Podcast 60: Professor Geoffrey Alderman on why academic standards are declining.

Podcast 60: Professor Geoffrey Alderman on why academic standards are declining.
Today I am talking to Professor Geoffrey Alderman, Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at The University of Buckingham and a former Chairman of the University of London’s academic council
Professor Alderman wrote a fascinating article in The Times on 18th June A grotesque bidding [...]

A serious issue about entry to the Bar…

I have been following the excellent coverage of the BVC and the difficulties of obtaining pupillage on Lawyer 2 B’s blog - well worth visiting if you are a prospective barrister for BVC coverage - and worth visiting anyway!
I came across this post from “Troubled barrister” on L2B’s comments section:
“I have one thing I want [...]

If you go down to the moots today

The blogs are alive… with the sound of mutiny…
The music to Teddy Bears Picnic and, curiously, The Sound of Music came into my mind as I settled down to write… and, I was pleased to note, that…. Josephine Bloggs added….

“…’cause that’s the way the Pre-sid-ent has his piiiiiiiiicnic!”
Comment by Josephine Bloggs on Accidental law [...]

E-numbers…dental surgery and greedy Vice-Chancellors….

I am no longer able to go to The Bollo on Sundays for lunch because the owners have decided they wish to encourage the well heeled young children of Chiswick to bring their hyperventilating parents to the pub to have a ‘Sunday Roast’ - and have, accordingly, banned smoking until the evening. This does not [...]

War of the Roses?….

BPP Law School is going to have to fight to keep the five-firm City Legal Practice Course (LPC) consortium [Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slaughter and May, Herbert Smith, Lovells and Norton Rose] as a client and will face competition from the College of Law, Nottingham - Kaplan and the Inns of Court School [...]

LPC providers warn revisions could create two tier profession!

Legal Week has a most interesting article on the LPC. It is a must read if you are a student thinking about doing the LPC or are interested in legal education. Here is the link
Briefly: there is to be a review of the LPC. I quote a part of the article: The [...]

The Bar to look at diversity….

Legal Week reports that The Bar Council has set up a working party led by Lord Justice Neuberger to devise a blueprint for improving access to the profession.
I commented on the pupillage problem a few weeks ago. Just as important as the pupillage issue - and certainly very encouraging, Lord Justice Neuberger said: “It [...]

Credit where credit is due

College of Law to donate £1.25m to underprivileged students as new charity law looms: Legal Week Story
Whether or not The College of Law was prompted into this charitable donation by the prospect of investigation under the new Charities Law (infra) this is good news for diversity. (I quote from the Legal Week report: Stephen [...]

Pupillage a lot more difficult….

LegalWeek report today that “Bar students’ prospects of securing a pupillage have reached an all-time low, new Bar Council figures have shown.”
The report continues - worryingly… “The first-ever Bar Council survey of student trends published today (16 October), found that of the 71.5% that had applied for a pupillage, over half (51%) had not received [...]

Rollonfriday has a beauty this week…

I visited RollonFriday, as I do from time to time, and found this marvellous nonsense on their news. This guy would enjoy talking to my brother ‘RD’. They would get on well. The Professor - does not do emails. I may well email him - through the faculty.  I may even call him to read [...]

BPP and College of Law are carving up ‘elite’ City LPC market

There is an interesting story in Legal Week about the trend for major City law firms to send their trainees to do a tailor made LPC at a small group of leading vocational law schools.
Both BPP and The College of Law will, of course, deliver an appropriate course to the firms who select them as [...]

The man who would be King…

It is not often that I feel the need to write about Constitutional Law (I leave that to those who teach or practise in the field) - but a wonderful story in The Guardian today has prompted me. Here is the link to the full story - worth a read.
In 1931, a Shropshire police inspector [...]

Suit you, Sir?

Fancy getting an A+ or a First in you coursework?
Well of course you do - but would you pay an essay writing service a fair bit of money (say £60 for 1000 words) to do it for you and then submit that work as your own?
There are a number of essay writing services who advertise [...]

World Cup over - let the Battle of the Law Schools begin

BPP Law School v The College of Law
Full marks to The Lawyer for a most amusing article written by John Parker (Who I had the pleasure of talking to this afternoon - thanks for permission to quote) on the war which is breaking out among the UK’s ‘Top’ (vocational) law schools. I use the term [...]