Having had two lawyers for parents, there was one career which I was definitely, positively, absolutely never ever going to choose. I sat through 18 years of legal discussions at the dinner table, and some of my earliest memories are of riding my bike around Mum's office car park while she worked through yet another weekend. I did not want to be a boring, hard working, heartless lawyer.
So, while my ideals of travelling the world digging and setting fire to things (For Science!) are no longer applicable, I've spent the last couple of years (!) since I last blogged living in London, enjoying it immensely, and working first for Sky TV (creating subtitles - voice to the voiceless!) and now for the last eighteen months in government (recently that's mostly involved watching the Olympics). I'm settled, happy, and striding forwards into my new career. That's not what this rebooted blog is about.
I've put pen to paper (hand to keyboard really) because on Monday evening I found myself on the induction course of the Part-time GDL at the College of Law in Bloomsbury. Two more years of that, and another of professional qualification (which if I do it will be the BPTC - qualifying me as a Barrister) and I will have followed in my parents footsteps, and joined the legal profession.
Why?
Well, first up, I'm happy in my current job, and have no intention of leaving just yet, or necessarily even if/when I qualify. The interest was sparked by my partner, who is a vocational lawyer if ever there was one. She's known since mid-university that criminal defence advocacy was for her. I found myself swept up in her enthusiasm, and as she worked saw an interest and an aptitude in myself for her studies. There's maybe an element of competitiveness there then as well.
Also, in the past couple of years I've dealt with a bereavement, a house sale, and spent my working life in Westminster. It has started to be evident that, for various reasons, lawyers cover all of these, and more, aspects of life. They tend to make decisions for people - people rely on the assurance of the law, and those who practice it. If you really want to affect policy, or take control of your own life, a knowledge of the law is starting to seem almost unavoidable. A professional qualification, then, can only be an advantage.
Finally, and most importantly, I'm starting to become more ambitious as I approach my mid twenties. My degrees in Archaeology, while great fun, don't seem easily applicable to... well... anything in the real world. They've got me this far, and I'm grateful for that, but a GDL (and hopefully a nominal LLB once the training is through) can only expand my skill-set. I was incredibly heartened when going through the GDL induction mixer on Monday night to find that I wasn't the only one with this idea - there were a few of us who weren't necessarily there to become lawyers, so much as to gain knowledge of the law to further our own professional careers.
So, I'm back. Same author, same channel (bat-channel?), entirely different subject. I still work behind a desk, and I still hope to have many adventures. But what follows will be a tale of the GDL not as done by a driven, dedicated human defender, but by an outsider with nothing to lose and everything to gain from this experience. I'll try to be honest about what I find during my GDL. So far, so good...
...and there won't be any (serious) archaeology. Although the pop culture and absurdity aren't going anywhere...
