David Haines

Law student testimonial

I was 50 years old when I started studying at the OU, with a varied and interesting career behind me. However like many people I’d become a bit jaded at that point in my working life and I wanted a change. I’ve always been interested in how things work, and I knew that the law was pretty fundamental to society. Work, property, commerce, politics, even family matters, rest on a legal framework which is often not well understood - partly because it is so pervasive.

Now I've completed the course successfully the benefits are surprising and unexpected. I can heartily recommend studying a new subject as a way to rejuvenate your interest in work and life in general.

I've managed to transform my career, doing new kinds of work and achieving much more satisfying results. The sections of the course covering public law, EU law and human rights have reignited an old interest in politics and philosophy which I'd like to pursue academically. I’ve also realised that I don’t especially want to be a lawyer, but that’s partly because of the positive changes wrought in my working life. A bit of formal study really blows the cobwebs out of your brain.

Things I learned in every module of the course were immediately applicable to my job, which is researching new product opportunities related to property and the environment. EU law and the Climate Change Act are major drivers of this business, and an understanding of contract, tort, property law, and many other areas of the law has proved immensely useful.    

The downsides of doing this are of course that your loved ones have to get used to you hiding away a lot of the time, and you'll probably want to do more when you've finished. Also the more you understand the harder it is to swallow received wisdom: but this is a problem familiar to anyone who hears their specialist subject being discussed in press or pub!

It was sometimes a long slog, and balancing your time becomes an obsession. In the first year I was working regularly abroad which was hard to manage, and it took a while to be comfortable with the assignment and exam schedules which are very demanding. It also took me a while to realise that you couldn’t cover everything and it was best not to try. The final module on property law is complex and dry compared to other modules (and it is definitely best left to last) but it was in the end more illuminating than I expected.

For all that it was relatively easy for me: I have both a supportive family and a supportive employer.  I admire those students who complete their OU degrees under much tougher circumstances. I would urge employers to consider the sheer determination and self-reliance which comes as standard with an OU graduate, and to give it strong weight when recruiting new people.

Now I have some new letters after my name but I'm not going to be a lawyer. I'm having too much fun in my existing job, and I couldn't have said that five years ago! I'd like to thank my tutors and fellow students for making the experience so interesting. It's always said that there's a direct correlation between success and attending tutorials, but what people don't tell you is that tutorials are fun because of the interesting people you meet in them. It's been a pleasure, and I know I’ll miss it.