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Catch up

I have several things to mention, so this might be a kill bill part one, two and infinity job.

1. The barristers
2. Gordon Ramsay's 'outing' this morning in the NOTW- another 'Mosley' court battle on the horizon? Good essay question methinks.
3. Paul Dacre v Eady J (I know I'm late to the party)
4.Legal week nod (thanks to Android)
5. General ramblings

Part one

The Barristers.

So I am 30 minutes into episode 2 on iplayer. I want to refrain somewhat from pulling the featured candidates apart too much for the reason that the final cut is what the editors want to portray...they have an agenda, whatever it may be. So however each candidate comes across, I bear in mind that for every stupidaggine a student came out with, there may have also been a ray of genius. Anna did much better than I thought she was going to when asked the problem question about a mother giving consent on behalf of her disabled daughter to have a hystorectomy. Where I'm up to: Iqbal looks like a safe bet to be a good barrister in practice, despite the competent. Sensible, likeable, seems grounded. Tick yes. The Oxford grad seems like a nice girl, and maybe she is more switched on than she appears on the tape but as I have said previously even Oxbridge grads have a hard time if they are not appealing on paper, which is what the construction barrister said to her over the middle temple drinks. The fact that she applied to Blackstone speaks volumes. Do your research. It is a numbers game of sorts. Look at the people who are there- academically and professionally SPECTACULAR. If you don't fall into that bracket do not waste one of your precious 12 choices on a certain rejection.

It highlights the lottery of Olpas- part of the victory is chosing the right set to apply to. If you get that wrong, and lets be honest, all of us probably have a few chambers where we aspire to go to but we know it is a pipe dream, then you are doomed from the outset.

Anna is another story. Geeklawyer reckons that her accent is put on but I don't think so. She also doesn't seem to have fully grasped the order of things, and I was glad to see the chambers giving her feedback. The 'impressions' she did while in the interview were a bit cringeworthy, but you could put that down to nerves, or a lack of interview etiquette. But what I couldn't fathom was why she mentioned her furniture store job. Big 'family fortunes' X EHH EHHHHHH X. Android says, quite rightly, that it is the kind of job which gives evidence of good skills. True. But the bar is a snobby place! Its fine if you did a bar job at Uni, a great leveller. But if you are going for pupillage, committees want to see you busting your balls at a firm, at a charity, doing research, getting published, doing a job where you are in a management or supervisory position if it is non law (and that doesn't include being a till cruiser at M&S) or doing something truly amazing like trekking the andes or going to war torn Namibia to hand out aid! (N.B. I have no idea whether Namibia is war torn, just a place plucked off the top of my head). For the record, I like many others have done some really horrible jobs. But they will never find their way onto my CV, never mind a chambers interview.

Anna was being honest. But her honesty and slight 'devil may care' attitude didn't help her. I envied her outer calm as I'm sure she was shitting it, and I hope she works on her weaker bits as I think she'll be alright if she gets a 'lawover'.

All the students need to be Cheryl Cole'd. By that I mean, give them a lawover. Stars in their eyes style.

TONIGHT MATTHEW, I'M GOING TO BE.....

A barrister. (If you'll bloody give me a pupillage!)

Tell them how to act, how to speak, what to say, what to highlight, what to keep quiet. I am currently patenting a Dr Who like contraption that will do this.

Keep you posted once I watch the rest of it.


2. Gordon Ramsay. Cheating on his wife for 7 years. Apparently. I'm sure David Beckham will have wise words on how to handle the media fallout...

Oh. Dearie. Me. NOTW have tried to limit their liability in privacy as against Gordon and the girlfriend by stating that they have both discussed their private and family lives in public previously. This is playing the reasonable expectation of privacy card. Fair enough, I think that any argument by Ramsay's team that there is a BOP is going to be on quite narrow grounds. I will have to think about this part of the claim and see whether he has any real cause of action. I don't think it is looking too good.

On the libel front I think there's a good claim. I don't think the NOTW cares though and I expect that they have already decided their upper limit to settle. On the basis of this new found 'tabloid morality' they will argue that they are ridding the media of hypocrisy. Please watch for my forthcoming essay on here as to why that is UTTER BOLLOCKS.

But I must sign off for now as sleep is calling me- will bore you all again soon.

This is the timtable for the next few days:

Friend: are you working tomorrow or at uni?
Sent at 8:30 PM on Sunday
me: tomorrow: job 1, job 2, uni
tues- uni, job 1
weds- uni - job 2 - uni
thurs, uni - job 1 -job 2
fri-job 1 - job 3
ah no
fri job 1 - uni - job 3

So I am a tired girl right now.

Crazy

I'm here, alive- just!

Lass- thanks for message, I got it and then I just don't know where the last month went! But I'm here! How are things with you?

Minx- blog control? Do tell! or send invite at least!

Ok so. LLM thesis almost finished but not quite. New masters v v v heavy-going. Job hunting like crazy because its grim out there. Goldman Sacs has laid off 600 people. If they can't afford to employ people then it is no wonder I can't find a job (let alone one which fits around my course).

A friend of mine got a pupillage interview the other week, and we met for a drink afterward to analyse it to death. The problem question he had been given to answer was easy peasy but we were both a little taken aback by a question from Head of Chambers.

Friend: 'Head of chambers asked me why I didn't do so well in my a-levels'

Me: 'What did you get?'

Friend: '2 As, 2Bs and a C'

Me: 0_0 (wide eyes- speechless)

If that's not doing so well then there really is no hope for people with worse A-levels than that.

Le Credit Crunch

Skint Skint Skint

Had to turn down the only job sent my way lately (Magic circle no less. They wanted 5 days a week graveyard 12-8am. Can't do that and study. 3 days maybe)

Turning to any means to raise funds:


Having said that, was at a French investment bank today, sun was shining in central london, very indian summer. The bankers were positively strolling to lunch, no panic to be seen, infact, everyone looked so serene you wouldn't think there'd been a week of global economic turmoil!

I start next week at UCL. Hopefully it is big enough, and the blogging community small enough that no one will know about this blog. Had I not been accepted I would have been the classmate of another blogger at a bar school, which would have been very intersting to say the least! Hoping bar school goes well for everyone this year and please let us have your tips.

If anyone has any money making tips (legal) then please share. I have already thought about cake baking and farmers markets, pushing the tutoring (which to be honest takes more prep time than I can afford), washing cars, helping old ladies across the street, street bouncer, pub work (no pubs round here are hiring)or the usual high street retail grind. Ideas please.

I guess I could always try my luck busking!

Expectation recalibration

I am up revising Easements as I am tutoring first thing tomorrow. Resit law students.

Good lawgirl says, 'do it for free- if these poor souls had attended undergrad with you you would have bored them to death without taking their cash!'

Poor lawgirl says 'take the money you fool- you are in debt up to your eyeballs'

Business lawgirl says 'start offering discounted rates for more than one pupil, and do some advertising. Set up as a sole trader and keep your receipts. Plus, you're recapping all the law you're hazy on and getting paid to reaffirm your knowledge'

Aspiring barrister lawgirl says 'I hope chambers like this sort of thing. I know I also need to do something 'outstanding', like walk on water, but hopefully this will do for now until I invent hover shoes that work'.

So chaps I leave you with a comment I posted on Reductio ad Absurdum's blog not so long ago, about pupillage expectations...

"I am just sitting here doing a piece of work and looking at some scribbled notes of mine from a lecture where I have obviously drifted off and start writing down thoughts on pupillage. My last scribbling underlined three times is "intellectual darwinism".

We can no longer say we don't know the score when it comes to the conversion rates of law students to barristers. It is like training for the SAS. Only longer and more barbaric.

I haven't even applied to chambers yet, and that is because I know that there is more CV plugging that must be done before I am a reasonable prospect on paper. Law firms keep a record of applications they reject and compare applications of students who apply several times. In all probability I doubt many that many Chambers are that administratively organised because the attitude to recruitment investment is archaic.

There was a recent study done (I can't remember whether it was oxford or cambridge) that found that the introduction of the compulsory 'award' i.e. SALARY has caused the drought of places because chambers simply aren't willing to take the financial risk. In their minds, the more highly qualified a person, the less risk. That is quite facile, but to a certain extent true, the higher qualified in theory have more potential. However, that is not always the case. There are pratical skills that can't be measured academically.

Some of the top law firms have a turnover in excess of £1 billion, on a 30% profit margin. In contrast, the bar's top performer in terms of revenue, Brick Court, is turning over just £24 million. That may still seem a lot to those of us who are supping on value baked beans, but I ask the question of whether chambers are operating on 30% profit margins? Subtracting costs and dividing the remainder equally between members (for the purposes of looking at chambers as one business entity for the moment) it is no wonder there are only 500 or so pupillage places anually. LEss this year. 1500-2000 students graduate from the bar every year. In the last ten years that means a top figure of 20,000 aspiring barristers and roughly only 5,000 pupillages. That means that the real size of the bar market is roughly between 2500-3500 new permanent positions in the last decade.

It's nigh impossible for most people. There are chambers who are exclusivley oxbridge, or in the case of Fountain Court, almost exclusively Eldon Scholars! There is no competing with that. On one hand, we've got to be uber-realistic about our prospects, but on the other hand we can't take the rejection too much to heart. It's a tiny tiny market, of course they are going to take the best and minimise their risk.

So you change how you play the game. You look at their scoring criteria. Up to five points for academic acheivement (a 2:1 gets 1-2 points, an extra point for a post grad qualification and so on. A first at undergradute gets 3-4 points). If the range scoring is 0-5, then you are looking to score in the fours and the fives. The same scoring is used for legal experience, extra curricular experience, advocacy and suitability for profession, and lastly the all elusive 'Chambers qualities'. I scored myself the other day. I wouldn't make the paper sift yet.

There are new tenants in some chambers who have degree after degree, published articles, founded foreign charities and climbed kilamanjaro. They have triple and double starred firsts. These hyper-achievers were always going to get to the bar. They key is to look at how the others have made equal successes of themselves.

I don't expect that I will get pupillage the first, or even at the second time of trying. Because after my first round there will be a new round of graduates, and those who score higher than I do will get the pick of the places. So I know it is going to be long and arduous. It is why I flirted with the idea of going to a firm for so long. I have a massive mortgage and massive debt. I already can't afford it.

But that is my driving force."

leaveamessage

I'm sorry that im not around
To listen to what you have to say
I hope it wasn't so important that I
Just had to hear cause it couldn't wait
I wish I knew what it was you wanted
Just to see if there was something that I could do
Oh, I know you probably thinking the worse of me now
But I understand that im not avoiding you

[Chorus]

If I don't call you or come over its only just 'cause
I got so much work to do
So sometime before this song is over

Leave a message and I'll promise I'll get back to you

Common sense wins the day...

LONG POST ALERT

...Firstly because a judge in New Zealand held you can't call a child "Talula does the Hula From Hawaii". Sigh of relief.

Secondly, because Max Mosley won his case.

Why am I so bothered? Because this case goes to the heart of why I want to practice in this area of law. There are many injustices which are more worthy of protection- but professionally, I am drawn to this sphere. I can't really pinpoint why, put it down to interest, affinity and good grasp of the subject.

Who is Mosley? A kinkster who by accident of birth had a rogue anglo-nazi for a father. Chief of the FIA. A switch who likes to be spanked and caned and pays for the pleasure.

Where is the public interest in his private life in general?

Is he a politician/notorious public figure/celebrity/publicity-hungry individual who has waxed lyrical on moral standards? No.

Is it illegal to pay for sex/a dominatrix/be spanked/spank someone else with consent/other BDSM play? No.

Is there any public interest in the sexual habits of the chief of the FIA and does it make a difference if those habits include a scene based on a Nazi concentration camp (as opposed to Stalin's gulags, or guantanamo bay and such)? Eady says no. LG agrees.

Why?

Has freedom of the press been curtailed by this judgment? HELL no! And I defy Myler to keep on whingeing.

Because really, what this is all about, what it is only ever about, is money.

I digested every single word of the judgment, not one giving rise to the kind of salacious idiocy that spouted from the mouth of the loser on the steps of the high court, his media cronies lapping it up.

The fact that the NOTW chose to fight this case shows one thing- there is massive money- more than will ever be disclosed- to be made from these kinds of stories. Tabloid bullshitjournalism never was too tightly tied to the maxim of "the people's right to know" merely for the sake of knowledge or self-betterment, but for the sake of sales. The NOTW themselves admitted in evidence that the videos of the scene drove traffic to the site in droves. Nice fat advertising revenues at half the cost. Tidy. This really is a successful business model. Until, of course, the law gets in your way.

There are several theories that the powers that be in F1 racing were orchestrating a night of the long lives scenario for good ol' Max for the changes he was implementing in F1. Maybe. Another theory is that he pissed off Murdoch. Whatever the truth, it does seem random. Is tabloid journalism the moral police of sport and the moral regulator of those who hold distinguished/semi-public office? They must surely have some room in the budget for the head of golf, rugby, cricket, lawn tennis...I hear the governing body of water polo are all quite depraved. Call to the NOTW anyone?!

Sarcasm aside- this case did not need to go all the way. It only did so due to the erroneous reliance by the defence on several arguments which they thought must succeed, only one of which was plausible and the rest of which were pipe dreams. Certain passages of the judgment come dangerously close to hinting that that churnalist Neville something is telling porky pies. His evidence is held to be unreliable and contrived. Argument after argument is run and Eady shoots down almost all of them. The public have a right to know that this man engages in "Nazi" role play. An assault is a criminal offence which must be punished. The claimant is keeping a brothel. Eady is not having it.

And quite right. But why?

Why should the public be denied this information? Because it is salacious, because it is gratuitous, because the claimant has not waived his presumptive right of privacy in this area of his life by previously publicising it. Is every act in every place public? Of course not. Does someone's sex life become public property if it is unconventional or even morally abhorrent? It shouldn't, but it often does. The unfamiliar is always more newsworthy, the salacious always more interesting. That is the point at which it becomes a commodity for sale, rather than a gold nugget which will advance the intellectual and moral development of society.

Nazi scene or no Nazi scene, do we now answer to the thought police in the form of the Press? Is anyone who holds an office which is semi-public subject to a nebulous concept of 'morally acceptable behaviour' and woe-betide him or her if he puts a foot (or a paddle) out of line? What a croc!

Let's suppose for one moment it had been a Nazi concentration camp scene. And while held not to be, on the face of it, that was not an unreasonable conclusion. Firstly, would that be illegal? No. Glorifying or denying the Holocaust is not an offence in this country, although it is undoubtedly reprehensible. Prince Harry made the mistake of shimmying in SS uniform or whatever and there was outcry- it seems that we are quite a sensitive nation still when it comes to the Nazis. That's a good thing within reason. Ol' Maxy was not wise, having been warned he was being watched, to play a scene such as that. On the other hand, you don't really ever envisage that one of your doms is going to be bought and that two days later your afternoon of fun is going to be plastered all over the Sunday paper while you are sitting down to cornflakes and camomile.

Would there be a public interest in the hypothetical scene per se? Depends. If it were Gordon Brown, or David Davis, or someone holding public office then arguably yes. As a public servant, an act of such potential political controversy would fall within the realm of public interest. No problem Neville. Celebrity? Possibly. It would have to be a Campbell or Moss situation: i.e. if the claimant had previously made information public about this area of their life, or had publicly lied and then was found to be lying, then again I would think a claim would have a reasonable to good chance of being beaten, dependent on facts.

Max Mosley was never a good target for this kind of thing- legally speaking. There was little public interest in him in general, let alone such a private area of his life. Trying to argue that acts of such 'depravity' could affect his ability to do his job sail close to the wind of plausibility- if he had been gay then imagine trying to run that element of the argument. Eady held, and quite rightly, that in the circumstances it would be the FIA who would have had the interest in knowing, not the public. This must surely be right- as an employer/employee relationship subsists, it is only right that an employee must be fit for the job at hand. But unless that person is a public servant/a person who makes a living from selling their life to the press, what business is it of ours? The hidden agenda is yet to be revealed.

What strikes me is the advice (or lack of) given pre-publication. Perhaps in-house consel chained themselves to the desk in order to prevent Myler running the story but was overpowered by wit, grit, and stupidity. Perhaps in-house counsel was on hols. This case says nothing new. The NOTW must have had a niggling suspicion they couldn't win. They were trying to prevent liability in libel and didn't think a cause of action in privacy would win because they thought that the public interest defence has the same application in each. It doesn't, being more subtle than that. Campbell, Douglas and Von Hannover are clear as a bell- if it's a photograph or video then it will be the death-knell to your claim/defence. If a picture is intrusive then it is fatal to your case. The judges hate them. Read Campbell. Despite hollering and whining and snivelling, we have a law of privacy in this country. It is called breach of confidence in anglo-saxon and Article 8 in eurospeak. Europe has not encroached, we signed the thing and it is we who had to give effect to the convention. Instead of creating statute, this has arisen incrementally through Eady J the common law.

But is 'freedom of the press' curtailed? Nah. Stupid cry-babies. Firstly, it has been made clear that freedom of the press does not extend to the type of behaviour and reporting exemplified in this case, or the case-law before it. There is no freedom to do what is not your job to do! At the same time, do not be fooled by the propaganda that the press is more restricted as a result of this case. If the press were cleverer than Myler & co, more shrewd in the nature of the presentation, less like a sledgehammer in their emails to the other doms and more eloquent in their copy, it is possible that they would have had a much better chance at defending the claim. As it was, it is definitely a good advert for unjustified arrogance. By the boundaries becoming more defined as to what the courts will and won't tolerate, it is actually more beneficial to the press. They may have had 60 grand ordered against them but 5RB don't come cheap! As with every good con, the press will soon find their way around the ruling and achieve their aims in a different way making the same profit. £60k must be a drop in the slush fund ocean. It is principle. It is the principle that actually, this 'law' of privacy that the tabloid junket seem to hate so much, is actually a restraint on trade.

So what is the case saying?

It says:

If you are the son of Oswald Mosley and have not publicly denounced your offending parent, do not be surprised that that Achilles heel (justifiably or not) will be used against you.
If you are well-known, make sure you are very very very careful when arranging BDSM activities. Make sure confidentiality agreements are signed.
If you are doing a judicial scene, try russian next time.
Don't delete your emails, or at least get a good tech guy to erase them prop-er-ly, as if you had never written them.
Don't expect to participate in unconventional behaviour and not be judged, somewhere along the line.
If you are going to publish such information, get sound pre and post publication advice. Don't rely on journalists who can't spell and have a cough poor memory.
Don't let counsel make your defence up as you go along to bend to the prevailing wind.
Don't put yourself in the position of being accused of blackmail.
Don't think that arrogance and financial might will win the day.
Next time, get James Price.