In a departure from the traditional "tap on the shoulder" method of recruitment, applicants for the highest judicial post in the land are being asked to submit a 2,000-word essay in order to demonstrate their intellectual and analytical abilities...
BSB powerless to intervene in Westminster School’s mini-pupillage auction
The Bar Standards Board (BSB) has said that there is nothing it can do to stop one of Britain's most expensive public schools selling a mini-pupillage – if it is not an "assessed mini-pupillage" which directly leads to a job.
Morning round-up: Wednesday 15 May
Ex-Berwin Leighton Paisner solicitor who stabbed his wife to death has prison sentence reduced [Local Guardian]
A quarter of jurors don't understand legal restrictions on internet use; 16% think they can't send emails [The Guardian]
Legal aid reform: let’s be civil – a call for calm [Lawyer Watch]
Women in the law: why big firms can learn from boutiques [The Lawyer]
A prayer for final exams [Instagram]
Bloomberg lawyer who trained reporters quit just days before it was revealed that journalists with company spied on its clients [Mail Online]
"I'm a 2.1 LLB graduate from Essex University, but I got CCC at A-level and I'm thinking of going back and re-taking them" [The Student Room]
End of the day round-up
39 Essex Street suspends recruitment of pupils for the 2014-15 pupillage year [The Lawyer]
BLP to cut 100 UK lawyer and secretarial jobs, support services also under review [Legal Week]
Opportunistic tweet of the week [Mark Stephens on Twitter]
If you have just been made redundant from BLP and you need a litigation job. I am looking for 2x c.5pqe commercial litigation lawyers pls RT
— Mark Stephens (@MarksLarks) May 14, 2013
Legal aid reforms will have a “cataclysmic” effect on justice for London’s ethnic minorities [Evening Standard]
Rookie criminal barrister: Legal aid reforms will mean top legal talent will find the prospect of working in criminal courts less attractive [The Independent]
Man "died after G4S restraint", inquest hears [BBC News]
Tory draft EU bill does not mandate any change [Guido Fawkes]
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...
Judged: Oxford law students’ attempts at smart casual
Following on from the seminal 'How not to be a smart casualty at a law firm open day', our friends at The Tab have sent us five examples of Oxford University law students attempting to pull off smart casual. Legal Cheek's Lucy Pether (pictured) grades the Alan Partridge-ness of the outfits.
Morning round-up: Tuesday 14 May
Fresh questions for Leveson over lawyers' affair: MP says celebrity barrister's lover "did help to write report into Press" [Mail Online]
Judge bars affair revenge naked pictures [The Telegraph]
Facebook says its general counsel is leaving [Bloomberg News]
What is it about the Bar that attracted a 42 year old ex-army tank commander with no A-levels? [Charon QC]
Judge brands former Aston Villa keeper a "true stalker" [The Sun]
Carlos the Jackal's lawyer wife, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, demands he be sent back to Venezuela [Mail Online]
Criminal Bar Association chief fires volleys at government, QASA, BSB and Stobarts in bid to save lawyers from "oblivion" [Legal Futures]
Event – The legal method: pathway to truth or truncheon for the powerful? David Allen Green and Heather Brooke discuss [Eventbrite]
End of the day round-up
Barrister thought to be the best-paid politician in Britain [Mail Online]
Linklaters brolly scheme strikes gold as Coleen Rooney spreads firm's name [The Lawyer]
Gymnast survives hit-and-run accident after using training to protect herself in fall [The Telegraph]
Ask Chris Grayling a question [Twitter]
I'm meeting Chris Grayling tomorrow - what questions would you like me to ask him?
— Catherine Baksi (@legalhackette) May 13, 2013
30 to meet Grayling in legal aid crisis talks [Law Society Gazette]
'A true stalker': Ex-Aston Villa goalkeeper, 32, condemned by judge for destroying ex-girlfriend's life with relentless emails, turning up at her office and even booking a holiday for them both [Mail Online]
3D printed guns are going to create big legal precedents [The Guardian]
Kingsley Napley solicitor Dave Rowntree (of Blur fame) sure takes a lot of holidays…
Over the weekend, rockstar solicitor Dave Rowntree detailed his dismay about the government's legal aid proposals. Work in this area "hardly makes business sense any more", explained the rookie Kingsley Napley criminal litigator, speaking – as The Guardian noted – from Hong Kong where he is recording with Blur. The trip comes hot on the heels of several other glamorous international jaunts of the type not usually associated with your average junior criminal lawyer...
When a covering letter crosses the line from charmingly quirky to wacky
In a tough graduate law job market, there's an argument for injecting a little personality into a covering letter to make it stand out from the thousands of others. Of course, it's easy to go too far...
How long until the Stobart Barrister-Tracker App?
Surely, if it works for lorries....
"Stobarts have promised me that the next version of their app will also track their lawyers..." [@FailingGrayling on Twitter]
Morning round-up: Monday 13 May
Blur drummer who trained as solicitor attacks government's legal aid plans [The Guardian]
Interpreter not sent to translate for a murder suspect - because the company said it was 'not worthwhile as they will not make enough money' [Mail Online]
Jerry Hayes could have said: Grayling’s reforms bode ill for rape victims [A Barrister's Wife]
The uncomfortable truth about rape [Jerry Hayes]
Cleveland Police pay more than £500,000 to Middlesbrough solicitor wrongly arrested [Northern Echo]
Newcastle lawyer changes career to welder [Chronicle Live]
Isabelle Coutant-Peyre: the controversial lawyer suing Ben Affleck for Argo [The Telegraph]
Legal Cheek high five: the week’s most read stories
1. Westminster School auctions a mini-pupillage – current bid £650
3. Argent Chambers barrister Jerry Hayes in BBC Question Time nightmare
4. Exposed: The hipster past of legendary legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg
5. Too much education: why BPP is wrong to damn its graduates to perennial studentdom
End of the day round-up
High Court judge Sir Paul Coleridge praises Keira Knightley's low-key wedding [Marie Claire]
David Allen Green: Will there finally be justice for Daniel Morgan? [New Statesman]
Did you know that Norton Rose's London office was struck by two separate terrorist attacks in the 90s? [Evening Standard]
Law firm takes charity phone box on tour [Bdaily]
Bar regulator bids to take heat out of QASA standoff [Law Society Gazette]
Abu Qatada "willing to return back to Jordan" [The Sun]
Freshfields freezes associate pay as trainee salaries unchanged again [Lawyer2B]
‘Despite their unbridled ambition and long hours, my Clifford Chance contemporaries ended up leaving too’
In the latest post in the 'If I knew then what I know now' series, a lawyer-turned-blogger and property entrepreneur recalls, with mixed feelings, his days in the magic circle.
I studied modern and medieval German and Dutch for the first part of my degree. Realising that being able to recite 14th century Dutch love poetry might not be the skill that would lead to the career of my dreams, I took advantage of the Cambridge Tripos system to jump ship and read law for the rest of my undergrad.
The major preoccupation of other law students was apparently getting summer placements and training contracts. I wasn’t so fussed: I applied to just one firm for a placement (Clifford Chance), was accepted there, and somehow fell into doing the LPC in York. I really had no intention of actually being a solicitor: it was simply that I genuinely couldn’t think of anything else to do...