Lawyering

[raven]

Reasons why cross-casting is quite great:

"Tell me, Mr. Shuster, is there any reason why you cannot show enough respect to this court to stand up during your examination-in-chief?"

"I'm pregnant with twins, your honour."

(She later noted it was a good thing we were doing this today, and not in two months' time. "Otherwise I wouldn't even fit in the damned box.")

I spent my morning in a disused courtroom in Oxford Town Hall, sitting on the counsel's bench and enjoying myself far more than I thought I would; it doesn't sound all that fun, being told to turn up at nine in the morning for a mock trial when you have a morbid fear of litigation, and then the thrice-damned man who was supposed to be delivering the opening speech never turned up, but somehow it did come out all right. It's a really nice opportunity, getting to do a mock trial in a real courtroom rather than a prefab classroom sparsely furnished with imagination, but I really wasn't in a good place; see above re: nine in the morning, and also what with everything else that has happened to me/that I have happened to this week, I hadn't done much in the way of prep. But I paid attention and then stood up to deliver closing submissions, and it's amazing how the world constricts in moments like that: it's just you and the empty space in front of your voice.

When I sat down again, the judge found for the defendant. Hmph. But nevertheless I got some very nice feedback on it all: I didn't submit my referenced cases to the court (oops), my body language "suggested heading to the Pole in shirt-sleeves", but otherwise, the verdict was "extraordinarily good". I suspect I may be coming around to litigation.

Thank you, all of you, for the lovely comments you left on my post yesterday; I really appreciate your lovely congratulations, just as I've appreciated you cheering me up all the time I have been trying to do this! The training contract is in Cambridge, starting in September 2011, at just the sort of firm I wanted to be at, and I liked them a lot when I first went there. It is a blessing.

I haven't actually seen the letter yet - for some reason the firm chose not to email or call but write, and obviously the letter went to my parents' address, and they, seeing a heavy envelope with a law firm's stamp, couldn't resist. I think it'll all seem a bit more real when I actually see this letter, but in the meantime, I'm still a little flaily and it hasn't quite sunk in yet, but I've started to have little, happy thoughts, like, I'm going to choose where to specialise, and I could maybe get police station accreditation, and I'm going to qualify. I mean, once I'm qualified, no one can ever take it away from me, if all else fails I can get a market stall in Gloucester Green under a "GET YOUR SMALL CLAIMS HERE" sign. I can endorse other people's passport photographs, I'm going to have a real job.

And, I don't know, I will at last, at last, not be a student. I'll have a salary and somewhere to live of my own, I can start a travelling-abroad fund, I can go to bitchinparty, I can have a house plant. (And love it and adore it and call it George, and mourn it when it dies of overwatering.) I can start to pay off my loans and buy a goddamn garlic press.

And I still have a year with which to go to grad school, if it pans out, and to write fanfic in if it doesn't, and direction in either case. I mean, I still desperately want my LLM, but it's not the end of the world, any more, if it doesn't work out, I've got somewhere to be. I really, really thought this wasn't going to happen for me; this was my fourteenth interview out of fifty-seven applications in three years of applying, and I was... well, you know. I'm still not quite believing it. Thank you all.

Comments

[sir-rosealot.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm glad it's all working out!

(Would use my dancing Dumbledore icon here, but my paid account expired last week and it got swallowed...)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) (I loved that icon! What a shame.)

[sir-rosealot.livejournal.com]

When I can be bothered to renew my subscription it will be reinstated!

[greek-jester.livejournal.com]

*hugs* well done, again! And you can have my garlic press, if you want. I bought it when my me & my sister bought our first house together this year, & I still haven't used the blasted thing. I've used plenty of garlic, just not the press >.<

If you want a houseplant & you have a window with good southern sunlight, try a cactus. They last wonderfully well even if you forget to water them for 6 months straight, & when you do finally remember you get the most beautiful (if short-lived) flowers. They also seem to do best in tomato-plant peat, regardless of what the instructions actually say. The fuzzy ones even look a bit like they should be called George, too :-)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :) Oh, I have killed cacti! I really am terrible with plants. Less so with garlic presses. But truly terrible with plants. And I get attached to them anyway before they die, it's a great pity.

[greek-jester.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* It was worth a try. They are the only plant I can't kill, mainly because of the afore-mentioned forgetting them for 6 months at a time. I planted a few in a window box perched on my windowsill, watered them, then promptly forgot them in the whirl of starting 6th form, going on holiday, & working out what I wanted to do with my life.

After a few initial hiccups, we got on rather well. I'd put a bit of water in the tray every few months, they'd treat me to a few flowers in return, & I'd dust them every so often with a paint-brush & avoid using my deodorant anywhere near them. Unfortunately they didn't survive the gift of a new cactus that infected them all with some kind of fungus, or I'd still have them *sighs*

[dr-biscuit.livejournal.com]

This happening to you is so so awesome. It is like a vindication that good things DO happen to the goodest people.

It does however add further weight to the need for the for a Oxford-Cambridge teletransportation device.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* Thank you very much, dear. And I wonder, maybe they will have opened the famed-in-song-and-story new railway line by September 2011? Maybe?

...okay, probably not.

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

*hugs tight* you deserve it, and I am so pleased it is all working out for you.

Re: LLM... if you can't do it next year, is is not impossible to do it after training contract, then go back into practice, especially if you make it relevant. In some respects I am very much regretting not doing post grad, and trying to work out if it is feasible post TC (answer: yes, if you save, and make it relevant).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*squish* Thank you! I am really happy.

The issue with my proposed LLM is its fundamental lack of relevance to anything, I suspect - legal philosophy never has been very useful! - so I might have to make the major decision later in life between academia and practice. But basically I'm just happy I have a decision re: practice to make!

[mi-guida.livejournal.com]

Some firms will let you take an unpaid sabbatical - if the LLM isn't relevant they won't fund it (they might if it was relevant) but if you can save up they might at least let you have time off to do it, and then you could really decide (having experienced both) if you want to go into practice or academia?

[lizzip.livejournal.com]

Oh hurrah!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

:P :P

[sunlightdances.livejournal.com]

*loves* I'm so happy this is all happening for you.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I am really, really happy.

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

I missed the post yesterday, but I glean from this one that something most excellent has occurred and you are feeling good about it and so I will add my \o/ here and go ascrolling backward through your life to find out what it is (so that I'm not that person who's jumping up and down and smiling because everyone is doing it and it feels nice).

But before I go to become appropriately informed, I saw the phrase in there about you coming to bitchinparty and just had to stop in and express my GLEE at this prospect (not all in caps as I had first intended so as not to frighten you.).

So: gleeeeee!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*squishes you* Thank you, Sal! It may be that I cannot come to the coming-up bitchinparty and will have to come to the one after that there is going to be yes, but I can make it eventually, now!

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

*returning appropriately informed*

Training contract! woot! \0/ for reals!

[walkertxkitty.livejournal.com]

I missed the post where you said you got your position (been sick again/still) but I'm really pleased! I remember when you were just starting out (heck, I remember when you were still in the US equivalent of high school!)

Sounds like you had fun and it sounds really interesting. While I haven't the brains to be a lawyer, I've always been interested in the processes of the court and how justice is carried out.

Good on you! (Please drop a note to me with your address so I can send a holiday card, I've lost track of you again).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much, my dear! I shall go and drop a note with my address on your post.

[deepbluemermaid.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, why is the training contract starting so far in the future? Is that How Things Are Done in the legal profession, or was that your preference to allow for possible postgrad study?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It's traditional among bigger firms to recruit two years in advance so they can recruit people straight out of university - that way you have the gap to take the conversion course and the LPC. Only smaller firms recruit for immediate or one-year start.

[tau_sigma]

At least you will be killing George with love. That is better than neglect. *g*

Well done, well done, again! :) You deserve so many congratulations, it's been a hard time, and I'm glad someone finally saw sense and realised that you are so eminently employable, and so just damn great.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Awww, Tali, thank you. I am so happy about this - it still hasn't sunk in!

(I kill house plants. I love them so much, and then they die. It's very sad. :P)

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

I am quite jealous you get to go to Bitchinparty - I will be Stateside then but for Totally Unrelated Reasons, dammit! - but SO YAYFUL about the rest. YAY FOR YOU SO MUCH!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Gleee! Thank you! I am actually not sure I can go next year, you know? But if there is another one I am SO THERE.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

Oh, many congratulations! Cambridge is a nice place, and I am not at all biased. I never wanted to move back here after Durham, but it has definitely grown on me.

(Came here rather late having just followed a link in shimgray's LJ)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I haven't been to Cambridge since the early nineties, so I am really pleased to hear everyone telling me it's a nice place. :)

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

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