunning and strategy. It needs thought, and that, I am afraid, is where I fall down.

Crickey Moses, this pupillage lark is a real nuisance.