Cambridge Law Students and Applicants

Im 24, and completed an LLB at Trinity College Dublin. Ive just been called to the bar in Ireland after studying for Ireland's version of the BVC at King's Inns.

I have the following advice/warnings for school-leavers thinking of studying law at undergraduate level:

1. Law is boring. Insanely and incredibly boring. A law degree is necessarily vocational in nature - it's professional training. A lot of uni law departments stress the intellectual nature of their law degrees. Especially Oxford and Cambridge. This is *******s for the most part. Yes, you do learn a lot of useful skills - your writing will improve, you will be able to distill general principles from a mass of dry material. But as to expanding the boundries of your mind with new knowledge, new concepts - a law degree will leave you feeling like you have spent three or four years learning off the phone book.

Most of the work you'll be required to do is the reading of cases. Most of these cases will have dry, humdrum fact patterns. In land law you will be dealing with rights of way disputes between neighbouring farms. In contract, whether or not Mr Jones really did agree to provide 500 lengths of copper piping and not 50. In tort you will examine 'fascinating' issues such negligence where the leading case in the area, Donoghue v Stevenson, is based on a lady who suffered shock after drinking a ginger beer that had a decomposed snail in it. In European law you will get to grips with one or two interesting concepts, but by and large, you will be examining the legality of fisheries quotas and competing definitions of mackeral in different states.

In short, you will spend 4 to 5 hours a day in you uni library reading some of the most boring litigation possible to imagine.

2. You do NOT need an LLB/BA (Juris) to practice law as a solicitor or as a barrister in the UK or Ireland. It speeds up the process to have a law degree, but it is not required. SO, if you accept that law is boring, but wish to enjoy the prestige of being a lawyer and the money that accompies such a profession, do a BA in something you like and do the one year conversion courses that places like City University offer in London. All the major law firms dont care what degree you have so long as it is a 2:1.

3. A law degree is not intellectually difficult. Any fool with an intermediate IQ and a reasonable memory will easily get a 2:2. Even at 'top' non-oxbridge law schools like KCL or UCL. I coasted most of the time at Trinity, Dublin (a sister college of St John's, Cambridge and Oriel, Oxford) and obtained a 67% 2:1. I crammed like hell in the final 6 weeks of each of my 4 years and did fine. I also coasted on the BVC and did fine as well.

So, kids, if you love learning for learning's sake and pushing your intellectual and cerebral boundries do NOT study law at undergrad level. Dont get me wrong. I did enjoy the social aspect of undergrad and was very involved in debating at Trinity and went to IVs etc - but from an intellectual point of view, it was bankrupt. Most bright students at top law schools all feel the same - they all try to convince themselves they like it. But deep down they find it insanely boring.

As to myself, now that Im fully qualified, i will not practice. I never want to look at the boring **** again no matter how much money i could make for it.
So, i got accepted to a Master's degree in international history at LSE.

I can't wait for my education to start again. It finished when i left school!

INTELLECTUALS PLEASE NOTE: SAVE YOURSELVES. Do that BA in Anthropology, Archaeology, Eastern Civilisations, History, Divinity etc. Your mind is at its best at 18. Give it the food that it needs.

If you take it seriously it is essentially like having another supervision that week, there is also a speed mooting competetion aswell though, which is the 20-20 cricket of the mooting world and takes about 3 hours iirc?

In regards to my argument phil, it was along time ago but loking back at my skeleton i suggest the defendant had poor eyesight and was driving his tank on his private property, I decided that really his private land was just like a cricket pitch, and a tank was just a big cricket ball and that he had the same rights to be driving a tank around as he had to be doing anything else on his land. Therefore i submitted that
1.2. That the existence of a duty of care would violate Sir James right to a private life under article 8 of the Human Rights Act
2.1. That the risk of running over a visitors car was not one which would have been a foreseeable result of the omission of Sir James.
2.3 that given the cricumstances the conduct of sir james was emminently reasonable
Cases: Caparo, Bolton, Human rights act, an obscure shipping case that no-one had ever heard of before that said something i thought was vaguely simlar but was infact totally and utterly wrong.

unsurpringly i lost
P.s still stalking you phil even from hundreds of miles away

If you take it seriously it is essentially like having another supervision that week, there is also a speed mooting competetion aswell though, which is the 20-20 cricket of the mooting world and takes about 3 hours iirc?

In regards to my argument phil, it was along time ago but loking back at my skeleton i suggest the defendant had poor eyesight and was driving his tank on his private property, I decided that really his private land was just like a cricket pitch, and a tank was just a big cricket ball and that he had the same rights to be driving a tank around as he had to be doing anything else on his land. Therefore i submitted that
1.2. That the existence of a duty of care would violate Sir James right to a private life under article 8 of the Human Rights Act
2.1. That the risk of running over a visitors car was not one which would have been a foreseeable result of the omission of Sir James.
2.3 that given the cricumstances the conduct of sir james was emminently reasonable
Cases: Caparo, Bolton, Human rights act, an obscure shipping case that no-one had ever heard of before that said something i thought was vaguely simlar but was infact totally and utterly wrong.

unsurpringly i lost
P.s still stalking you phil even from hundreds of miles away

I wouldn't say anything was essential but the more you do, the greater the impression of your interest in the subject perhaps?

Viewing in court is the best thing to do in my opinion. It's free, you're not looking at 'Law' from a vocational perspective as you would shadowing a solicitor/barrister but 'in action' and there is plenty for you to take form it/talk about in your interview/ps.

Debating is perhaps a good precursor to mooting and reading some law texts can only help. Make sure you read the right books though, 'The Law Machine' is a standard text that isn't really that helpful, you're bound to know most of what it says already. 'What about Law' is a book some freshers have been told to read before they go, that might be a good starting point and anything else your local library has which is more than just a factfile about the legal system. Don't bother buying anything though, it's not worth it.

The best thing to probably do is keep up with the law in the news. Go through a decent paper everyday and just keep up with legal developments i.e. last week there was the issue of detaining an illegal immigrant in a detention centre even though he was underage. It's the kind of legal problem scenario they could chuck at you in an interview: Is it justified considering his age? His right to be in the country? What if he is an asylum seeker? etc etc.

Good luck with your application

That's great thankyou! xx

Oh PS my AS subjects are history, maths, economics, english lit and critical thinking, are these the sort of things i would want to be studying?

PPS i would rep you all but i dont have enough points myself!!