Is Rhys Bevan (pictured) crazy? Why would anyone in their right mind reject a place at one of the top universities in the country to go and do an unglamorous legal apprenticeship at a local authority? Actually, though, when 24 year-old Bevan explains his career choices to date, they kind of make sense... 
Category Archives: Podcast
How to write a successful law blog – and land a job off the back of it
As Hardwicke Building found out last week, lawyers who enjoy writing in their free time can sometimes cause problems. But, on balance, most barristers' chambers and law firms look favourably on applicants with a few bylines to their name – and as the Barbara Hewson furore fades, that seems unlikely to change. Certainly, blogging helped Hardwicke's most junior tenant, Leon Glenister, to get his foot in the door at the Bar...
Podcast: The fight to protect the brand of ‘solicitor’ from the ABS barbarians
The momentum may be with Alternative Business Structures (ABSs) right now as they pour through the newly removed gates to providing legal services – but high street solicitors still have a few secret weapons up their sleeves.
For example, they can spell and employ apostrophes correctly (unlike Apprentice contestant Alex Mills' new legal brand Dynamo Legal). And they are of course qualified in the law (unlike many of the paralegals set to be employed by ABSs over the next few years). After the novelty of legal market deregulation wears off, such attributes could yet save the day, reckons Junior Lawyers' Division's new chief Heather Iqbal-Rayner.
Podcast: Does the criminal Bar have any hope of getting the public onside?
The criminal Bar scored a coup this week when – for the first time in recent memory – it got some positive coverage in the right wing press. Sadly, the comments on the online versions of the articles illustrate just how big a challenge it'll be for criminal barristers to get public opinion on their side in their battle with the government...
Podcast: Dispatches from the exam frontline
Exam season is upon us: students up and down the country are frantically highlighting, cultivating coffee addictions, weeping and – if urban legend is to be believed – tearing key pages out of library books to gain a competitive edge.
Blogger Lucy Pether (pictured with me below), who combines her Legal Cheek editorial duties with the final year of a law degree at LSE, is one such student (although she's never torn pages out of library books). Happily, I'm free from such pain having finished my law degree at neighbouring institution UCL last year. Below, we share our exam tips (and horror stories) for your listening pleasure...
Podcast: Why Wannabe Barristers Should Do Their Time As Paralegals Before Doing The BPTC
The path from the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) to paralegal purgatory is a well trodden one. Sadly, most of those purgatory-dwellers never make it to pupillage heaven. But what if you were to subvert this natural order and, say, become a paralegal before doing the BPTC, gleaning valuable experience and contacts at a much earlier stage than most?
He’s Got 284 Law Student Problems But A Twitter Follower Shortage Ain’t One
In just two months, with a mere 284 tweets, anonymous law student 'LawVicissitudes' has taken Twitter by storm, hauling in almost 6,000 followers with his brilliant #LawStudentProblems.
Yesterday, Legal Cheek blogger Lucy Pether and I went to meet the bright young thing behind some of the most memorable legal tweets of the year, including "#LawTips: edit the Wikipedia page after copying it to avoid plagiarism" and "Downloading torrents whilst sitting in an Intellectual Property Lecture. #Lawkward".
Over a cup of tea at his digs in a city somewhere in England, we chatted with the darling of the law student social media world (pictured below)...