Is a career in law for you? 6 reasons why people become lawyers

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Long hours, constant learning, dealing with difficult clients and often distressing cases, the prospect of loosing an entire case, the constant pressure…why would anyone choose to become a lawyer?

It’s amazing that despite all this, thousands of people every year decide to take up a career in law and even more surprisingly – enjoy it! Ask any law firm – check out lilawyer.com if you’re looking for legal representation – and they’ll tell you that working as a lawyer isn’t just a job that pays the bills, it’s a vocation and a way of life. Wondering if it’s the career for you? Check out these 6 reasons why people become lawyers. Who knows? Maybe you’ll join them!

The money

Ok, ok it sounds pretty cold. But for some people the lucrative legal world is attractive simply because the salary reflects the hard work you put in. The idea of earning a six figure income certainly an attractive prospect, and if you choose to become specialised in a certain area of law then you have the potential to earn even more and enjoy your job as you do it!

The prestige

All lawyer jokes aside, the world of law is a prestigious one. It cries wealth, knowledge and an extended education. To be a lawyer is to be within circles of other successful professionals and have links to the elite. As a successful lawyer, your reputation will always proceed you and there’s also a glamourous depiction that goes with it. It’s a job that looks good and sounds good.

You can help others

The main reason people get into law, is that it gives them the chance to help others. As a lawyer, you’ll meet people from all backgrounds and all walks of life, and you’ll be the person they turn to for help and justice. It’s an honour. Whether you’re helping someone through a domestic abuse case, or you’re helping an estranged couple come to an agreement over access to their children, you’ll work every day knowing that you’re making a real difference to someone’s life. 

Challenge your brain

We all know that heading to law school and then passing the bar requires years of extended education and hard work. However, the work of a lawyer means that you never stop learning and for some that means the chance to challenge their brain and literally learn something new every single day. Not only that, but as no two cases are the same, you’ll get to work on your problem solving skills and work logically to get your clients the results that they deserve.

Comfort

The world of an attorney is a far cry from the sterile and often dull working environment of the average office worker. If you enjoy a plush office and all the perks that comes with it then you’d best start working towards that law degree.

Role diversity

From family law to personal injury, employment law, civil litigation and even environmental law, there are so many law divisions you could become an expert in. The possibilities are endless!

Best Christmas EVER!

I’ve been confounded by Asda’s marketing campaign for Christmas 2017 which has been thrust under my nose every time I open a Metro or turn on the TV for the last few weeks.  I’m fricking sick of it.  That campaign, of course, is the one promising people (but presumably only those who shop at Asda) the best Christmas ever. 

(Yes - I've really cut this out from the paper and scanned it in.)

Best. Christmas. Ever.  I mean - Christ...  where do you go from there?

If Asda are right, future Christmases are going to have scarily big shoes to fill.

There’s enough ‘organic’ pressure exerted on people throughout November and December to enjoy Christmas at all costs without subjecting them to a marketing campaign that’s focused solely on adding to that pressure.  Come on, Asda - that’s just cruel!

I’m not particularly anti-consumerist around the festive period.  I’m really not.  But I really hate the way that after months of build-up and increasingly intense coercion to invest (in every sense) in Christmas and all things Christmassy, from the evening of 25 December onwards, it’s dropped like a scalding-hot turkey that everyone ought to be ashamed of.  Before people have barely had time to whip off their tacky paper hats or locate the Alka-Seltzer to ease their indigestion from gluttonous helpings of Christmas lunch, the message comes down from on high that Christmas is over, it’s time to move on and focus on stampeding out of the house to the Boxing Day sales as a remedy for being cooped up with loved ones for, what, a WHOLE fricking day.  Hours later, we’re then directed to shift our minds to New Year’s stuff, detoxing and gym memberships.

So, after months of being subjected to shedloads of Christmassy shit, we’re then, in an instant, to pretend it never even happened?!?  Well – I’m sorry.  I’m just not playing that game anymore. 

I honestly believe that enjoying the entire festive period is much better for our collective mental health.  Why the constant search for the next big thing?  How about celebrating the present for a bit? 

So, Asda, I’m going to enjoy Christmas, but I’m not going to try to inflate it into something bigger that it can never live up to.  And I’m not going to venture into one of your cheap and nasty stores in any event.

Try to come up with something a bit more sensible for next year’s Christmas campaign, eh? 

Christmas sandwiches

Since 2010, November has always brought with it the first opportunity since the previous December to wrap my chubby little chops around a Christmas-themed sandwich during my lunch hour. As you can tell, I'm something of a lunchtime gourmet when I venture into the office.

Imagine my delight when today, after two weeks of eagerly looking, I finally spotted the Christmas butties neatly haphazardly displayed on the chiller shelf in Sainsbury's Local. There was just one Turkey Feast left which I quickly discounted; I never fancy the 'last turkey' of anything in a shop. Thankfully, my greedy little eyes spotted a few boxes of turkey with pigs under blankets left, so I practically shoulder-barged out of the way the dithering shopper in front of me and made a grab for one.

I thought it would be a good choice with which to open my Christmas sandwich account for 2017. Turkey with pigs under blankets has been one of my go-to Christmas sandwiches for the last two or three years and it's always a safe(ish) bet (to the extent that any of them are).

I noticed that the box design has received an overhaul for this year; it now sports a bright pink exterior with a few seasonal stars (of Bethlehem perhaps?) which, I thought at the time, gave it a hint of cheeky sophistication and sass. (Incidentally - I've always been a sucker for nicely-presented tat.) So, as I mooched my way towards the self-service checkouts -- I mean, why interact with another human if you can possibly avoid it? -- I thought: “oooooh – this is going to be a belter of a sandwich”. Or, as I saw on a pub sign in the run-up to Christmas last year, "It's [going to be] like Christmas in your mouth!!". Whatever that means.

^{Note: this box is last year’s get-up.  I couldn’t find a picture of the new one and I didn’t have the presence of mind to take a photo of the box myself.}

However, my excitement was short-lived. Once I got back to the office and finally made a start on my eagerly-anticipated lunch, I was disappointed. The sandwich wasn't sassy. It was stale.

The disappointment that hit me when I finally wrapped my chops around what turned out to be a miserable excuse for a sandwich is hard to convey. It's a truly galling experience when, after a fortnight of excited anticipation, you realise after the first gobfull that your supposed Christmassy sandwich is utter shite.

So, what was wrong exactly? Well - the sausages weren't flavoursome, the cranberry sauce was insipid being neither sweet nor sharp, the turkey was largely absent and to the extent it was there, was dry, the bacon was rubbery and un-bacon-like and the bread might have been fresh sometime last week, but it certainly wasn't today. Put frankly, it was wrong in just about every way a turkey, bacon and sausage sandwich could be wrong. And, to add insult to injury, I was left with a few pence of the tawdry excuse for meat stuck in my lower left third molar for the rest of the afternoon.

Trying to force that sandwich down was somewhat akin to, I should imagine, eating a curious assortment of flavourless cardboard pieces squidged lazily between two slices of stale bread. And it cost me £2.35.

Let's hope things improve when I try a 2017 version of the Turkey Feast. Because one thing's for sure: I won't be giving the pigs under blankets a second chance this year.

Blogger’s new templates: Contempo, Soho, Emporio and Notable

 

For a while now, I’ve been increasingly conscious that the design of Law Actually has become a bit long in the tooth. I’ve occasionally tinkered with the look and feel of my blog over the last few years, but there’s been no escaping the fact it was based on a (now pretty primitive) blogger design from six or seven years ago. The last major refresh I’d made to the design was in 2012. Yikes.

I made a few minor changes earlier this year when I suddenly remembered I used to do (and quite enjoy) something called blogging. Don’t look at me like that: apparently, blogging simply isn’t such a big thing any more.  Despite, the need for a visual change, I rather sadly recognised that it was well beyond my web design skills to produce something half-decent myself. Although blogger templates are available from third parties, they tend to be infested with problems – including advert placements and other awkward elements which are difficult to remove or modify. After a few very disappointing attempts to find a free blogger template from elsewhere, I gave up.

Given that Google hadn’t released a new blogger template since 2011, I figured something new might be coming before long. Despite a bit of digging on the blogger blog – that’s almost mind-bendingly recursive, isn’t it – I didn’t find any indication of when this might be.

I was truly delighted, therefore, when, earlier today, I visited blogger to check out my recent visitor stats and saw that Google had made a range of stunning new themes available.

The new theme categories – called Contempo, Soho, Emporio and Notable – are all stunning, modern and functional. I’ve tried a bunch on Law Actually and I had a really tough time deciding which to pick.  That really speaks to the quality of options to choose from – all for what is, let’s not forget, a service that Google makes available for free. I’m no Google fanboi – heck, I use Bing in some sort or perverse act of contrarianism (or is it self-harm?) – but there’s no denying they do some good stuff from time to time.

In the end, I went with a slightly modified version of the white Soho design. The acid test was my wife’s reaction when I first showed her the new theme: “wow, that a looks a bit more modern”, she said.

Enough said, I think.

When is close of business?

Ah – ‘close of business’. What a phrase. At least it’s not quite as bad as ‘close of play’.

These curious expressions which are frequently bandied about in offices throughout the western world are intended, of course, to mean the end of the working day. (Whatever the hell that is – particularly in today’s world of taking work home, answering work emails late into the evening and sleeping with a smartphone under your pillow. No wonder we’re all quivering wrecks.)

A recent case considered this very issue. No – not the quivering wrecks thing – but when ‘close of business’ occurs. The case, for those of you who might be interested, was Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (In Administration) v Exxonmobil Financial Services BV [2016] EWHC 2699 (Comm).

The claimant, Lehman Brothers, provided equities and bonds to the defendant, ExxonMobil, under a securities agreement. ExxonMobil sent a default valuation notice to Lehman Brothers, which, to be valid, needed to be received by 'close of business' by Lehman Brothers on the relevant day. The notice was sent by fax and was received by Lehman Brothers' London office at 6.02pm.

To determine whether the notice was valid under the agreement, the court had to consider when ‘close of business’ occurred. Lehman Brothers argued that 'close of business' in London was 5.00pm – meaning the notice had arrived too late and should be deemed to have been received the following day. ExxonMobil contended that 'close of business' was 7.00pm – meaning the notice was in time and therefore valid.

The court accepted ExxonMobil’s contention that, as the claimant, the onus was on Lehman Brothers to establish when the close of business had occurred for the purposes of the agreement. Crucially, Lehman Brothers adduced no admissible evidence on this point. Silly them.

The wording of the contract was such that the validity of the notice turned on the precise meaning of the term 'close of business for commercial banks in London’. From a contractual certainty standpoint, this still isn’t great, but at least it’s a bit narrower than ‘close of business’.

Lehman Brothers argued that this phrase meant 'normal business hours' as worked by ordinary businesses and high street banks. The court acknowledged that 'commercial bank' was not a term of art in English law, but accepted ExxonMobil's argument that, in the modern world, commercial banks closed at about 7.00 pm. The judge emphasised, however, that this was a finding of fact limited to the instant case. Consequently, it was held that, for the purposes of the agreement, ‘close of business’ meant 7.00pm. The valuation notice was therefore valid.

On use of the phrase ‘close of business’ generally, the judge said this:

[T]he term “close of business” on a particular day or date is a useful term which is used in many different contexts, including court orders. The present context is as to the time of receipt of notices in a standard form financial contract. Where the intent of such a contract is to impose a definite cut-off time in this regard, it can do so expressly [by stating a precise time.] The fact that the contract does not state a time, and uses the term “close of business” instead, gives a useful flexibility, and should deter arguments based on the precise time of receipt, which may make little commercial sense.

That’s an interesting point, but, as a school admissions officer might say, ‘you have to draw the line somewhere’. And when you’re dealing with contracts, it’s generally better if everyone knows where that line is going to be drawn.

From the perspective of contractual (and therefore commercial) certainty, there is simply no substitute for precision in the drafting of contracts. Close of business for one person might be very different to another person’s stance. The idea that use of a rather woolly phrase would help to deter quibbling over whether an action had or had not been taken in the required time makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. It didn’t exactly work in the present case, did it? But I take the court’s point as to it possibly helping in a day-to-day commercial pragmatism kind of thing. Maybe.

But here’s the acid test: if I saw that phrase in a contract I was reviewing, would I let it pass, or insist on it being substituted for a specific time?

The latter, you say? Yep – you’re damn right.

All aboard the booger bus

Yep – it’s all a-happening down in Bristol.

From the Bristol Post 27/02/17:

A woman [called Sian, it seems] claims she was physically sick in the street after a passenger on a First Bus wiped a bogey on her leg.

Shocked and disgusted, she got off the bus and told First Bus she "puked in the middle of the street" in a complaint made on Twitter.

She said she wasn't sure if the incident was an accident or intentional but branded it "gross" in a series of outraged tweets.

"Some guy picked his nose next to me and left a boogie on my jeans," she wrote.

Responding to the complaint on social media, First Bus West of England said the incident should be reported to the police as an assault.

Sian said she would not be taking the matter any further as it was "just a boogie", instead asking for some complimentary bus tickets.

Her request, however, was rejected

Well – booger me. Poor Sian. Not even a complimentary ticket to ride the bus and have another opportunity for a passenger to, y’know, wipe snot all over her.  Sian – you’re a glutton for punishment.

Let’s face it: anything can happen on public transport. I was on a late-night train back from a client meeting in Leeds several years ago, when, towards the very end of the journey, I heard a curious loud rustling sound. It sounded much as though somebody was trying to scrunch up a sheet of baking parchment greaseproof paper. It happened a few times and I didn’t think anything of it until I suddenly became aware of everybody in front of me scrambling back in earnest.  This was followed, almost instantaneously, by a wave of very strong smell – something like spirit alcohol mixed with something I couldn’t quite place.

It quickly emerged that a young chap – he looked roughly in his mid-teens – had tried to consume his bodyweight in spirits and was now retching it up in the carriage. The rustling/scrunching sound was the contents of his stomach hitting the floor. Nice.

Suffice it to say, I, like my fellow passengers didn’t hang about, and was out of my seat in a flash and moving towards the back of the carriage like a scalded cat. The kid, thankfully, decided to get off at the next stop, but not before being admonished by the unimpressed train crew.

It’s a train journey that I won’t forget. A bit like this one.

I wonder if Michael Palin would be interested in reconstructing it for one of his ponderous railway shows…

Interestingly, this isn’t the first snot-related-possible-assault themed post that I’ve ever posted. Remember this?

Law Actually is 10 years old today

Yes - really.

I’ve posted quite a few birthday blog posts over the last – well – decade and, looking back, I always seem to start them by saying that I can’t believe Law Actually has been going so long.  (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

Well, now this blog has reached double figures, I really can believe it. It feels like ten years.

I started Law Actually as a bit of lark; a creative outlet from the travails of studying law. It was probably my contrarian and rebellious streak coming out, plus a procrastination device to distract myself from preparing for seminars.

Ten years later, it feels like I’ve seen it all come and go in the blogosphere. (And I’m getting an increasing number of grey hairs to prove it.) The web and the world have moved on considerably since blogging was considered de rigueur. Now it feels like it’s something more to be ashamed of than celebrated and the sense of community in the ‘sphere has long since disappeared. I think I’ve grieved long enough over that loss. Life and things move on. I get it.

One thing I’ve found over the years is that I enjoy blogging more when I take it less seriously. People blog for all reasons, but mine is a sort of creative catharsis. I used to get as much (if not more) pleasure from playing in Photoshop creating a graphic to accompany the text as I did from the writing itself. I think my skills on both fronts have improved appreciably from those early days.

I’m conscious that I’ve subjected my readers and this blog to a lot of crap during the last decade. A few years back, it was little more than a bawdy-house for SEO where you couldn’t turn around for all the sponsored links and posts. Apologies for that. Sometimes blogging felt more like a chore than a pleasure in those days.

I’m going to make no predictions as to what the future will hold for me or this blog. But if I hang about in the blogosphere I want it to be on a no-strings, casual basis. If I post, I post. And if I don’t – well, it’s not the end of the world.

There are a lot of memories tied up in the thousand or so posts I’ve published. I’ve often found a lot of pleasure looking back through my archived posts; they stir up at least as many memories as a diary could have captured. And that’s pretty special.

So, thanks, Law Actually. In a bizarre sort of way, you’ve been a good, comforting friend over the years. And I’m really glad you’re here.

Have a great birthday. You deserve it.