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The BBC’s legal division has launched a new podcast series aimed at aspiring lawyers who don’t fit the cookie cutter mould.

When Lucy Moorman, executive producer of the ‘Not All Lawyers Have Law Degrees’ podcast, trained to become a barrister some 25 years ago, you had to have 12 formal dinners in your Inns of Court and dress in a black robe surrounded by ‘benchers’. She explains how being ‘called to the bar’ — the ceremony at which barristers are formally recognised to have passed the vocational stage of training — could well have meant being quite literally being called to the bar to finish a drink, so far as she was concerned.

Language and its potential to become exclusionary, is a key talking point in the first episode of the podcast where BBC lawyer, Brigit Morris, chats to well-known barrister and author Mohsin Zaidi about his journey into law and the advice he received along the way.

The barrister recalls the awkward moment when some rather colourful messages popped up on his iPad while he was assisting a Supreme Court justice with a speech on marriage equality.

 

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Featuring some of the BBC’s own lawyers, alongside guest speakers, the episodes look at different career paths and what each individual wished they knew when first embarking on their legal career. Other episodes are more practical, with guest speakers from the likes of the Law Society, The University of Law, Inns of Court and graduate recruitment — offering guidance on qualifying, funding, support and applying for jobs.

Each episode is intended to be wholly relatable, particularly for those from backgrounds still underrepresented in the profession. A recent episode, for example, features Leila Lesan, policy advisor for social mobility at The Law Society. Lesan explains the practicalities of becoming a solicitor, how to access funding, and why she looks for “potential over polish” in a candidate.

The launch of ‘Not All Lawyers Have Law Degrees’ comes amid a major shake-up to the route to qualification as solicitor in England and Wales — namely the Solicitors Qualifying Examination.

In April of this year, the BBC announced its partnership with ULaw to launch its new SQE apprenticeship for graduates. The new pathway enables apprentices to combine studying for the SQE at ULaw with two years qualifying work experience (QWE) across four seats in the BBC’s legal team in London. The broadcasting giant’s apprenticeship route will replace its traditional training contract programme which saw wannabe lawyers self-fund the LPC.

‘Not All Lawyers Have Law Degrees’ is a podcast from the BBC Legal team, available on Apple, Spotify and Acast.

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After more than a year of working from home, the traditional side of the sector seems set to embrace a new ‘new normal’: hybrid working.

But will this be enough for lawyers in traditional firms? Or will their new taste for flexibility drive them to NewLaw firms, such as Level, that are shaking-up the traditional ways of working in law?

In this podcast (embedded below), Level’s founding partners Daniel Lowen and Morris Bentata share their predictions ahead of today’s virtual conference, Living Room Law.

We also hear from Level’s head of growth, Amy Sullivan, who discusses the firm’s new training contract, which embraces the new SQE approach to qualification.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify and Google Podcasts.

Morris Bentata will be speaking alongside other solicitors and barristers at Living Room Law, a virtual conference taking place this afternoon. You can register for one of the final few, and free, places to attend, now.

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Shortly after training at a magic circle law firm, Salome Coker had an epiphany: a busy career in commercial law shouldn’t require sacrificing doing the things you love.

Since then, Coker has joined the new wave of lawyers doing things differently, as she now balances life as a legal consultant for Re:link Linklaters’ network of flexible lawyers working on a regular fixed-term basis, alongside her photography, art and lifestyle business.

In this podcast (embedded below), Coker looks back on her search for flexibility, and reveals what it takes to become a contracting lawyer.

Ahead of her appearance at next week’s virtual conference, Living Room Law, Coker also considers whether more lawyers will follow in her footsteps, as firms look to embrace hybrid working in the post-vaccine world.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

Salome Coker will be speaking alongside other solicitors and barristers at Living Room Law, a virtual conference taking place on the afternoon of Thursday 22 April. You can secure your place, which is free, now.

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When 21 year old Lewis Baxter isn’t studying law at Durham University, he’s raising awareness of mental health either as a public speaker or as founder and CEO of The Blurred Line Group, the UK’s first funding hub for local mental health charities.

But how does he fit it all in? In the third episode of The Legal Cheek Podcast, Baxter talks to Eloise Skinner, associate at a US law firm in London, about his top time-management tips and his big plans for the future.

This podcast was recorded prior to the government lockdown.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, iTunes and Google Podcasts.

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You might have already heard of Chrissie Wolfe — with thousands of subscribers on her YouTube channel, Law and Broader, she balances life on social media with life as a personal injury lawyer.

And Wolfe doesn’t stop there — she’s been nominated for multiple awards and speaks regularly at various industry events. In the second episode of The Legal Cheek Podcast, Wolfe talks to Eloise Skinner, associate at a US law firm in London, about life, law and learning to balance it all.

You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on Spotify, iTunes and Google Podcasts.

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A London chambers is hoping to provide prospective pupil barristers with insights into the commercial bar through a new podcast.

The podcast, ‘Analysis: Commercial dispute resolution and life at the bar’, is a series produced by top-tier commercial set 4 New Square.

It is split into two instalments, life at the bar and analysis on recent commercial law developments, and seeks to demystify the profession with the help of some of its recent pupils, junior tenants, established senior-juniors and silks. New episodes are released every two weeks.

The chambers’ chief exec and senior clerk, Lizzy Stewart, and head of the pupillage committee, Miles Harris, come together for one episode of the five ‘life at the bar’ episodes available so far, to talk application tips and the qualities they look for in future pupils.

We hear from new tenants Melody Ihuoma and Seohyung Kim in another episode, who share their respective paths to the bar and experiences during the 12-month training period. Pupillage is often referred to as a ‘year-long job interview’, but Oxford and Harvard grad Kim found it “a pleasant surprise”. She continues:

“I think once you get stuck into it you will forget that it’s an interview but in terms of whether that’s any more arduous, I’d say it’s not that different from going through a two-year training contract in order to become a solicitor… Pupillage is a time of assessment but also learning and growth. [It’s] an opportunity to learn from successful practitioners who are devoting their time to go through your work line by line and discuss with you how it can be improved and how it could better serve its purpose. I think that’s a real privilege at this stage of your legal training and career.”

This isn’t the first time a London set has produced a podcast. Earlier this year civil law specialist 5 Essex Court launched ‘The Pupillage Podcast’, featuring guest speakers that provide budding barristers with insights into the pupillage process.

You can listen to 4 New Square’s podcast on Apple Podcasts, Android and Google Podcasts or via the chambers’ website.

WEDNESDAY 4 DECEMBER: How to make it as a barrister [Apply to attend]

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Not many junior lawyers manage to combine the demands of early-phase legal practice with writing a book, but this is exactly what Littleton Chambers barrister Jamie Susskind has managed to do.

‘Future Politics’ is Susskind’s analysis of how society must adapt to the rapid developments in digital technology that he believes are only just beginning.

Having got the top first in his year at Oxford University, where he studied history and politics, Susskind converted to law and completed his pupillage at Littleton Chambers in 2015. During a year as a research fellow at Harvard’s Kerman Klein Center for Internet and Society, he bashed out the majority of his debut book, which is a must-read for any law student interested in technology.

I caught up with Susskind over a bottle of wine on Friday evening. Watch our chat below.

Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech, by Jamie Susskind, is available on Amazon.

You can also listen to the interview on SoundCloud and on iTunes.

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Two Midlands pensioners in their eighties thrust legal sector crowd-funding into the spotlight earlier this week.

Thomas Middleton — a former RAF serviceman and retired businessman — is aiming to raise funds to challenge rules implemented by Derby City Council that dictate his behaviour when visiting his wife of 67 years, who is in a care home suffering from dementia.

The case is complex and highly sensitive, with strong arguments on both sides. However, for lawyers it has highlighted gaps in legal aid funding for the non-affluent middle class.

Attempting to fill the gap in this case is a crowd-funding scheme that was launched only a month ago.

CrowdJustice is the brainchild of former City of London solicitor Julia Salasky, who qualified into the litigation department at magic circle law firm Linklaters in 2012 before moving to the in-house legal team at the United Nations.

But Salasky is now almost entirely devoted to this innovative project, which many might see as the future of funding for public interest litigation that falls outside the ever-narrowing parameters of legal aid eligibility.

The site currently has three cases open for funding. Apart from the Middleton action, it is promoting a case involving allegedly hazardous landfill in Lancashire and a challenge to British oil exploration in Colombia.

The Middleton case has a target of £4,000 and is nearly 30% funded after having been open to contributions for the last week. The Lancashire case is 10% funded so far, while the Colombia oil exploration challenge has exceeded its £5,000 target.

Salasky’s online platform has been compared with more commercially driven and bigger third-parting litigation funding operations. But she points to a crucial difference — financial contributors to her cases are exempt from negative costs orders as the funds are effective cash gifts to the claimants, who bear liability if they lose the actions.

Julia Salasky came into the Legal Cheek studio yesterday to discuss her project.

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A new venture by Queen Mary University of London is matching up poverty-stricken start-ups and experience-hungry law students in a bid to create a free legal advice hub in east London. I went down to qLegal‘s home in Queen Mary’s law faculty in Mile End to speak to some of the people involved.

Advice centre founder Julie Pinborough, project coordinator Patrick Cahill and masters student Yancho Yanchev (pictured below) have been working on qLegal since its inception late last year. The demand has been huge, says Cahill, with “a big need for this service seeing it already booked up until the end of the month.” Already 36 Queen Mary students have advised 100 clients through the scheme.

The programme works by matching up entrepreneurs in need with three law students and a lawyer at one of qLegal’s partner law firms and in-house teams. The opportunity for the students to network and gain experience is very valuable, explains Pinborough, adding: “In a nutshell, they develop the confidence to develop good connections.”

It has certainly worked for Yanchev, who has relished his experience drafting toolkits on IP and licensing as part of the programme. Start-up founders, he says, are such “great clients” that he’d quite like to become one of them rather than pursue a training contract.

Listen to our conversation in full in the podcast below.

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26 year-old barrister Vicky Gainza could have followed her mates from university into a lucrative job at a big-paying magic circle law firm. Instead, she opted to follow her heart and join the criminal Bar.

Bad move, you may think, but Gainza — who graduated top in her college from Cambridge University in 2009 — doesn’t regret her choice because she still “cares passionately” about what she does. Accordingly, despite struggling to get by on earnings of around £20,000 last year, she is going nowhere…for now, she told me when we caught up for a chat over coffee in King’s Cross.

“I will stick around for as long as I can afford to pay my rent and my travel,” she says. “I care passionately about what I do, and that is the reason why, when many of my very talented classmates from university have gone on to careers in magic circle law firms, I chose to come to the criminal Bar.”

However, when pushed Gainza acknowledges that there may “come a time when I need to start thinking about another a viable career option,” adding: “If I’m forced out it will be the Bar’s loss.”

Few would surely disagree with her, including — one imagines — the CPS, which last week issued a warning to barristers that they may lose work if they strike. The threat, made by Chief Crown Prosecutor for London Baljit Ubhey, unnerved Gainza, but not to the extent that she considered abandoning her participation in the day of action.

“At this stage we’re more worried about what would happen if we didn’t take a stand…so yes, it is a concern but actually I think the good relationships our chambers and other chambers have with the CPS will survive any perceived letting them down on Friday.”

Other barristers are making the same calculation as they prepare for tomorrow in a climate of unprecedented anger. Despite the government’s legal aid cut announcement, the determination of formidable characters like Gainza suggest that this one is far from over.

Listen to my conversation in full with Gainza in the podcast below.

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