Work experience!

I did work experience for a week at Garden Court Chambers in London! It was so awesome, definitely the best work experience I've done so far.

Well, let's start the week off. Monday. First off all, I had trouble finding my way to Middle Temple or wherever I had to go and I was also like an hour early. So I wondered all the way down... what was that road called? I can't remember, but it was starting to get dodgy because I was going where Blackfriars is... and that's definitely wrong, according to what I memorised from the map.

So I asked a few people... I tried to choose ones that looked like they weren't in too much of a rush... rush hour, sighs. No one really know where it was. Then this woman told me to try this gate... so I did. It kind of looked like what it was supposed to be on the map. GCSE geography doesn't empathise how to read maps enough. I'm one of the worst people at reading maps... I prefer to figure out a route on the map, memorise it, then try to read the directions off my head. 

Anyway, so I turned at this gate thing. I kept on walking and walking. And it was actually the place... but I had no idea. On the booklet thing, there were a few photos of the places, just so we could recognise the buildings, but there wasn't a map of that place. So I thought, as seen as I'm still about 45 mins early, I should go and find a coffee shop and sit down. For some bizzare reason, there are only a few coffee shops near there. You have to proper walk down a bit more until you see some. Then I bought a bottle of water and sat there for ages, and I was just doing the sodoku in the newspapers! London is amazing for newspapers. I get like 3 free newspapers everyday, well sometimes I just take one or two. But you get the metro, Londonlite and the London paper. Depending on where I go, sometimes you get like the City A.M. or whatever it's called. But yeah, I tend to read the metro upto the puzzles page, then I just do all the sudoku's in the newspapers and I'm too lazy to read all of the other articles. But seriously, first thing in the morning, the next thing you need isn't to absorb all the shocking news in the society today... although it'd be useful to know. I always like starting my brain off with some sodoku's, so it gets me into thinking mood =]

I've been waffling about that for ages, I haven't even got to the actual work experience part. Anyway, in the morning, we had some talks, then we had a small tour, then we had lunch (which was amazing). Then the barrister I was meant to meet during lunch was held up at court so another barrister had to come and pick me up. I'm not sure whether I can mention details of cases I did (I signed a confidential form thing) so I think I won't risk it =]

Anyway, on the first day, I did some immigration stuff. It's actually more interesting and slightly more complex than I had expected. I was meant to go to this court somewhere, but there might be security issues since I'm under 16. So instead, I meet a pupil who had some immigration cases the next day at Taylor House. So the next day I met her there and I watched her go to court. It was pretty interesting =]
Then we were meant to do a social security case in the afternoon, but it was cancelled.
So in we just went back to the office =] Even though she was a pupil, in her second half of the year, she seemed really professional. At first, I didn't even know she was a pupil because she just seemed like a lawyer who's been doing stuff like this for years.

Then in the afternoon, I went to the housing bit and read over a case and stuff. Then on Wednesday, we had to go to the court... was it a county court? I can't remember. I should have wrote all these stuff down. Anyway... it was interesting in the way that we had such a slim chance of winning. I don't really have the knowledge and stuff to give a proper opinion, but if I was the judge, I wouldn't let the guy keep living there. And we were defending for the guy...
But yeah, it was just amazing to see how professional barristers are. It's like, even though if you know you won't win, you still fight your hardest to represent the best of your client.
On that morning, before it was time for our case (ours was the last) I went to sit in on a few cases, since it's a public court. Then I realised, sometimes women barristers can be even more aggressive than men.

Thursday was my final day at the chamber because we were doing things with SMF on Friday. I went on a criminal trial with a QC. It was a murder trial... not as thrilling as I see in films but it was okay. Since I had read the summary, so I kind of knew what every witness saw and stuff. But then during the trial, the barristers have to ask each and every one of them everything that happened and lots of other questions. To be honest, it was interesting in a way, but boring at the same time. I kind of wanted to close my eyes and keep my ears open... I feel like this a lot of the time. Though it was slightly boring, I still listened hard. Then like the QC asked me whether I had any questions, I said no... but like, because my brain is so slow, I had lots of questions and points about the case afterwards. The QC I was with was really nice, when he talks, he talks in like a really gentle way... but like, when he's on court, he's like completely different. And that was just kind of interesting for some reason... like once you get into your job, you completely adapt into your role.

All week, it was boiling... it's just been really hot. So on Friday, I decided to not wear my jacket, and just wear trousers and a shirt. But that turned out to be the coldest day of the week. Not only that, in the courts, they like to blast air-con to keep people awake. So I was freezing and tired.
We went into a few courts and observed a few cases. One was funny because the offendant tried to get us kicked out. In the afternoon, we did some advocacy training. It was more difficult than I had imagined. Because you have to asked open questions, closed questions, and leading and non-leading questions. My brain just wasn't quite working but I managed to participate a tiny tiny bit =]

Then at the end, we had a kind of reception where all of our barristers came. The SMF people gave out certificates and stuff. And I was just talking lots to my barrister. I think next year, I'll definitely try and get another work experience placement there. As I've mentioned, it's the best work exp I've done so far. My first one was at Manchester Uni which was purely boring. Then I worked at the Co-Operative head quarters... it was interesting... but it just missed something. The week I worked in the chamber, in the morning, I actually felt like "Yeah, I'm looking forward to work today." Because every day is so different, and you never get a repetitive day. The only down side of working there is travelling into London every day. Waking up so early, getting ready, get the train, then get the tube. I did it for a week and I felt like dying. I feel for the people who do this day in day out. And it's not even cheap, it's probably slightly cheaper than driving a car since you have to pay congestion charge and parking... but I had to pay like £90 or so just for a week's worth of transport in London >.< fun ="D">