Farewell: Final Results and PgDip Award

Tuesday 29 July 2014 marked the final results day for me and my comrades. Needless to say I was at work so my usual hoohah of winding myself up at exactly 2pm and opening and then closing the results page did not happen. Instead I sat at my desk doing my work, and between the hours of 2 and 5 pm, feeling like my stomach was going to jump out my mouth or fall out the other end. 

Work finished and I practically ran to the door. I had already seen that my friends had passed and that at least two had achieved an overall Distinction. Pressure was on. I had also seen that the girl who managed to wangle FOUR WEEKS off work for study leave (the same girl who called the employment exam commotion last year and proceeded to get a 76 and who has also only achieved distinctions thus far) had gotten a 66 in International Commercial Law. You know, International Commercial Law the one exam that I felt like I knew just about nothing in. 

Anyway, I finally opened my results. No opening and closing this time, I had had enough mental torture throughout the afternoon. I opened the email which gave our final award first, thinking that if I had a Commendation or above I knew that I had at least passed ICL (if you fail one of your core modules or electives you are limited to only a Pass in your final award regardless of your average mark).

I opened the email and found I had been awarded a DISTINCTION in the PgDip (fancy way of saying LPC) with an overall average of 76. 

Absolute relief and joy and, yes, mainly relief! I now had the courage to check the final exam results.

PRIVATE CLIENT                                                    80%

INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL LAW           66%

As you can imagine I was completely over the moon with Private Client. A little disappointed with ICL but when you think you may have failed something a solid Commendation is not to be looked down upon. 

So thats it folks, law school is now over for me. I started this course full of nerves, knowing that I wanted to get a Distinction but not believing I was good enough. Unlike on the LLB I can honestly say I have followed the course materials rigorously, I haven't missed a single piece of required reading or I-Tutorial. And that would of course be my only advice in approaching the LPC - do everything required of you. And more if you have the time!

The future is looking bright for me. I landed that paralegal job that I interviewed for and which has a Training Contract interview attached commencing 2015. I have all my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, I didn't get any further with the CPS. That case study assessment was just too damn hard!

I want to thank each and every one of my readers for their support - some of your Twitter messages and emails have been amazing. Please do continue your support for the blog and to my successor who is starting the GDL this September. 

Good luck in all your studies and legal careers you lovely lovely people. Farewell!

CPS - Case Study Assessment

So apologies for the delay in this blog. Today, as promised, I am talking about the case study assessment I attended on Monday 30 June 2014 for the Crown Prosecution Service. 

First off, to get to this point you had to submit an application which consisted of the usual information form filling bits and then three competency based questions. Following this there was supposed to be a Situational Judgment Test (very similar to the Government Legal Service which I interviewed for last year), however, the date for these tests to be emailed to successful candidates came and went. I eventually received an email to say they would not be conducting the SJT and instead would be moving to the next stage - the case study assessment. 

I was emailed the date and time of the assessment (non-negotiable - all the assessments took place on one day), as well as a link to the Code for Crown Prosecutors, and told to familiarise ourselves with this in particular part 4. My assessment was to be in London and on 30 June. 

I arrived just ten minutes before the time we had to be there, having got slightly lost (damn you Google maps!). The irony in this is that I had actually arrived in London over an hour early! Anyway, I certainly wasn't the last one there. We had our photos taken and given a Visitor badge and led into a room with about seven tables each with three places marked. I took a seat, we were given brief instructions and then the forty five minutes began. 

I was initially struck by the sheer amount of reading that was required in the forty five minutes. We had one witness statement, a narrative of what had happened, legal reference pages (burglary, perverting the course of justice and meaning of circumstantial evidence) and then extracts from the Code we were asked to read beforehand. 

There were two questions, basically asking us to assess the strength of the case using the Code tests and make conclusions. It was not horrifically bad but, as most people agreed, I could have done with another thirty minutes! I am guessing that is the point though - time pressures and all that jazz!

Afterwards the assistant sat and had a chat with us about the next steps etc. and we should hear the outcome within the next two weeks. She said that there were around twenty positions and that they were down to the find two hundred candidates (around 800 having applied). In the meantime I have an interview for a paralegal position. Things are definitely looking positive at the moment - life without the LPC aint so bad!

Private Client exam - and the last exam of the LPC

Well what can I say, the LPC is over! Last Thursday saw me take the final of my LPC exams in beautiful sunshine and boy did it feel good. 

The PC exam is just like all the others -  three hour paper made up of 20% MCQs (multiple choice questions) and 80% written questions. This translated into ten MCQs at two marks each and five written questions with varying marks, totalling eighty. I did the usual - and would recommend this to anyone else - took thirty minutes off the three hour time limit and then divided the remaining minutes by  eighty giving me the average minutes per mark. Then multiplying all the questions marks by the average and writing how long I have for each (always rounding down!). This should only take two or three minutes to do and is INVALUABLE in time keeping. I have particularly found on the LPC that sometimes you really do have to wind up what you are saying and move on. On some questions I feel as though I could write forever! 

I digress. My time keeping worked a treat and I finished with five minutes to spare. All in all I was really happy with the exam. As expected the written questions were quite tax heavy, whether you were actually doing tax calculations or explaining the tax implications of a variety of options to a client, there certainly was a lot of tax. This was heaven for me! As nerdy as it may sound I would happily sit that exam ten times over - such a relief to end the course on a high. Especially in comparison to the Commercial exam which, in light of PC, was pretty damn horrendous. 

RESULT PREDICTIONS:

International Commercial Law:            60%

Private Client:                                          70%

After the exam there was a real sense of finality. Although there were still two more exams to go on the following day it seemed that most people in that room had just sat their last LPC exam. I must admit in my final five minutes I sat and had a little look around the room, took it all in. 

The LPC really has been a roller coaster. I went into it quite terrified of public speaking and not at all confident in my ability to one day be a solicitor. I am leaving having conquered my fear and feeling like a legal career was made for me. When I remember how absolutely petrified I was of both the interviewing and advocacy exams I am now so incredibly proud that I managed to do the exams and pass them first time (and even enjoy them a little!). 

In terms of friendships, I have definitely made a few of those. It really has been eye opening the different people you meet and from all kinds of walks of life. The camaraderie has been second to none, everyone is willing to lend a hand and support you when needed. For this reason I am excited for the future generation of lawyers - a kind, intelligent and extremely determined bunch. 

So now I await exams and the classification of my Legal Practice Course, and that will be my final blog post on the LPC *sniff sniff*. 

….. BUT don't abandon the blog just yet dear readers! I will still be popping in to post about the search for training contracts. Indeed, Monday 30th June will see me attending an assessment day so hold out of for the results of that. And in even more exciting news, the blog will be fully taken over by a new student in September. I will let him introduce himself in his own blog post but he is an English Literature graduate and will be documenting his journey on the Graduate Diploma in Law. 

So for now, enjoy whatever summer you may have and good luck in your TC applications!

International Commercial Law exam

Yesterday was the first of my two elective examinations and was on ICL. The course itself has been so incredibly structured that I assumed the exam would be straightforward enough. If you are currently in the UK you will be aware of the ridiculously hot weather we are experiencing at the moment - and I don't do heat! Give me a log cabin in the snow any day! On top of this my new car has (a) manual windows (yes, they do still exist!) and (b) no air conditioning. So my multiple hour long journey to uni was less than comfortable. Nevertheless it was lovely to see the campus full of summery looking students all revising in the sunshine and I enjoyed a pre-exam salad with my friends on the grass before we went to our doom.

First of all, the room was SWELTERING. Genuinely, I walked in and instantly felt a little sick at the thought of spending the next three hours in that stuffy heat, trying not to drink so I could avoid a time-wasting toilet break and doing my best to maintain peak concentration. Luckily, we were all in the same boat. 

The exam began and in usual fashion it was ten multiple choice questions worth two marks each followed by the written questions worth the remaining 80% of the paper. As someone who generally struggles with the MCQs on the papers, I was sooo relieved to find that they were all unusually similar to the practice questions we are required to do for each workshop (and which I had run through that morning!). Hoorah!!! There were not many that I was not confident about. 

The written questions were a bit more tricky. There were four and they were all styled on "read the email and write your response in a report". Annoyingly unnecessary when you don't want to waste precious time faffing and just want to answer the question! Because of this slight set back my timing was a bit off. Each "report" had specified subtitles but it wasn't clear how many marks were allotted under each subtitle, only under the whole question. This meant I was unsure how much was required in each bit. 

I did finish the exam and do all the questions. One of my friends missed the last question but then it was only worth six marks so not necessarily catastrophic. Now I am preparing myself for my final ever exam on Thursday for Private Client. I cannot wait!

The Last of the Last Days

Wednesday marked the very last day at university for me and many others in my classes. Amidst the teachers handing out review forms and giving us vital last minute exam information/tips there wasn't a lot of time to get nostalgic. I did bring in cake though, and cake always marks a special occasion. 

I can now officially say that I have completed all of the learning on the Legal Practice Course. I have been reflecting on the past two years and whether I feel I have achieved everything that I set out to achieve on the LPC. I am obviously disappointed that I won't be starting a training contract this coming September as I began the course in high confidence that I would be able to secure a TC starting in 2014. Things don't always go to plan. I do, however, have a promising job in a firm that have invited me to apply for their 2015 training contract, so it is not all bad. 

In addition, I have really concerted my efforts into succeeding on the LPC - more so than on the LLB. I am of course aware that the LLB is regarded much higher than the LPC but I am still proud that I have gone from averaging mid sixties to mid seventies, showing my dedication and the amount of time I have invested into this course. I am genuinely proud of my achievements (and I don't say that very often!). 

For now, it is revision for me in preparation of my final exams. They are  a week apart too which makes me feel far more relaxed about the whole affair. We are also arranging a large group meal for all my lovely form mates so that is something to look forward to! 

For those of you coming to the end of courses, whether they be the LLB, GDL, LPC or BPTC, I hope your last days and exams  went well :)

Results: Litigation, Property, Writing and Conduct

Although a little late, I am here to talk about results day last Thursday. The strangest thing about getting results is that no matter how well you feel you did during and directly after the exams, the more time spent waiting for your grades, the more you begin to self-doubt. With ten long weeks to wait between the final exam and results day, self-doubt was in abundance among my friends in the last couple of weeks. Most of us were working on that Thursday and, if I'm honest, it is a bit of a relief to have an excuse not to be able to have the pointer hovering over the "open" button at 13:59. By 15:00 I had mustered the courage to open results after finally accepting the realisation that not opening the results didn't change their outcome! 

I logged in to elite. And then received a text from a close friend to say she had opened hers and got distinctions in both. My stomach sank and I closed elite down. It took me twenty minutes to get back to the page and I finally checked my results:

Litigation                            85%

(civil litigation                     65/80)

(criminal litigation              20/20)

Property                             76%

Conduct                              90%

Writing                                Competent

Needless to say I was completely overwhelmed by the grades and have been the given the boost I need for the final push. We now have only one (YES ONE!) teaching week left at university before more exams and then the end. Commercial is going really really well, and although there is a lot of prep for the workshops I am definitely enjoying it. We have now done workshops on competition law and online sales contracts. This module is, unsurprisingly, heavily based in EU law (being International Commercial Law) so is not for the person wishing to forget all those wonderful EU regulations learned on the LLB/GDL. Private client is also going well but I am surprised about the sheer volume of tax work in this elective. Not that this is a bad thing from my tax-loving point of view, but I can see how some people are beginning to feel a little grumpy at the prospect of doing another exam on tax!

Now, off to prep for the final week. I hope you have all been enjoying the wonderful sunshine.

Failing the LPC

I feel that, with exam results looming and due on 15 May, I am most likely tempting fate by writing this blog as it is all about failing the LPC. 

Ask any current student on any Legal Practice Course and they will all know of at least one failure related horror story. Mine is this: a girl in the year ahead of me managed to secure a training contract with a decent firm in her first year of the part time LPC. Having gained distinctions and competents in all of her exams thus far, she was horrified to find she had failed Civil Litigation. Even though she retook the exam, passed, and retained her 70% distinction average (even with the 50% cap on Civil Litigation), she could be awarded no more than a pass, as university rules state that to fail a core exam limits the student to an overall pass mark on the LPC. Do not pass Go, do not collect £200. As if the poor girl's situation could not seem any more devastating, upon informing her firm of her fail they hastily withdrew her training contract, as per the terms of said contract. The student who was once averaging a distinction and had a promising future in the bag lost it all by one failed exam. 

I did a little research and this type of situation is, unfortunately, not uncommon. And even worse is the cut throat attitude of other law students commenting on this type of situation. One pleasant chap was so outraged by the fact that anyone could fail an LPC exam that he stated that a person who fails an LPC exam was clearly not worthy of a training contract in the first place. It got me thinking, are the the LPC exams really that difficult to fail? And if a person does fail does that mean that they are henceforth irredeemable as a lawyer? 

Having studied on the part time course I have had the opportunity to meet people from a variety of different backgrounds. We all have careers outside of law school. Many have families and other commitments outside of law school. Basically, for some people, the world simply cannot revolve around law school. And this can lead to the dreaded fail. 

During the previous exam period I had my exams sandwiched between work days. I could not afford to take more than the actual days of the exams off. Has this affected my performance? We will see. But does this make me any less of a lawyer compared to a person who is fortunate enough to be able to study full time and without having to work? I am not so sure. 

If the legal world doesn't look any further into a person's circumstances before rejecting their application based on a fail (or worse, withdrawing a training contract) I have to wonder whether the profession genuinely does want to move towards representing a wider section of the community. The kind of student who has to work to fund their LPC is the same student typically from poorer backgrounds. In this way, the barrier to these students still holds. These students generally cannot get time off from work for work experience and certainly cannot afford to undertake the common place unpaid work experience. They cram their study in to ever busy working weeks and struggle to keep their heads above water. And on top of all this, one bad day, one hectic week at work, or one poorly child the night before an exam, could mean their whole LPC is rendered worthless. 

So to that extremely closed minded man who sought to make the author of the forum question feel totally worthless, open your eyes and see that, yes, failing a module on the LPC may be down to one's laziness and lack of motivation. But it could also be due to a whole host of other reasons that do not make that person any less of a fantastic lawyer.

Paper Pushers

This blog post is going to be all about us poor student solicitors/trainee solicitors/qualified solicitors, so barristers feel free to tune out. Not really, but this post will feature a few barrister-related frustrations. A very good friend of mine (since secondary school) has recently started her pupillage at a local chambers. As you can imagine we are all extremely proud of her. However, out of myself and eight other of the ladies that all regularly still see each other from school, five of us are involved in the legal profession in some way and she has been the only one to pursue the bar. Prior to her getting pupillage and whilst on the BPTC she described the rest of the legal profession as "paper pushers" in trying to explain to the remaining four friends the distinctions between myself as student solicitor, my two paralegal friends and one legal secretary. Oh. Wow. I was so offended. Since then she has diminished the pay of those who are not barristers (apparently she would be starting on £60k) and glamourised the bar whilst simultaneously dulling any other legal career. 

For the sake of not wanting to sound bitter and jealous we have all remained silent. But is this view of the different legal professions universal? Last week my mother was on jury service. Upon its conclusion we were sat discussing some of the hilarious things the barristers and judges had been saying (one barrister going into the intimate depths of his "expensive bottle of wine" and the "delicious joint of roast pork" he and his wife enjoyed the previous weekend - don't ask, the link was tenuous at best) when my mother flippantly remarked "oh (daughter) I wish you were going to be a lawyer". My response "I am going to be a lawyer, mum". It left me thinking how society really views solicitors. The new series of Silk started recently and I absolutely love it, but look at the solicitors on there. They are either the purest and most corrupt of evils taking bribes with no moral compass and representing the worst criminals, or they are doe eyed women just happy for the chance to be seduced by a QC. Is this what we have been reduced to? Has anyone ever seen a paralegal or legal assistant featured?

I didn't go into law just to say I'm a lawyer and think that that commanded respect. I know that, like the taxman and politicians, lawyers aren't always held in high regard. But I don't understand the difference in perception between barristers and the rest of the legal world. Anyone in the profession knows that the distinction between solicitors and barristers is fast becoming smaller and smaller. My friend on pupillage text me just the other day saying she had met some solicitor advocates in court and had only just realised that she and I could come up against each other one day. My bill, of course, will be much lower. Although, I have found out her pupillage is at £12k salary so for now at least I am a paper pusher earning much more than a barrister. 

Electives: International Commercial Law (ICL) and Private Client

So I have been doing electives for a good three weeks now and although the initial feeling post exams was "I CAN'T GO ON!!" I am now happily settled into the new modules. The countdown is on for the end of the LPC with only nine teaching weeks in total for the electives and we have now completed three of them. 

ICL so far has been a real go over of contract law and a smidge of EU law too. I'm finding it very interesting. We have largely been covering commercial contracts for the sale of goods between businesses including express/implied terms and remedies - all the things you would expect from a module basing itself on contract law! In terms of amounts of work - ICL is fairly tough going with a lot of prep for each module and unfortunately it is not prep that I feel you can get away with not doing. 

I was always going to love private client because it is the area that I am involved in at work. For that reason alone most weeks I feel quite familiar and comfortable. On top of that, the module has a real focus on tax - mainly Inheritance Tax so far - and if you can remember from my tax blog waaaayyyy back during BLP, I LOVE TAX! So you can consider me a very happy bunny.

Speaking of bunnies, the Easter break is here. I can't quite believe that I am saying this but (and yes I know we are only three mere weeks in) I have managed to remain extremely organised with my work so far. I have completed all the prep for each week AND I have typed my notes after each class for consolidation. And you know what that means? I actually get to have a break this Easter! Hoorah! We get two golden weeks off and I have lots of lovely things planned including redeeming the spa voucher my fantastic best friend bought me for my birthday wayyy back before Christmas, plenty of running sessions in preparation for my upcoming half marathon (crazy I know), a Great British Bake Off night with my favourite gang of girls and all things I like to call "life admin" - dentist, doctors, haircut etc. And then the second week I'm off to Center Parcs for an action packed week of adventures. 

Yay for Easter!

RESULTS: Advocacy and Drafting

Second blog in one day - buses eh? But this was a necessary one because today at 2pm we received our advocacy and drafting results. The only one that I really REALLY wanted to pass was advocacy, purely because doing that exam again is not exactly appealing, but lets be honest, nobody ever wants to fail any exam or piece of assessment. 

I actively put off opening results by watching the latest episode of The Following recorded on my sky box (anyone who hasn't seen The Following - it is bloody amazing, where have you been?). The episode finished at 2:20 by which point my phone was inundated with glorious "I PASSED!" messages and a foreboding silence from a few individuals. Obviously, my silence was probably taken to mean that I had failed also! 

As with pretty much every other stressful aspect in my life I develop rituals to ease the tension. Basically, exam results involve - being alone, putting on a feel good song (my thinking here being that, should the results be awful, the song may reduce the possibility of me launching myself out of the window), and then I hover the pointer over the 'open' button. Close the window. Reopen the window and sign back in. Hover. Check Facebook. Hover. Check my phone. Eventually log in and peep through my fingers. 

Drafting - Competent

Advocacy - Competent

Hoorah! And now on with the day :D

Litigation, Property and Conduct exams - oh and drafting!

Yet another long gap since my last post. As you can imagine, it is winding down time at uni which means spare time is in short supply. And you will see from the title is has been a busy few weeks!

I can hardly believe that three weeks YES THREE WEEKS(!) has passed since the last exam of the most recent exam period. Our final sessions in litigation and property (PLP) were on 5 February and we had two free weeks to cram in revision for both subjects plus revision for conduct - more about that later. But first, the drafting assessment was also due on 5 February. This assessment was sent to us a little over three weeks before the due date. It is one of the only assessments, along with Practical Legal Research (PLR), which constitutes university type "coursework" in which you are required to do the work at home and submit a written piece. This year, the drafting was in three sections which a question in each. We were required to test different drafting skills, i.e. actually drafting a clause, critiquing drafting. The sections related one each to business law, civil litigation and property - so a word of warning for you fair part timers who, like me, believed that after the business exam the previous year you wouldn't catch a sniff of business law until at least a TC, business law comes back with avengeance. I suppose it wasn't really that bad as far as assessments go but I would definitely recommend Lexis PSL as a bank for precedents (in addition to PLC of course!) as there was a very handy precedent on there which was unmatched on PLC and sadly many students didn't find it and had to struggle with the rather unworkable PLC version. 

The usual hum of tension was buzzing around uni on the 5th. Hand in date. We also had final classes so, rightly or wrongly, the breaks in between were times for us to hurriedly rush to the PC labs to amend/rewrite/check/renumber/reparagraph/have-mini-breakdowns. I myself ended up printing my assessment four times due to casual checking and noticing errors. I dread to think how many I may have missed! I could have reread it a hundred times. We did the usual ritual of handing in and then after we felt like criminals as we carefully discussed our submissions - for those of you who don't know you're not allowed to discuss the written assessments before or even after the deadline. Inevitably this rule is ditched as soon as the assessment has been submitted. There were a few people who looked positively sick in these discussions, having likely answered a question wrong and I suppose that is one reason alone to avoid the post- assessment analysis.

The day ended, we headed to our respective homes aware that our little gang of eleven had finished its last ever day of classes together. It has been an extremely tiring and testing eighteen months and a period in my life that has been made all the more bearable, hell, even enjoyable, for having those people as classmates. But we looked onwards to exams and then electives. 

Ahhhhhhh the exams.

Civil Litigation

In hindsight, my ingenious idea of waking up at 4:30 every exam morning to arrive at Guildford for 7am was flipping ridiculous. Civil was up first, on 24 February and I felt surprisingly 'buzzy'. Probably the early start and copious amounts of caffeine. It is a 3.5 hour paper with the writing skill also being a part of the assessment. I started fairly well and none of the questions seemed monstrous but around the two hour mark the tiredness was beginning to take its toll and my mind was becoming a tad sluggish. Some water and a snack helped the situation and I finished the paper feeling seriously concerned only about one question and the final question which I only partly answered due to running out of time. I am quietly confident that this can at least get me a pass - mainly because resitting civil litigation would be hellish!

Criminal Litigation

The criminal exam was two days later on 26 February. This was a 1 hour paper with advanced reading - information emailed to you two weeks before that you can annotate and take into the exam. Our advanced reading relating to a gentleman who had been arrested for ABH and some witness statements. The university tell you not to use this as a tool to guess questions but it is hard not to at least surmise at what the paper will include. There were five Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) and it turned out two written questions. I had used the information to write up bullet points of things to take into account, bearing the information in mind, when making his bail application etc. Luckily for me, something that I had prepared came up and with a little tweaking to account for the new information presented in the exam paper I think my answers were good enough to pass. Phew! 

I must say that by this point in the week I was beginning to feel the effects of two 4:30am starts, 7am starts on the days off with packed revision and 11pm bedtimes. 

Property Law and Practice (PLP)

You may remember that I managed, somehow, to achieve 74 in the mock for PLP with absolutely no revision. For that reason alone I felt that with revision a distinction should be in my grasp for the real thing. This exam should have been one of my best, one that I held the most confidence for, one that I felt the most prepared. 

My final 4:30 start for the week killed me. I felt genuinely awful, actually unwell. When I arrived at uni I did the usual ritual of going to the PC labs to print the notes I had typed at home and then emailed to my account. I printed of the Test and Feedback exercises for each week (they are all MCQs so generally are a good aid for the exam MCQs) and headed off to the common room for some light reading of the advanced reading. The property advanced reading consisted of a 43 page lease. It was to be the main focus of all the lease questions, taking up 40% of the exam,  and so was rather important. Looking back I don't feel that I was nearly prepped enough in terms of the advanced reading and had not completed any tasks in relation to the specific provisions of that lease, although I had heavily annotated it. 

With an hour to go until the 9:30am start I was still feeling weird. Fuzzy headed and a bit shaky, a little nauseous. Strange. The time passed and the exam started and I remember reading the front of the paper with the little disclaimer "By sitting this exam you are confirming that  you are fit to sit" or whatever it says. 

I had decided to leave the 20 MCQs until last. They were mainly on unregistered land and not my cup of tea at all. I moved straight to the written questions on freehold land. 

They were fairly okay. My start was questionable at best and my head still felt hot and fuzzy, but I gained my stride and was soon moving to the leasehold questions which were largely uncomplicated. 

I had worked out to the second how many minutes I had per mark and then per question. I finished the written exercises bang on time and began the MCQs. 

LOTS of reading. LOTS of processing of information. My brain was completely frazzled and I struggled enormously. I cannot explain how frustrating it is to have to read and reread and reread information and retain none of it. I muddled through but I expect to have little over 7/20 on those questions - heavily affecting my final grade. 

Conduct

Conduct is a 'pervasive' subject, hence why you have never seen a blog about it. It is meant to be covered in all areas and relates to the Solicitors Regulation Authority Code of Conduct - basically how solicitors should behave. 

It is a two hour paper, all MCQs and was on the Thursday 6th March - a nice big gap after the incredibly long week of core exams previous. 

The paper was not particularly taxing although I am not saying I aced it. The problem with MCQs is that you can often get yourself down to two answers and be sure that either could be right and so you have a 50/50 chance. Luckily, it is a Competent/Not Competent paper so I am hoping I have done enough to get 50% at least!

Results estimates:

• CIVIL LITIGATION                                  62%
• CRIMINAL LITIGATION                        70%

(giving 64% for litigation overall)

• PROPERTY LAW AND PRACTICE      65%
• CONDUCT                                               COMPETENT

Mocks and the Advocacy Exam

Oh dear… somebody hasn't been blogging for a while. I am sure any students out there know how busy December is for us all *tiny violins* and I have also been training for my first half marathon so unfortunately, with all the best will in the world, the blog did indeed fall by the wayside. 

But no more! I hope to be back and blogging from this point onwards. Obviously with only six months remaining of the LPC it would be a shame not to see it through to the end so I am 100% back. 

So let us begin with a round up…

Civil Litigation and Property mock exams

November not only held my birthday but mock exams. The mock exams were held just one week after my advocacy practice assessment, on a Wednesday and during what would have been our workshops for that module. I am not going to lie, my preparation for the mocks this year fell far below the standard I set for myself for the BLP mock one year previous. For BLP I had prepared crib sheets for all the workshops we had done prior to the mock and was serious about my revision. 

For the civ lit and property mocks no such crib sheets were prepared. And revision was minimal. To be honest it was a general theme! Having had no actual time off from the course to revise it just seemed impossible to be as ready as we all would have liked. 

We sat the exams and from the mark sheets I think most of us were confident we had at least passed which was the main thing. The course continued and mocks were swiftly forgotten. 

Advocacy Assessment

The real advocacy assessment was held on the final day of term, the 18th December, and was the only thing we had that day. In addition to this we were also informed that our mock exam papers would be ready for collection after we had done our assessments. Hoorah…

My assessment was at 15:15 which, given how far away I live, suited me just fine. I turned up an hour early looking my best and feeling ridiculously calm! The practice assessment had gone smoothly and I thought that ten minutes of talking for an exam was going to be a breeze. After a quick run through in one of the quiet rooms I felt ready and made my way to student services to find out my room allocation (we were told to arrive at student services fifteen minutes prior to the assessment to collect this). 

Student services was filled with around twenty nervous looking students all lined up to collect their numbers. My stomach dropped and I finally felt the first twinges of nerves. I collected my number and found my room. My opponent was waiting outside and I promptly took down her name while she babbled about how nervous she was. Why is it that nerves are contagious? My stomach dropped for the second time. 

In the advocacy literature we are told that: once you enter the exam room you are in "court room conditions" and the assessment has begun. This effectively means, don't go chatting to the assessor like they are your best pal, they are assessing you from the start. So imagine our surprise when our assessor invited us in and begun talking to us, telling us what she would be doing, where she wanted us to sit, told us of time limits and warnings. I was utterly thrown. My stomach dropped for the third time. And then it began.

I introduced myself and my partner perfectly fine. I went to take a breath to begin the case introductions and it hitched in my throat. The nerves had hit full and fast and I suddenly wondered if I would even be able to talk again. I am sure this has happened to almost everyone and for that reason you will all know that, yes, you do talk again. The first two minutes were touch and go, I felt awful! But I regained my stride and composure and by the time I was taking the "judge" through the bundle my voice had returned some confidence and my breathing had relaxed. I finished without a time warning and the adrenaline buzz of finishing felt amazing!

My partner began her submissions and I hate to say it but she really struggled. I hated having to sit and listen to her and realised how she had probably felt during the first part of mine. Unfortunately, she did receive a time warning and then committed the cardinal sin of abandoning her bundle right where she was and going straight to her concluding submissions. When you receive a time warning you have exceeded the ten allotted minutes for your submissions but will generally be allowed a further two before you are completely cut off. This should allow you to (quickly) finish the bundle and then conclude. Abandoning the bundle, at any point, is a terrible terrible idea. 

The time warning put her off completely and her conclusions were shaky at best. I managed to make a further point and then the judge decided that my partner had "won". This time I managed to respond to costs and I "won" that element of the hearing. 

We quickly left - having finished much earlier than the other students. As we left the building we whispered how we thought it might have gone and my opponent agreed that I had been nervous, in fact she had seen me shaking! The relief of having completed one of my most dreaded assessments on the LPC was immense. Although it could have gone better I was so pleased with myself. 

The day ended on a high with a too-fancy-for-students Christmas meal at a lovely steak restaurant. Our suits came in handy! Generally, my classmates felt passes were on the cards but none of us thought it had gone perfectly. The nature of assessments. 

Oh and in terms of mock results…

            CIVIL LITIGATION :                58%

            PROPERTY:                                74%

Lots of work to do for civil then! 

Christmas was the perfect break. Obviously, jobs continued but having a few weeks away from uni left me feeling revitalised for the final push of 2014 and the finish of the LPC. 

I hope you all had a good one.