No, I am not working on a Saturday, it is just that I only started doing this yesterday and in the blog I didn't even get as far as the room which will be my home for the next six months before I gave up in despair, so I thought that I would try again today.
Anyway, just to update you on the first couple of weeks of my pupillage, I feel that I am playing catch-up with everything, not only my blog.
I am one of four pupils in a commercial set in London. These are the (slightly doctored) stats on the "runners and riders":
- 3 males, 1 female;
- All 4 Oxbridge;
- 2 law degrees;
- 2 CPE (1 English; 1 Greats);
- 3 firsts, 1 upper second; and
- 1 with achingly dull but relevant previous career.
Although I have tweaked a couple of the details to make identification more difficult, I am starting to realise that the profiles above are probably pretty representative of the pupils in any decent London commercial set.
So, the way I see it I am starting the race from a little way behind. Am beginning to realise that the first from Oxford was no more than the ticket to the party, and doesn't mark me out in the least (the 2:1 has managed to launder it with a BCL).
Pep talk from pupilmaster that first Monday, ran something like this:
"Paranoid Pupil, welcome to chambers. You have drawn the short straw"
Dramatic pause
"I will be your pupil master for the next six months, unless you do anything to displease me."
Another dramatic pause
"The term "pupil" is misleading. If I were in the business of education I would be charging you for my teaching services. You will notice that under the terms of your pupillage offer chambers is paying you a princely sum...."
In fact, given the cost of living in London and having to buy presentable clothes, wig, gown etc., it falls some significant way short of a living wage
"....so unless you are willing to forgo that stipend and to negotiate a commercial fee with Tony for my services as a teacher, I expect you to serve a purpose."
"You do not hold a degree in law, although you managed to score highly in an end of term law quiz in the year after you went down...."
I gather from this that PM is not a fan of the CPE
"....and the following year you managed to pass a series of role playing games set and marked by failed barristers."
Ditto Bar School
"In summary you know very little about the law academically and nothing of the practice of law."
"You probably know more than I do about Milton...."
He gives me a look which suggests that he will enjoy testing, and refuting, this hypothesis over the coming months
"....but there is one way in which I am confident that you will prove your worth."
He holds out his hand, in which is a large mug emblazoned with a positively biological image of a naked woman
"I like my coffee black as, I see, do you."
He lowers his eyes to the large damp area around my crotch, from which emanates the aroma of chambers' blend. I fight the urge to follow his eyes and look him in the eye - well, between his mouth and the nose, actually
"The kitchen's down the corridor to the right, third door along."
By the end of week 1 I was beginning to conclude that PM was a complete b*****d. He is a very clever man who knows that he is cleverer than most of those around him, and enjoys asserting and demonstrating that undeniable fact. He enjoys having fun at my expense, and has undermined my initial confidence immeasurably. I feel now that I know nothing, am clumsy, foolish, useless for anything but making coffee, and that I have more chance of winning the lottery than winning the respect of PM or a tenancy in chambers.
Incidentally, the third door on the right turned out to be the room of the Head of Chambers, who was somewhat, but not terribly, surprised to see me stumble into his office.
"Welcome to chambers, PP."
He smiles as I try to shield the gynaecological mug from him
"I expect that you will be looking for the kitchen - three doors to the left of PM, as he knows very well. You'll get used to his little jokes."
9 comments:
Crikey PP, PM sounds like a nightmare. Please tell me you are exaggerating. Otherwise I'll worry for you. Chin up!
Hiya PP,
Many thanks for the kind comments on my blog, and for adding me to your linx - I'll reciprocate!
It is to be hoped that PM will improve in his manner with the passage of time - its kind of distressing when, having worked for something like pupillage for so long, and having built up a certain expectation of how it is that things will progress, things do not QUITE come up to scratch!!.
Give him a bit of time - surely no one can be THAT much of a munter for long!!!!!
Say, "You have asked your Inn to register you as a Pupil-Master. You have done so either because you have a vocation to teach or because someone has said to you that 'doing the right thing by the youngsters' is essential to your future professional advancement. I think we can rule out the former. Did you know it was a term of my major scholarship that I provide feedback on the way that pupillage is working? Good morning."
His Chambers have him figured out. That means either that no one takes any notice of him in which case you can behave as you like. Or that there is a way of getting his approval, in which case my suggestion is as likely as any other (the man sounds like a complete prat and I would have been ashamed to behave like that to my pupils unless I was obviously joking). Or that your set finds the opinions of such a graceless moron persuasive. In which case, although you almost certainly feel that even so, your life is worth nothing without the offer of a tenancy, you will almost certainly feel otherwise in 5 years time, assuming you retain any spark of humanity by then.
Search for your cojones - physically they are located just south of your belt. Mentally they may be residual only - but they can be found.
Well written blog, and entertaining. I suspect your grant is at least twice mine, though, and you sound like you have a scholarship as well, so I'm not sympathetic on that front!
I'd be interested to hear what pupillage is like at a commercial set, but if you carry on spending as long working on your posts as you must have done so far, you'll certainly risk falling behind, or at least looking unfocussed.
Thanks for the comments - Simon, I like your suggestion for a cheery morning greeting to PM but I think that at this stage I am going to look closer to home and put a charitable interpretation on PM's behaviour towards me - i.e. that he is doing me a service. I will endeavour to find the cojones, though, as I suspect that I am going to need them in the coming months.
Hello and welcome!
Thank you for your comments on my blog and the linx - will reciprocate asap!
Looking forward to hearing more about your experiences - you do tell them well!
LL
Okay now call me cynical but if you were trying to retain any ounce of anonymity surely you would not tell the world about your glass-smashing incident in the reception - you must be the only pupil in London to have done that on day one, making you readily identifiable, no?!
Otherwise I do like your blog as I am also in pupillage and also finding things perhaps a little tougher than anticipated. Though I have to say you strike me as shockingly naive in your attitude to the clerk, I know it's already been said and you have said yourself that you may be in a "bubble" of sorts...but frankly if I felt that it was necessary to talk down to other human beings in order to get tenancy I would not WANT tenancy...that said I think "people skills" are more important in non-commercial sets, as your PM appears to demonstrate!
Ah anya - you have to understand that I do throw up a bit of a smokescreen, so you can't take every detail as being true - don't worry, am throwing in enough misleading details to try to ensure anonymity.
Sure, I completely understand that, I myself would be too "paranoid" to write a blog at all, just wanted to know whether it was all meant to be true! Now back you go to work at your Manchester criminal set with 3 pupils and a lovely master....;)
Post a Comment