It’s so easy to slip out of the habit of blogging regularly. It comes easily for months on end and then, a lapse of a week or so and you lose all momentum…busy with lots of other things at the moment (juggling family and court work becomes more challenging when an evil tummy bug is doing the rounds and the childminder is on hols) so no substantive post today, but will be posting soon. I haven’t forgotten you all. Keep checking back.
Tag Archives: legal life
Key Transferable Skills
I’ve been thinking a lot lately (something I hate to do when it’s not billable, but – sigh – needs must) about what I would do with my life if I was forced to abandon the bar as a result of the legal aid cuts. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not there yet – it cost me £30k, three years and a nearly nervous breakdown to get here after all – and I love it to bits – but I think many of us are wondering if we will still be doing this in 5 years time – so what else can we poor misfits turn our hands to?
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They tell you at bar school not to worry if you don’t make it to practise at the bar, that being a qualified barrister will equip you with numerous ‘key transferable skills’ useful in some ‘other’ life. Leaving aside for one moment the obvious self-serving nature of such a remark coming from an industry which charges outrageously over-inflated fees to far more students than can ever hope to succeed, what are my key skills and to where do they transfer on civvy street?
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For one thing I’m a terrible people manager. I tried it once and oscillated from nice-but-ignored-by-cheerful-subordinates to shouty-and-ignored-by-sullen-subordinates. Far better to manage oneself, to be a self sufficient unit of one. Delegate nothing: control everything. So team work and staff management is out then.
FLBA Website
The Family Law Bar Association has recently begun to publish press releases and consultation responses to its website here. The website is due to be relaunched soon in its entirety but this is a helpful interim measure.