My Weekly Rant !!

May 27th '03

Hello and welcome back. That is if there is even anyone actually reading this. But if my legion of adoring and possibly mad fans have made the effort to check this rant, then hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised to find something new and exciting.*
So what have I been up to you may ask ? Well I shall tell you.
*cue wibbly flashback sequence*
You may recall that I was working for a law firm in Bristol trying desperately to find a training contract. OK I shall explain. In England if you want to do law, you have to choose to either be a barrister or a solicitor. A solicitor is Ally McBeal type of thing. The client comes to you if they have a problem and you help sort it out. You can do some argument and representation in a Magistrates Court but that is about it.
If you need someone to do more research, or represent you in a Crown Court, or pretty much do the main Court work, then you need a ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’ type barrister. The barrister does the standing up in court and saying things.
So I chose to be a solicitor. Then you do a law degree. 3 years at University. OK you don’t have to do a law degree, but if you don’t and instead choose something more useful like a degree in Klingon or radiator studies then you have to do a conversion course that takes a year.
Then, following all this, you have to do yet ANOTHER course called the LPC. This lasts another year, and following this you have to find a training contract, which is offered by a law firm who pretty much pay you and train you doing practical stuff. However what it works out as, they give you stuff to do and use you as a slave for 2 years, and these things are hard to find.
Anyway I got one, doing criminal law, near London. So it meant a move across the country. But that’s fine, so I know live near out country’s capital and meet and represent some of the population that get onto the wrong side of the law one way or another !
And so yeah, that’s about up to date for now I think. I am doing my “training contract” and quite impressively I qualify next year. For those of you that are adamant (Crazy??) and regular readers of this utterly regular column, you will be able to guess that I qualify on April 1st !! Yes even the Law Society seem to have it in for me.
And then I get to be a real solicitor and go to Court and all those sorts of things ! Wish me luck.
But until then maybe now I will try and get everything sorted out and write a Rant every now and then.
And until the next Rant, and to see if there are any small and interesting tit bits, and for new and exciting things, read all the stuff on my new page !!
Luv Darren