A new kind of experience.

As part of my role in the History Committee and as a Mentor manager, I take part in a Leicester award scheme. Below is the reflective blog I have using to evaluate the scheme. Helping with the workshop was something I had not done before and difficult as it involved taking a leadership role amongst my age group and class mates. - however, it was an extremely valuable experience towards a professional role as I learnt how to conduct myself appropriately and gradually build confidence within my role. It is always interesting to gain experience outside of law as it often holds qualities which can be useful within it at the same time as providing perspective.

If you are interested in seeing any more of the posts, or thinking about setting up a similar scheme see www.ullamentor-manager.blogspot.com.


The History Society, of which I am Treasurer have set up a pilot scheme which involve second and third years mentoring first years. The aim of this scheme is to integrate years and provide support to first years who may be struggling to settle into university. We have collaborated with not only our university academic department but also the university careers service. After multiple meetings, Leicester University Careers agreed to support our scheme by collaborating their Mentoring Award with us, which is a recognised Leicester Employability Award. From this, our members who take part in the scheme benefit from increased awareness and development of employability skills alongside receiving an award which appears on their degree transcript, making theme more attractive to employers.

This mentor scheme has now been running since October. We have had a high number of members enroll on the course and the mentors have been extremely effective with mentor and mentee interaction.

Today, this scheme, was my 'do something that scares you everyday'. A top up mentor training session was organised, of which me and a fellow committee member were asked to help run. This required organising an Icebreaker, monitoring and supporting the exercises in the workshop and acting as a judge on a panel marking presentations in an assessment center interview st. - Most of the students attending this workshop were my peers, students I take classes with. This was EXTREMELY DAUNTING.

Whilst I have certainly not been swayed away from a profession in Law, acting in a teaching role was extremely valuable experience.

My only solution to the days task was - to go for it. I ended up really enjoying myself.

Tasks throughout the workshop

1. Organise the Icebreaker.
   This was the first task of the workshop. We had only a vague idea of how to carry it out, so it was a bit of a pilot test. We needed to get the attendees warmed up and chatting with eachother. Therefore, the suggested Icebreaker was to tell 2 lies and 1 truth, whilst the rest of the group had to guess which was the truth. - This worked well. Although, it took a little bit of prompting the students got to know each other and were provided with the opportunity to try each others acting and detective skills. It certainly worked well as a bonding session.
2. Integrate and provide support to the groups whilst carrying out workshop excercises. By moving between each group and asking for an update on how they were doing, every student was always very responsive and positive. It was a great opportunity not only to offer advice on their projects but also to find out how they felt about the scheme. The workshop or some other type of facility should certainly be used in the future to collect feedback and opinions of participants, which can then be fed back into the scheme and improved on.
3. Judge the presentations. This was aimed to be carried out in a style that would be found in an assessment center as part of a job application. For me, this was the hardest part, as I was critiquing people who were of my own age and in my classes. However, it was all carried out professionally and appropriately so therefore became a non-issue. Again, it was really interesting to see students ideas on improvement which could be made within student life at the university and how they would implement this. I learnt a positive skill on how to provide constructive criticism. This also helped to improve my leadership skills by building my confidence and helping me to find the right balance between professionalism and remaining approachable.

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Is there going to be a place for me?

To begin, my new plan of prioritisation is off to a shaky start. It turns out it takes A LOT of motivation to stick to a plan and not get sidetracked. My 'to do list' is still being ticked off, just not in the right order. I'll get there...eventually.

This week, I have been trying to track down a bit more work experience, motivated by the deadlines for a lot of the vacation placements. I contacted a fair few of my previous contacts for references and advice, who have all been extremely helpful! However, they have filled me with gloom and doom about the future for criminal defence lawyers.

I came away from this rather shaken up. Whilst I have certainly never considered it an easy task to find a place in criminal law, I had never thought of it being potentially impossible. Therefore, it provided me with a wake up call. I can't put all my eggs in one basket.

Before I get ahead of myself, I do actually have a long way to go before I choose my area in law. Nevertheless, it is daunting to feel that the reason you want to do law may not necessarily exist in the form it is today by the time I qualify - let alone it being a stable choice.

So, do I start to explore other areas of law or do I carry on submersing myself in criminal law, with the acceptance it may not have an entirely prosperous outcome? - I have come to the conclusion, the answer is to do a bit of both.

I want to do criminal law because I want to be part of the right side of the criminal justice system, not because I want to be Mrs Moneybags. If nobody has the funding to take me on by the time I qualify, I am certain there will be voluntary work I can take on, until I become experienced enough to become beneficial to a practice.

On the other hand, as I have already said, I still have two years (ish) to decide officially, which means lots of time to explore other areas. - I enjoyed family law, although that is going much the same way (if not worse) as practices in criminal law. - I have started looking at firms which specialise in areas of employment law, healthcare and supporting charities. As these sectors all still provide aspects which I find attractive in Criminal Law.

Therefore, I will continue to increase contacts and work experience (starting to explore other areas). I have recently applied to work for the Citizens Advice Bureau, which will be great experience and have my first 'on call' next week with YOS. Very excited!

So my conclusion is, carry on finding work experience and following my interest in criminal law but branch out and find experience in other areas which compliment the factors I look for.