Kid Gloves are Off!

I was quite right, this week the LPC has started in earnest. There has been a quite discernable increase in both the workload and difficulty. In the two weeks previously I could get away with about 2-3 hours preparation but this week the full 6 hours has been needed (and probably more since I feel that a lot of the workshops have blown over me)

The week started quietly enough with the last of our legal research sessions (we have the basics now, when we think about this again it will be for assessment) followed by a palsy few minutes with our tutor as he tried to get us to focus on our study methods (yawn). Oh god, more touchy feely stuff...

Tuesday was the first of our accountancy lessons. Despite my fear and dread of double entry book-keeping this went relatively well. I was pretty bad but the rest of the room was worse! I left the classroom feeling like a god! Interestingly, most of the class had understood the work until the tutor tried to explain it to them. This had the effect of confusing them utterly. Me, with my brazen disregard for anything an authority figure ever says managed to be unaffected.

That night, the tutor group had arranged to go out for a meal (pizza) and a drink. Normally I would have swerved away from something like this but eager to chat about accountancy **cough** I decided to go at the last minute. It was actually a good fun night, several of the group brought partners and with the presence of a couple of the tutors it was a good sized gathering with a mix of ages and backgrounds and an excellent chance to get to know some of my classmates out of legal confinement. The pub that we ended up in was a dive, mind-I didn't even know that Guildford had dives...

Thursday was a new subject-our first sallies into litigation. We shall start with civil litigation where I shall probably not be that interested and then have 5 sessions of criminal litigation at the end where I shall be fully alert and hanging on every word.
But, in my defence, I was a good student and fully prepped the lesson and was stunned to find that all my work had been for naught and we in fact were doing a fact finding and letter writing session. The tutor set us a scenario where she would act as a client with a difficult situation and we would ask her questions to get the basic information to advise her about her problem. With the information in mind we would then compose a letter to her setting out the facts and giving our opinion.
This is an excellent idea but I feel that the College missed a trick badly here. If you are teaching small children to read and write you dont give them Tolstoy or Solzhenitsyn and ask them to precis it. You give them simpler texts and build up their confidence and ability slowly. Perhaps there could have been a much simpler story with maybe 2 or 3 hidden facts. We could draft our letters quickly and easily and then perhaps try again with a different tale hiding 5 or 6 facts.

Rather than this, we had to assemble the facts for a multi-layered story and were then given 40 minutes to plan, compose and write a letter that was
a) more complicated ; and
b) longer than anything we would get whilst on the LPC (including exams)

No one in the class finished it. The only people to get close were those who had worked as paralegals for 1 or more years and had had significant experience in drafting. Even they had to admit when they saw the 'model' answer that they had not included anywhere near enough detail. I left that lesson frustrated at my own inadequacies but by the time I was home I was just angry at the loss of an opportunity.

I was also raging when I looked at the model answer. I would be more than happy to wager that whoever had written that had been given more than 40 minutes (it was 3 pages of printed A4) and had been a qualified and experienced solicitor-and I'm willing to bet it took them most of a day to get it right.

Friday was our first class in business law and practise. The entire workshop was spent examining what a partnership was and how one could be formed and broken. Although a complicated and meticulous subject (translation dull as ditchwater), the tutor did his best to make the material lively and relevant. The exercises we were set made the most of our knowledge and pushed us to learn and understand more. I cannot praise this tutor highly enough-the contrast with the previous days wash-out cannot be over exaggerated. Civil litigation should be infinitely more interesting than the Partnership Act 1890 but there was no contest.

In conclusion, the work has increased in difficulty and the time needed to prepare has also needed to be increased but at last I feel like a proper student again!

Tonight, Matthew I'm going to be....

Things are starting to shift a bit now. The last week has shot by. I'd like to think that I'm getting on top and have got myself into a routine. In truth I have a few reservations that I'm not quite there. At the moment my sleep patterns are shot. I get off to sleep quickly enough but awaken between Midnight and 4 am, from then on I drowse at best but usually toss 'n' turn for an hour or so. I'm trying to shift around possible causes for this to see if I can eradicate the problem but nothing has worked so far...

Monday
The week started with the 2nd of our three sessions on 'practical legal research'-although we didn't use computers or books this time! Our work was centred on the presentation of our researches-the threat of our first assessment is now very real. We will get our practice assessment for 'legal writing' next week and then in early October we receive the real thing.

Tomorrow I will have to hit the library again to get some serious book time in. Hmm, 'tomorrow' again-I'm sensing a pattern here.....

(I did (I promise!) go in early to use the library last Monday but was singularly useless in finding out the majority of the facts I had been set to find out)

We also had a short session on using your study time effectively-including being given blank timetables to fill in with our projected study hours. Slightly bizarre that; on the one hand the CofL treats us like adults doing a working week then 'out of the blue' it treats us like spotty 11 year olds at boarding school, complete with work timetable and homework diary.

Not that I know what a boarding school is like (outside of Harry Potter and from a bygone time Jennings). I was slightly perturbed to see that the timetable didn't actually start until 8 Am-seems like the CofL is actually encouraging it's students to be idle stop-in-beds.... **cough**

Tuesday
Today (for those who wanted it) there were a couple of talks scheduled before the workshop about the Public Legal Services (PLS) route and working pro bono. The two are closely linked-if you want to do the PLS you must be involved in pro bono. The PLS is for those who want to help in the public sector working with those members of society who are disadvantaged but still need legal assistance. (e.g. employment help, criminal defence, mental health, housing, marriage breakdown) The PLS consists of 5 EXTRA workshops and a project based on experience gained this year with pro bono projects. Now obviously this won't be to everyone's tastes-extra study /time won't sit well in what is already a packed year.

But it has a lot to recommend it for a 40+ year old who has to make himself saleable to an employer. I knew for certain even before I had set foot on campus that I would be throwing myself into as much pro bono as possible and taking the PLS route. In truth I have no major desire to work in a legal centre/CAB when I leave here but if my career dream (working for the CPS) does turn around and knee me in the vulnerables then I would be happy to turn to the 'Dark Side' and work in criminal defence. (For the record I am attracted to much of the law that I've studied but my true love is criminal law-and you never forget your one true love. Right?)

The good news is that I heard nothing in these talks to distract me from my projected course.

Unfortunately, the one project that I would actually give my vulnerables for is closed to me. I would have dearly loved to have done the 'Police station accreditation' choice. What could be better than to be woken in the middle of the night and have to travel to the local nick to be present when some old scroat was being interogated? Amazingly, this is the most oversubscribed choice on the books!!! People watch too much police station related tv...I would have loved to have done it though, but don't drive so the option is not available to me. (in truth, I'm not too keen on the idea of the middle of the night bit-especially before an exam.

We had another workshop on legal writing. This time we concentrated on the drafting of legal documents. It had the same format-you get some prose relating to a 'real time' conversation between a male trainee solicitor (they are always male-that way you can show them to be very stupid and no one gets upset **harumph**) and some clients. You then get the projected first draft and have to study it and find at least 10 faults (there are at least 30). Once you have analysed it to death you get the chance to redraft it.

This is no easy task even when you;

1. can see, and
2. have been told
   

how best to set things out (not a good example I realise but I hope that you get the idea)

Wednesday
No classes. Hurrah! But still plenty of work to do. I finished off the draft from yesterday and a follow up draft about a vintage car rental agreement. Plus I felt like a bucket of kack for most of the day-sleep is not over-rated. I put a link to the blog on a couple of the OU's pages. Many thanks to those people to have mailed me in the past week-that was really kind and has helped invigorate my knackered body.

Thursday
A long day-up early as usual. Prepped for this afternoons workshop on professional conduct. I am now increasingly aware that I need to be taking some notes. Reading the books is all well and good but I'm doing it passively (like my drafting-legal joke, **cough-hears sound like tumbleweed blowing across the prairie).
The words are sweeping over me and I'm taking in very little. If it doesn't lodge in the brain then I'm going to struggle to remember when and where the various points came up for the conduct assessment and having all the text books in the world won't help me.

Anyhow we concentrated today on the financial side of being a solicitor-especially advising clients about investments or selling shares as part of a will and of course money laundering. One week ago I found out that if I knew that a client was about to steal the Crown Jewels or abduct the Queen (without using violence) then I could do nothing. Now I find out that if I suspect my client is wants me to handle about £15k of what I suspect are the proceeds from crime then I can shop them to a senior partner who passes on the info to the Old Bill in the guise of SOCA (serious organised crime agency).
And if the solicitor doesn't? How about a gaol term for up to 24 years!

The last two weeks have left a lot of my colleagues paranoid about working in practice. Make a mistake and get struck off, miss dodgy doings and be locked up! Fortunately, I've been working for half my life and know that a hundred things go wrong every day-you just don't let it show...

That evening was a large scale talk for those interested in the PLS route (here I go again). There was a buffet and the usual wine/orange juice choice. Someone at the CofL must have a relative who supplies this stuff in bulk. How can you have a buffet without sandwiches? Half a dozen types of samosa but not one cheese sarnie...or a cocktail stick with pineapple and cheese on it.

Mind you, whoever thought up that combo must have been stoned that night. You can imagine their thinking, 'cheese, well that goes well with bread/crackers/ham/onion...I know, I've got a spare pineapple over here, I'll try that. And if that goes well, I'll see how it goes with loganberry or formica'

Sorry, got distracted. Ho hum.

Anyhow, the talk was good. There was a bit of political friction between the reps from the Legal Services Commission (who decide which services the Government allocated money is spent on) and the people who actually work (or aim to work) in these services. If I hear the words 'Carter Report' once more...A great night all round but I didn't get home to twenty to nine.

Friday
It's no good, I tried to put it off but like death and taxes it's inevitable. Today is the first 'role playing' exercise day (**spit**).

(yes, that's what the title relates to!)

I considered pulling a sickie but the CofL is very keen on good attendence (and promises to fail bad attenders). I prep as well as I can but the sinking feel in my stomach has little to do with last nights cooking. It's the first of out interviewing workshops and after a bit of background reading we have to throw ourselves into it.
I start off by playing a middle aged forgetful shoplifter seeking help from a solicitor-that goes well except my partner forgets to go through one of the major set sections of the interview (which would be an automatic fail if it were the assessment).

Within a short space of time, I'm preparing to be the solicitor about to have a meeting with a woman who's showroom display model of cooker has 'blown up'. (in the tradition of exploding kitchen appliances beloved by question setters country wide). I'm ashamed to admit that I quite enjoyed it-if I didn't have to advise her of the law I would have been even happier.

End result: interviewing good-lawyering bad

Saturday
I did a little consolidating work and then nearly 5 hours trying to understand 'double entry book keeping' What is this? I want to be a bloody solicitor! No, it's true-we do have to have an understanding of all aspects of running a business and accounts is all part of it. Looking at the timetable that I don't keep, I've only got Tuesday morning to try to sort this out. I am not holding my breath.

What other joys in store for this week? Quite a lot really. In addition to beginning business accounts we are also starting civil litigation and business law and practice.

The LPC proper begins here.

Musings from week 1

Pencil cases are not important

I am not the oldest here, in fact I am only the third oldest in my tutor group.

I am older however than all the tutors I've met so far. (Either that or they've had really easy lives or they own a painting in their attic that is doing the aging for them)

...and yes, the party was as bad as I expected. I hovered around until the tutor came to our group. We had our small talk for a few minutes and after he made his excuses and had moved away to see another group I was out the door...

So what actually have I learned this week?
Although you are told about and are prepared for the nature of the course, it still takes you by surprise that there is so little law. You are assumed to know it. Not all of it of course but you are expected to know the basics and the mechanics of how the thing works. All that time learning and discussing theory, all those long well crafted essays debating points, structuring arguments are all so much waste products now. This course is about practise plain and simple.

After the frenetic rush that is registration, the hernias involved in picking up the set books and the general nerve stretching stress of some many new things being dumped on you in a short space of time-the time comes to settle back and appraise what you are doing.

a) the first couple of weeks are spent in taking in the pervasive subjects, i.e. those that will crop up on a continuous basis throughout and in every section.

These are professional conduct, legal writing and drafting, legal research and interviewing. There are a sprinkling of other things to be taken in (library use/work management courses/ brief intros to things that will develop later) but the focus is on those four.

1. Professional conduct When must a solicitor not handle a case? What are the limits to client confidentiality? (my own favourite-if a client tells you that they have a full proof plan to steal the Crown Jewels and do so you can say nothing. But if they plan to hit someone to knock them out to steal their wallet you can inform the police...) What happens when two clients wish you to act for them-either on a common course or in opposition?
   
2. Legal writing Oh boy-I thought that I knew how to write, spell and use grammar correctly. I guess that I was wrong there...Legal writing stresses clarity and succinctness (hard to believe for those that I have letters from solicitors before), logicality, appropriateness of tone/familiarity/level of legal language. Letters are to be written in the active and not the passive (a personal nightmare)
3. Legal research Although I started off well here because we started with computer based research, I know that I will do badly when it comes to doing the same thing with books. OU legal research is all computer based-it starts from the first few units and is used all the way to the end. The only time that you are near a law library is for the complusory visit during the first and last courses. In truth, the OU are none to helpful here; now if they could send you a library of say, 300-1000 books when you apply to do a law course then they could certainly sort out that oversight. To me, this course is about rectifying your weaknesses and building on your strengths so I will have to get some serious library time in-starting tomorrow. I have noticed however that I'm always starting things tomorrow **embarassed cough**. The focus will develop to problem solving and not just information finding .
4. Interviewing I'm not due to start this until this coming Friday.
   

b) The vast majority of exams ('assessments' is the gentler term used here) are open note exams.
You can go in with text books, tutor made notes, hand made notes, aide memoirs- anything you like. But as I once learnt to my cost, all that is totally pointless if you don't understand what the notes are about. Some subjects are only tested in specific exams but others are tested throughout (like conduct-although there is a conduct exam, some 40% of the marks are earned through 'sneaky' intrusions into other assessments

c) Points are learnt through practise. Exercises are completed at home and then brought in to be discussed during the workshop. Fresh exercises are then set and you are expected to work through these either singly or as a pair or in your 'team'. After the workshop, other exercises are either given to you or set out in the subject materials.

This is not a theoretical course.
Understanding is gained through doing.

That's not to say that there is no reading involved-so far we have probably have been expected to cover about 150 A4 pages but less emphasis is put on making notes. I'm not to sure if I've even made a note yet...

d) In addition to the pre/post class exercises we will be set either single or group assessments during the year that will count to the overall pass/fail. The first of these will be set sometime during the 3rd week of term.

e) Then there are the exams-there are a lot of these.....(sob)

f) If I want to make the most of my time here, I would be well advised to get involved in pro bono work and the public legal services options. This will increase my work load for little or no physical return. What I hope that it will give me is

• Some practise with the interviewing/writing and advising parts of the course.
• A weeny bit of a social life, not much-I don't want much but the chance to bitch and moan in a pub would be good...
• Some really good credit for my CV.
  

g) The College stresses that those students who put the work in do the best. The choice is up to me.

This is dead easy to answer in week 1, let's see how I feel on week 25 (or even week 2!)

The first 2 days

It's seems a convenient time to post my musings on the start of the course. While not as horrendous as I may have been anticipating there have been more than enough heart-stopping moments. I turned up in good time on Monday and already the place is packed.

How many people are doing this course?

After signing in and picking up some books (more later), some of us are ushered to a large room where we are formerly welcomed by one speaker and then given a run down on basic IT matters by another. After an extended break the first workshop session begins with our personal tutor. (It is a workshop on what to do in a workshop, ho hum)

I found later that there are about 460 students on the LPC. I did a quick bit of maths-460 at £8,750 a pop comes out as a few quid above 4 million pounds. It appears that there is money in education after all...

As I previously mentioned (I think) I have been assigned to an afternoon group. What this means is that for 4 days a week for the first couple of terms I begin at 1.30 and work in class to 4. For these 2 1/2 hour workshop sessions we are expected to put in (about) 5 1/2 to 6 hours preparation. In all the College expects us to do about 40 hours a week (so, making up about 8 hours between the other 3 days).
This is not too bad-better than I had expected although it could be argued that the prep (so far) is a little uneven. Preparation consists of a mixture of readings/i-tutorials (short recorded lectures on CD rom) and exercises.
We will be expected to arrive with completed answers for the exercise and they may (or may not) be covered in depth in the workshop.

There is a high reliance on teamwork; each student is assigned to a 'team' of 5 (or so) and it would appear that you will stick with those people (and sit on the same table for each course) for the whole year. This rankles me a bit since I would prefer being able to mix with a larger group (and of course to attach myself limpet-like to the most able!).

During the workshop, various class-based exercises are attempted by the team (or table) and the results discussed by the group. This is so unlike everything that I've ever done before academically that I can see myself having a huge in-built resistance to it.

We have been told in advance there will be roleplay components to perform.

Whoop-de-frickin-do.

If there is a phrase in the English language capable of turning my stomach or making me anti-something from the start, it's that one. In my mind I associate it with employers leading training sessions and when they have run out of things to do or if they need to pad out the time will introduce 'roleplay'.
To me, it's the most pointless and futile tool in any training meeting. It neither recreates not reproduces 'real-life' situations and it's always done in a teeth-gritted half-hearted manner by the participants (except of course by the training organiser who loves it more than life itself)

You also are expected to bring certain books to each workshop session.

Oh, the books. My god, the books. We are given so many that we have to receive them in two batches. They are sitting at present on one of my bookshelves. The vast majority are A4 size and together they are nearly a foot thick! This compares to about 4 1/2 inches for the thickest OU course. And even worse these have NO pictures! Coupled to these are the handouts for the various workshops-these are also A4 in size and are to be put in ring binders.

Note to anyone going on this course: Buy a LOT of ringbinders

The workshop notes are just under 6 inches in thickness. On top of this we have also been given some other A4 sheets on;

• Time use
• Timetables
• Exam dates
• Hippopotamus feeding regimes (it might as well be-I doubt I'll get around to reading it all).

At the weekend I will have to move some books around because I feel that the sheer weight of this lot could break the bookshelf...

Today we are going to have one of our most important group sessions. It is the first of our practical legal research workshops. It's scheduled to be only 90 mins long and focuses on using electronic sources to find the cases or statutes that we will need.
This should be one of my good areas since I love computers (but not in the biblical sense) and the OU is quite strong on this area.

After that we have a short careers talk and then a workshop group 'party'. Oh joy! One of my nightmares in this world is going to organised parties. We have been told that fruit juice and wine will be served.

Is this a test of character?

There are only about 20 of us in the group and the party is from 3:45 to 4:45-something tells me that the party will never reach full swing.

Yesterday, during a workshop we were told that something was 'not mandatory but you do have to do it'. I think that I may have been the only one to have noticed the slight incongruity in that. In the same light I think that the 'party' today is not compulsory but we do have to be there...

Note to self: Must buy some A4 ring binders sometime

The End is Nigh

In less than 24 hours I will be a 'proper' student again. My course starts in earnest at noon tomorrow. After 21 years out of full time education I will have to throw myself back into the world of timetables/lectures/seminars/tutorials/satchels and pencil cases.

Question: Do students still have pencil cases?

I have not researched this fully and I feel that I could be letting the side down. When I sat my first OU exam I went out and bought myself a light blue, fluffy one. Mostly because I had always wanted one at school (and never got one) but also because, as a grown-up, I could.

But what now? Would this be considered as out of date as flares? By the way, are flares out of date? I have absolutely no idea. Another worry surfaces. For clothing I've decided on plain white shirt (over coloured T-shirt) and plain black trousers-with my one indulgence regarding clothing, a new pair of trainers. I've got a new rucksack to put my books and bits in-but I am singularly lacking in knowledge about pencil cases...

This is typical me. If I can stress about anything I do. I can even get into a cold sweat about buying something in a supermarket. I had a haircut on Friday and actually prepared what I was going to say to the hairdresser. At this stage I do have to ask myself a relevant question.

"What the hell am I doing by trying to retrain to a career that deals with stress on a daily basis?"

A couple of days ago I came to the end of my 'revision' period. In 4 weeks I just about covered the 4 academic years of my OU course. It was hard going and at times I was at my most lazy.

The good news was that the vast majority of the case-law did ring bells (even the stuff done 4 years ago) and it made some good connections (but in a very broad sense). The bad news was that I didn't really have the time to look up all the statute and refresh my knowledge of that. My view is that if I was confronted with statutory knowledge I could always look it up. Equally depressing was that areas where I knew that I would be weak such as misrepresentation, leases or mortgages) I glossed over at high speed.

Which brings me to ELITE-the College of Laws refresher program. It's easy to use and (fortunately) mostly multiple choice. I started using it thinking that I would do 'alright' but have had my eyes cruelly opened.
I consistently scored 33-50% (which is a shade above blind guessing) and even on my 'speciality' subject of criminal law was only hitting the 50% mark. I'll have another crack tomorrow morning (before going to College) but the only ones that I have left are my real weak spots (trusts/land law/EU law) but since I'll be guessing mostly my average may go up...

This week I spent rather a lot of cash on textbooks. We have been told that all the books that we need will be supplied by the College (and are written by tutors from the various Colleges) but I was told the same thing on the OU courses and I ended up buying nearly a hundred. (These were usually second hand off eBay so not too expensive-or too relevant!)

With hand on heart I do have to say that these books were actually very helpful. In fact I could say that they did make a major contribution to my overall grade. With this in mind it was almost inevitable that I would buy books to give me a boost in the LPC. The only problem is that eBay has precious few books that could aid an LPC-so with shopping list in hand I went off to Waterstones and Ottakers. Now I have a nice little pile of A4 sized books. They do look lovely sitting on my shelves.

I can't understand a blind word of them though...

I wonder if I'll be able to sleep tonight? One of the joys about being me was that I developed anxiety attacks about 10 years ago-so simple things like getting rest before things that either
a) excite me
b) frighten me
is an near-impossibility. In past years I've tried to stun myself with medication or relax myself with self-hypnosis or meditation.

Tonight I have a new plan-I'll read some land law, that'll put me out...