Law - OU Community Online

Interested in attending a careers evening in London for mature students and career changers wishing to enter the legal profession? Find out more.

A first class (hons) LLB with the OU is just the beginning of a career for Donna Nicholls and she says it's the perfect platform to start from...

How did you find out about the OU?
I was aware of the OU and how they provided home study as my Mum had taken courses with the OU whilst I was still at school.

I had my children quite early and never finished my ‘A’ level courses. As my children got older I realised that once they grew up and left home I would still have a long working life ahead of me; I wanted to ensure that I would be in a position to work in a career I enjoyed and that could provide me with a challenge and job satisfaction. Studying Law at University had always been an ambition from around the age of 14.

Why did you choose to study Law with the OU over other institutions?
I really liked the fact that I could study part-time, in my own home, this allowed me to timetable my study around work and family commitments. The monthly payment options were attractive as well; you pay for each module as you are studying it. This eased a lot of the financial worry of going back to University. It also means that you finish your degree with no debt as each module is paid for as you finish it.

I completed a short Openings course to gain an insight into studying with the OU, I loved it and it gave me the confidence to do more. Having been out of study for so long I don’t think I would have had the confidence to sign up to a traditional university, it is far easier to send in your assignments by e-mail and read the feedback in the privacy of your own home. It is also comforting to know that the majority of people on the course feel the same, and this makes attending tutorials far less intimidating.

When I read the prospectus and saw that the course was provided in conjunction with the College of Law I knew that it would be an excellent course and would be well-respected in the profession. Although I signed up with a view to career progression, initially I just wanted to see how far I could go on each course and gain the personal satisfaction of earning a degree.

I knew that the OU did not discriminate or make any requirements of its students to sign up to a course, and this was not as daunting as applying to a Law course at a traditional university.

Are you currently employed and did you work alongside studying for your degree?
I am currently employed as a General Advisor within the Co-operative Banking Group. I worked part-time throughout my degree. For the first four years I worked at a local newspaper as a receptionist and sales administrator. I only ever wanted to work part-time as it allowed me the time to concentrate fully on my studies; and still have time for my family.

I found working beneficial as it prevents you becoming too isolated as studying at home can become a little lonely and it makes you take a break and reflect on what you have learnt. I also realised how much the law affects people’s everyday lives, and how legal solutions are applied in reality. I quite often found it helped in an assignment to try and apply the scenarios to situations I could relate to.

I also think that when I was made redundant, my studies with the OU helped me to find employment with the Co-op and meant that I was not out of work for long. Through my OU study I was able to illustrate my good time-management and organisational skills, as well as my academic abilities.

Working within the Bank has given me an insight into working in a professional environment, and how regulatory and legal requirements are implemented in the workplace; this was a definite advantage when I went on to do the Legal Practice Course (LPC).

What was your greatest challenge/greatest success during your studies?
Although I could not say that I didn’t find all the modules challenging, I loved every minute of my OU studies and so never found motivation a problem, and my family could not have been more supportive. I think the biggest hurdle I faced was when both my husband and I were made redundant within six months of each other and taking my first Level Three exam wondering if we would have the resources for me to continue to the end of the degree.

My greatest success was walking into my graduation at the Barbican and going to collect my gown, it was a moment that I had dreamed of for six years and I couldn’t quite believe I had done it. The pride in my husband and children’s faces that day will stay with me forever.

What are the next steps towards getting a training contract for you?
Having completed the LPC, my next steps are to continue to apply for training contracts and paralegal opportunities. I do not have a lot of legal work experience as having to study part-time and work made seeking summer vacation work difficult. I used to use most of my holiday entitlement in October so that I had enough time to revise thoroughly for the end of module exams and so had very little spare time to engage in work experience with firms.

At present I am sending out speculative applications to firms, but there is not too much available in the way of advertised vacancies. The introduction of ABS seems to be impacting on firms’ willingness to commit to the expense of a two year training contract.

To gain a little more experience I have applied to some voluntary schemes such as the Restorative Justice Panel; and will consider asking as local firm if they would support me in gaining Police Station Accreditation.

I am hoping that my life experience and work experience within the banking industry will illustrate that I am a good candidate; it is slightly frustrating that a lot of firms bemoan a lack of legal work experience, but then require candidates for paralegal roles to have gained the LPC. I am also concerned about the removal of the minimum salary for trainees from 2014.

What area of Law interests you most? And what role are you aiming for?
I have an interest in Family Law, and in the more specialised area of Public Child Law. I also studied Advanced Criminal Practice on the LPC, and have an interest in Youth Justice especially. I am also interested in the private client element of work. I would say this places me firmly in the traditional high street bracket, however finding training contracts in this area is especially tough as Legal Aid is being cut and firms are unsure of their futures.

Having said that I also enjoy employment law and as I work in a corporate environment at present would not rule out working in these fields if the opportunity arose.

Where do you hope to be in 5 years’ time?
In five years I hope to be a fully qualified solicitor. I would also like to gain Higher Rights of audience to become a solicitor - advocate. I have ambitions to go as far as I can within the profession, perhaps become and associate or partner; or possibly the judiciary. I know I have a lot of hard work ahead of me before I will be in such a position, but I will take each stage as it comes as I have done throughout the academic stage of my legal career.

Would it have been beneficial to you if you had been employed by a law from whilst doing your degree and they supported your study with a job at the end?
It would have been so beneficial to have been employed by a Law firm whilst doing my degree, even if they could not guarantee a training contract at the end of it.

I have found whilst completing my LPC that most firms ask what legal experience you have gained during your studies; and a negative answer seems to imply to them that you are not committed to a legal career; or that you just woke up one day and decided you quite fancied being a solicitor!! (Despite the commitment of six years hard study!) Whilst at school and college I completed work placements with two solicitors firms which included shadowing in county and crown courts; and visiting clients, my mum was a magistrate and so I often sat in the public gallery watching proceedings, so I had a fair idea what the profession entailed when deciding that I wanted to study Law.

I think being employed within a law firm would provide invaluable experience, and provide all important contacts within the profession that make finding an opportunity easier. I have found that it is still a profession that who you know can be more important than what you know.

Whilst both my employers were extremely supportive of my studies, working within a legal environment would have been extremely useful.

Find out more:

• Study Law at the OU 

 

The Open University’s Rosemarie McIlwhan, a lecturer in law and human rights, is co-chair of this roundtable debate hosted by The Lawyer magazine in association with the OU.

The debate covers the topic of international public law and human rights, and you can watch the video here.

 

If you’re studying law and thinking about how your career can develop, Amanda Weaver, Principal Solicitor provides an insight. She has recently set up her own firm: New Leaf Solicitors and talks about the challenges of study, gaining work experience and how she made the decision to set up on her own...

What inspired you to study law? And how did you find the study?
I can’t actually pin point the reason why I chose law but I wanted to be a solicitor from about aged 15. I wanted a profession and I was scared of blood so being a Doctor was out the question and so I liked law. I did actually enjoy the studying, it was very intense and you had to have a good memory to recall all the different cases. I’ve always been interested in family law rather than corporate. I’m just interested in people’s stories I think.

Did you have a job in place when you graduated?
I graduated with a law degree and then I did a post graduate diploma in legal practice. I didn’t have a job (a trainee solicitor Position) in place. I applied to many many firms but at that time and still today competition was high and I didn’t get a position. I joined Barclays initially intending it to be just for the summer when I’d graduated but I got promoted into their Human Resources department and I advised staff on policies and procedures. I worked for Barclays for 4 years, much longer than I intended but I enjoyed working there but I still hankered after my career in law.

I sent off lots of letters to solicitors firms looking for a paralegal position. I thought they might take me on as a paralegal and I could then prove myself to be worthy of a trainee solicitor position and that’s what happened. I got a job for a firm in Leamington Spa as a paralegal. I did that for about a year and I could apply for some of my time as a paralegal to be taken into account towards my training as a solicitor.

Tell us about the firm...
It was a 10 partner or so firm. A high street practice dealing with a number of fields of law such as conveyancing, criminal, corporate, wills and family and litigation.

How did you decide what to specialise in?
I found family law the most interesting. It’s much easier to remember the facts of the case if there’s a personal element or a story attached to them. Being a family solicitor takes an extra skill of being able to deal with very emotional clients and dealing with clients who themselves don’t want a divorce and so they can be reluctant or difficult to deal. I’m a good listener and want to help people and I am patient and so family law was a good fit! And I found corporate law a total yawn, ha!

How did you find turning study into practice?
Oh my gosh completely different. You have to learn all the statute titles and case law and all the proper names for procedure and then you find yourself in an interview with a client who just needs advice in layman’s terms. It’s like you have to immediately shed all the formal and technical terms and try to explain everything in easily understandable English. And the turnaround of work was obviously much quicker. You go from doing a piece of work such as a draft letter to a client in one week to having to do at least 10 letters a day and draft statements and see clients etc.

Did you work for the same firm during the 10 years or move jobs?
I’ve moved about. After I qualified I stayed with same firm for another year and then I took a 1 year career break and travelled in Australia and New Zealand. I worked for law firms as a paralegal in Melbourne and Sydney and worked for a major law firm for 3 months in central Sydney. It was quite a come down to then return home and work for little firm in Birmingham. I did question why I’d returned. I then moved to firm in Northampton for 3 years, was a locum for 6 months and then went to Market Harborough where my last job was for 2½ years before I left to set up my own firm.

What are the career routes in a solicitors (i.e. do you go from solicitor to partner or is there a structured route)?
There’s no structured route or path to partnership as some firms call it. It depends on the practice. It just depends on whether you want to become a partner and what you can bring to a firm. There are solicitors and associates who are still solicitors but are almost partners. And then partners. I didn’t want to become a partner because I didn’t want the extra liability if I didn’t get a say in how I wanted the firm to operate.

What made you decide to move from working for someone to setting up your own solicitors?
I have a lot of experience and so I was comfortable in being able to stand on my own two feet. I also knew the work that’s involved in getting a new business off the ground in terms of networking and promoting a business and I was prepared to take on that challenge. I wanted to offer the same expertise to a client but under more flexible terms, such as seeing the client in an evening or at a weekend. Financially, I wanted to personally benefit from all my hard work rather than just lining the pockets of the partners. Personally I wanted more flexibility in my lifestyle – ‘I’m prepared to work hard but if I want half a day to go shopping then I can take it and I’ll just work longer another day.

Can you give OU students any tips on securing their first job in law?

• Don’t be disheartened if you apply to lots of firms and they don’t even reply, a lot don’t
• Make as many contacts as you can, who you know could really just give you that way in to doing a placement and then being able to demonstrate that you’d be an asset to the firm
• Offer to shadow for a week or a few days just to get some experience of whether you’d actually like to work in a law firm
• Keep writing to firms with your CV because sometimes it may be just luck that your cv and letter lands on the partners desk when they decide they need a trainee or a paralegal
   

Find out more:

• Study Law at the OU
• Career advice from the OU
• More student career stories
• New Leaf Solicitors

Lawyers see many strange cases. Can you tell truth from fiction in this Weird Law quiz devised by Professor Gary Slapper, the founder of the OU's Law School?

There are 10 questions. A prize of a camera to the first three correct entries, plus the first will also receive a copy of Professor Slapper's latest book, More Weird Cases. 

 

1. As consumer litigation has become prolific, companies have taken extraordinary steps to cover themselves. Which, if any, of these product warnings is fabricated?

(a) Household iron - “Never iron clothes while they are being worn”

(b) Cocktail napkin picturing waterways of South Carolina - “Caution: not to be used for navigation”

(c) Digital thermometer - “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally”

(d) Toilet brush - “Do not use for personal hygiene”

 

2. Drivers have been prosecuted for doing some unusual things while driving. One of these is fictitious, which?

(a)  A lawyer was caught driving to Exeter while highlighting passages in Archbold, the 3,000 page tome on criminal pleading, on his lap

(b)  A safety expert was caught driving to Dundee at 60mph while shaving

(c)   A one-eyed man from Renfrewshire was caught driving while reading a newspaper

(d)   A man with no eyes was caught driving on the wrong side of the road in the West Midlands

 

3. Who said this in furtherance of a lawsuit? “I agreed to go with him, and on the walk to a private area, he told me he wanted to make love to me. [He] found a place where we could be alone – a bathroom.” 

(a) Ruby the Heart Stealer, a belly dancer who was a guest at a party Silvio Berlusconi hosted at his home last year

(b) Mariah Yeater, who brought a paternity suit against Justin Bieber

(c) Mike Jones, masseur, referring to Rev Tom Haggard, former leader of The National Association of Evangelicals

(d) Ginger White, referring to the origin of a 13-year affair with Mr Herman Cain

  

4. Match these offences with the number of times each appears in the law reports of the higher courts (i) benefit fraud (ii) shoplifting (iii) robbery (iv) corporate crime

(a) 1,367

(b) 1,044

(c) 11

(d) 255

  

5. Human rights are often misreported. Three of these headlines were published by newspapers, which wasn’t?

(a)  Police can’t put up ‘Wanted’ posters of dangerous criminals on the run because of their human rights

(b)  How a suspected car thief was granted his human rights to a KFC bargain and a 2-litre bottle of Pepsi

(c)   Cat has human right not to be chased by neighbour’s dog

(d)  Human rights laws cost Britain £42bn

 

6. All these court declarations were made by angry judges. Three were from the US. Which one was from an English judge? 

(a) “Give me a gun; I’m going to shoot his balls off and give him a .38 vasectomy”

(b) “I don’t care if either one or both of you win this case. I have shot and killed better men than both of you”

(c) “I’m going. It’s a f----ing travesty”

(d) “Keep that mouth of yours shut or I will...strangle you, you b--tard”

  

7. Denying legal aid to a man charged with trying to hire a prostitute, Judge Eamon O’Brien said: “If you can pay for the services of the oldest profession, then you can afford to pay for the services of the second oldest profession.” Which, if any, of the following prostitution cases is false? 

(a) In Ottawa, Laura Emerson, employed as a cleric at the courthouse, was accused of using it as the headquarters of her prostitute business

(b) In Vancouver a court ruled that a brothel business’s payments to bribe police weren’t tax deductible but payments to lawyers to defend its girls were tax deductible

(c) An English law of 1162 treated lawyers and prostitutes in the same category as service “vendors of mind or body”

(d) A Brooklyn tax lawyer claimed as part of his tax-deductible “medical expenses” $111,000 for “therapeutic sex” with prostitutes

  

8. Here are some figures on law in the American system. Match the descriptor with the figure: (i) annual number of bankruptcy filings in US federal courts; (ii) the number of dollars Judge Judy earns for a day’s work; (iii) the number of lawyers in the US; (iv) the number of people in American prisons.

(a) 1,596,355  

(b) 865,000 

(c) 1,225,452

(d) 2,300,000

 

9. Match the authors with the quotations:  (i) Jonathan Swift; (ii) John Mortimer; (iii) Oliver Wendell Holmes; (iv) Karl Marx 

(a) “Judges commonly are elderly men, and are more likely to hate at sight any analysis to which they are not accustomed”

(b) “Crime takes a part of the superfluous population off the labour market and thus reduces competition among the labourers”

(c) “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through”

(d) “No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean fingernails”

 

10. Leaders and legislators don’t always shine. Match the quotations with the years in which they were said (i) 1985 (ii) 1992 (iii) 1994 (iv) 2007

(a) “Is the West Bank a publicly or privately owned financial institution?” Enzo Scotti, Italian Foreign Minister during a briefing on the Middle East  

(b) “Ah, I must have been reading it upside down. I thought it was 81, which did seem most unfair.” Member of House of Lords, asked if he would accept 18 as homosexual age of consent

(c) “There are more crimes in Britain now, due to the huge rise in the crime rate.”  Neil Kinnock MP

(d) “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President, referring to the US

 

 

Email your answers to platform-competitions@open.ac.uk by no later than Friday 27 April 2012. Please make the subject of your email ‘Weird Law’ and include the number of each question and the correct answer(s), plus your full name and address. Entries wth all correct answers will be entered into a draw and the first three drawn will receive a prize. 

Gary Slapper is the founder of the Open University Law School and is a Visiting Professor at the OU. He is Global Professor at New York University, and Director of its London campus. His latest book More Weird Cases is published by Wildy, Simmonds & Hill.

You can follow him on Twitter @garyslapper

Terms and conditions
This competition opens on 28/03/12 and closes on 27/04/2011. Prizes must be taken as offered and are not transferable or exchangeable for a cash equivalent. Only one entry per person. This competition is open to all except employees of The Open University. Entries must be received by 27 April 2012. The promoter accepts no responsibility for any entries that are incomplete, illegible, corrupted or fail to reach the promoter by the relevant closing date for any reason. The winners will be drawn and notified within 28 days of the competition closing. The name and home town of the winner will be published on Platform. The editor’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. 

Want to know more about cross-examination? Gary Slapper, Visiting Professor of Law at the Open University explains it....

In court, cross-examination is where an advocate questions a witness who is part of the other side of the case. The questions cross from one side’s lawyer to the other side’s witness.

The aim of the exercise is to weaken the opponent’s case, and to help establish facts which are favourable to the side of the cross-examiner. It’s an opportunity to expose any unreliability of an opposing witness’s testimony. Cross examination can be done politely and without hostility. Sir John Mortimer QC notes that his late father (also a distinguished barrister) used to say “the art of cross-examination is not the art of examining crossly”

When a prosecuting advocate has finished questioning (called “examining”) a witness called by the prosecution, defence counsel can cross-examine that witness. Later the prosecution has the same chance to discredit the evidence of defence witnesses. In a civil case, similarly, the claimant and the defendant (usually through advocates) can cross-examine each other, and each other’s witnesses. The procedure has a long history. The noun “cross-examination” was first recorded in a case in 1729, although the technique itself is much older, appearing in one case involving a will in Norwich in about 1200. Cross-examination is an excellent method of clarifying the facts of a disputed matter. It is a serious intellectual contest fought in the threat of grave consequences. It is people at the peek of rational truth-finding.

The advocate has many advantages over the witness, like knowing the rules of evidence, and choosing the line of inquiry in cross-examination. But the advocate doesn’t always get the upper hand. A barrister in Ireland once began a cross-examination of an Irish Prelate with the words: “Am I wrong in thinking you are the most influential man, and decidedly the most influential Prelate or Potentate, in the Province of Connaught?” The witness replied: “Well, you know, they say these things, but it is in the sense that they would say that you are the very light of the Bar of Ireland: these are children’s compliments”

Cross examination can involve counsel taking a witness through a sequence of propositions he’ll have to agree with until he’s eventually cornered into agreeing with one final deadly point. But, equally, advocates sometimes pivot quickly to a riveting question. In opening the cross-examination of Frederick Seddon (who was on trial for the murder of his lodger Miss Eliza Barrow), Sir Rufus Isaacs, Attorney General, began thus:

ISAACS: Miss Barrow lived with you from July 26, 1910, to September 14, 1911?
SEDDON: Yes
ISAACS: Did you like her?

This flummoxed Seddon and he didn’t regain his composure. He could see that if he said he had liked her he’d be asked why he’d put her in a pauper’s grave, whereas if he said he hadn’t liked her he’d tilt the case further against himself. Decidedly, a killer question. Seddon was eventually executed for the murder.

One masterful cross-examination was that in 1909 by Sir Edward Carson KC (King’s Counsel) of the witness William Cadbury, director of the chocolate company. Between 1901 and 1908, Cadburys obtained half their cocoa from islands off Angola which exploited forced slave labour. Cadburys, knew about the slavery, and profited hugely from it for years but didn’t reveal it to the public. Instead, it traded on its reputation as a model employer, and the benevolent treatment of its workers at Bourneville in England. Meanwhile, people were snatched as slaves and forced to march up to a thousand miles to the plantations, and killed if they didn’t keep up. The Evening Standard published an article critical of Cadburys, and the firm sued saying it made them look like “a bunch of canting hypocrites”. In a brilliant cross-examination lasting five hours, Carson dismantled the case of William Cadbury and the firm. The final exchange was a dramatic dénouement. After hours of quizzing about how much slave blood and suffering was involved in the production of the chocolate, and the complicity of Cadbury, there was this question:

CARSON: Have you formed any estimate of the number of slaves who lost their lives in preparing your cocoa from 1901 to 1908?

That is a bit like asking “have you stopped beating your wife?” - a question which, answered either way, condemns the quizzed person. In answer to the question whether he’d quantified the suffering on which he’d sold chocolate, the director replied meekly:

CADBURY: No, no, no.

The jury found Cadburys had been libelled but awarded damages of one farthing.

Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett KC (1879-1936) was famous for maintaining that in cross-questioning an advocate should never ask a question if he didn’t already know the answer. A modern case in point was recounted by Sir Oliver Popplewell in 2003. As a young barrister defending a man charged with careless driving, Mr Popplewell was cross-examining a prosecution witness who had testified that the defendant had been speeding. The witness was repeatedly pressed to estimate the speed of the car but declined. Having satisfactorily established the witness’s incompetence in car-speed estimation, Mr Popplewell didn’t sit down but asked one final fatal question: “Why are you telling the court you cannot estimate the speed of my client’s car?” The witness’s response was calm and clear: “Because I have never seen a car go as fast as that in all my life!”

Professor Gary Slapper was Head of Law at The Open University 1997-2011. He is now Global Professor at New York University, and Director of New York University in London. He is also Visiting Professor of Law at the Open University. A new edition of his book How the Law Works is published by Routledge.

Find oure more:

• Follow Gary on Twitter
• Study Law at the OU