Keele University’s law society in training contract gavel clanger

Avatar photo

By Katie King on

Hysteria sets in on application deadline day?

Aspiring lawyers across the country will be on their seventh cup of coffee today as they rush to get their last minute training contract forms in. But, despite Keele Law Society’s advice, please don’t include a gavel in your application.

The student law society has posted an image to Instagram telling applicants to make sure they’ve added “those finishing touches” — a sentiment illustrated by a gavel of all things.

It’s a common misconception that gavels are used in UK courtrooms. Keele now joins a long list of law schools continuing to fuel this fallacy.

Last year we reported that the University of Oxford’s Hertford College had included the auctioneer’s hammer in its alumni newsletter. Not long before, BPP Law School dropped a similarly gavel-shaped clanger in its 2015 advocacy manual. And who could forget this Staffordshire University gaffe from the archives?

We’ll put Keele’s gavel post down to training contract deadline day hysteria, which will reach its peak today. If you’re crunching through your last minute applications and are after some tips, check out Legal Cheek’s ‘13 articles you must read if you’re applying for training contracts this summer’ piece. Good luck!

For all the latest commercial awareness info, and advance notification of Legal Cheek’s careers events, sign up to the Legal Cheek Hub.