Is Rhys Bevan (pictured) crazy? Why would anyone in their right mind reject a place at one of the top universities in the country to go and do an unglamorous legal apprenticeship at a local authority? Actually, though, when 24 year-old Bevan explains his career choices to date, they kind of make sense…

Now with six years of legal experience under his belt – four spent at Bury Council and the last two with the Local Government Ombudsman in London – Bevan is close to adding to his legal executive qualification the title of solicitor. Meanwhile, many of his peers who did go to uni find themselves on the outside of the legal world looking in as they scavenge for training contracts.

Legal Cheek editor Alex Aldridge – who recently wrote of his regret at wasting so much of his life in higher education – is impressed. As is solicitor Kevin Poulter, whose humble Doncaster roots have imbued in him a deep suspicion of formal learning.

Together, in the delightful confines of Poulter’s luxurious Kings Cross home, the trio discuss Bevan’s interesting journey through the law.

Listen to the Podcast at Legal Cheek

As Hardwicke Building found out last week, lawyers who enjoy writing in their free time can sometimes cause problems. But, on balance, most barristers’ chambers and law firms look favourably on applicants with a few bylines to their name – and as the Barbara Hewson furore fades, that seems unlikely to change. Certainly, blogging helped Hardwicke’s most junior tenant, Leon Glenister, to get his foot in the door at the Bar…

As co-founder of the popular Law Think blog, Glenister found himself frequently asked questions about his writing during the pupillage interview process.

“They endlessly asked about Law Think,” he says, with questions including, “How do you check each other’s work and make sure you haven’t put something out that’s wrong.” Glenister adds that this sort of line of inquiry could “form the whole basis of an interview.”

Unlike many student legal bloggers, who stray into current affairs and ‘careersy’ topics, Glenister (pictured) stuck to writing about the law itself, with posts often inspired by essays and tutorial discussions. In doing so, he was guided by a belief that, despite their inexperience, law students “have some of the most interesting things to say” about legal developments.

“Students have an advantage in that they have time to think about a subject in more depth. Lawyers who are facing the hassles of practice often just aren’t able to do this,” he says.

Law Think‘s impressive Twitter following – which rose to almost 3,000 followers before Glenister and the blog’s other co-founders were forced to put their writing on hold due to the rigours of professional life – illustrates what a useful resource it became.

In the podcast below – also available on iTunes – listen to Glenister chat about legal writing in more detail. We’re joined by solicitor and Solicitors Journal columnist Kevin Poulter, and Legal Cheek‘s editorial assistant Tom Webb, who is currently finishing off an MA in journalism having graduated in law from UCL last year.

Hear the podcast at Legal Cheek

View the segment below:

A poll of 1,200 office workers has found that half of employees never consider the risks presented to companies by downloading data to their office computers or smartphones.

In the survey carried out by IT staffing provider Modis, 40 per cent of those surveyed said they were not aware of their employers IT security policies.

A spokesman for Modis puts some of the blame down to the increase in popularity of flexible working and cloud computing which has “created a multitude of points at which criminals can access a company’s data”.

The vulnerability employees present to a company can be reduced by the implementation of simple, accessible policies alongside a regular and comprehensive training and education regime. What might seem like common sense will often be ignored when added to the pressures of working either in or out of the office.

Information downloaded from social media sites can also be damaging to business. Even if it is not a security risk, spamming can cause immeasurable reputational damage. Sensible precautions and proactive internal communication including early warning systems will help reduce the risk of such threats and protect valuable commercial information and relationships.

The rise of social media is having ’devastating consequences’ on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) who are suffering reputational damage when communities turn against them.

The BBC has reported that one such business has been damaged by comments made in an ”untrue and misleading” social media campaign over hygiene standards.

Takings are said to have dropped by half at the Planet Spice restaurant in Norfolk when rumours circulated by text message and Facebook that the local council’s environmental health department had shut the restaurant down. 

Rather than responding via social media, the restaurant owner Naz Miah has chosen a more traditional response and posted a notice on the door confirming his restaurant has passed hygiene checks.

Brand protection in the social media age is essential.  Many businesses have used social media platforms to promote, build and grow their businesses especially within local and niche communities.  However, the tide can quickly turn and organisations, no matter what size, must be ready to respond.  Every day there are examples of bad customer experiences being made good by sensible and often creative PR teams offering responsive advice and suggestions.  But it is not only for the likes of M&S and Starbucks to lead the way.  SMEs in particular, who are close to their customers and clients, must act quickly and proactively to correct mistakes or false perceptions.

Although, Mr Miah has no idea who is spreading the rumours, or why, he might have considered responding to the allegations via the platform on which they were made. 

Norfolk police said it was investigating whether a crime had been committed, although a civil action might be a more effective remedy.

Kevin Poulter sees solicitors adapting to austere times and firms nurturing the very best of our future lawyers, but is the Bar prepared to do the same?

Last month saw the sixth National Apprenticeship Week and the formal launch of the Higher Apprenticeship in Legal Services, supported by Skills for Justice and the National Apprenticeship Service. At a grand breakfast in the House of Lords, hosted by Supreme Court President Lord Neuberger, the great and the good showed their support for sensible innovation in legal training.

I was there to see how the profession really felt about opening the doors to those who had chosen not to follow the traditional route to qualifying. Our host’s opening remarks surprised me, as he suggested that it was “unfair if lots of people who want to become lawyers, cannot become lawyers”. It might be unfair, but it is also impractical and undesirable to have more lawyers than we need, not least given the well-publicised struggles at the criminal bar and with high profile law firms falling into administration up and down the country. More lawyers may, unfortunately, mean an unsustainable model.

However, with the cost of attending university at around 9,000 each year, even the most direct route to qualifying as a solicitor can cost upwards of 40,000, even before living expenses are included. Without a law degree in your pocket, this is over 50,000. It was clear, that an affordable, practical and fit-for-purpose alternative is a good thing, with the emphasis being placed on standards, competencies and quality.

It was good to see CILEX showing its support for the apprenticeship scheme, which could be seen as a competitor to its own vocational route to qualification. Also in attendance were representatives of the SRA and the Law Society, who in a moment of suspended reality and apparent disbelief both agreed that it was right to support, albeit cautiously, an apprenticeship route to the sector.

Conspicuous by their absence, however, were any representatives of the Bar. Despite being invited to join the discussion, there was a noticeable gap in the debate. I found that surprising given the hordes of aspiring lawyers taking the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) each year which far outnumber the pupillages available.

You might have expected an alternative route to legal qualification to be embraced and fully supported, not least because of the millions of pounds in scholarships, which are presented to fledgling barristers, funding their formal academic training.

Lord Neuberger rightly said that it is important for judges to be representative and diverse. This was echoed around the room by The Law Society and CILEX, who have themselves done so much to open careers in the profession to a wider field than ever before. But despite the president of the Supreme Court’s contention, the reality is somewhat different.

He went on to say that “judges come from the profession”, which is indeed true, but the side of the profession they overwhelmingly come from is the Bar.

All too often am I asked how long it will be before I become a barrister, if I will take more exams to get there, if I am jealous of barristers who make so much money. The public still struggles with the strange relationship between solicitors and barristers, presuming (incorrectly) that the Bar is something to aspire to or a badge that is awarded because of ability, rather than a different job altogether. In fact, it was recently reported in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings that the average solicitor’s salary is 45,585 as opposed to barristers and judges with an average income of 40,242. This is a perception which, I fear, is being perpetuated by the judiciary and the Bar themselves. I was reading last month an article in the Observer magazine about what it’s really like to be in a particular job. As I flicked through the pages to ‘judge’ – skipping past ‘dominatrix’ and ‘psychic’ – I read on. “When you become a judge after years of being a barrister…”

Lord Neuberger is right to want a diverse and representative judiciary, but to achieve this, the Bar, the Judicial Appointments Committee and the rest of the profession need to work together. When there is a legal apprentice sitting in the Supreme Court, we can deservedly pat ourselves on the back.
I fear, however, that when that time comes, I will no longer be sufficiently agile to do just that.

This article was first published by Solicitors Journal  on 9 April 2013, and is reproduced by kind permission.

Richard Branson has sparked controversy by introducing a new uniform for staff on his Virgin Rail franchise. Of particular concern are the blouses that female employees complain “leave little to the imagination”.

The business guru is no stranger to controversy, often courting the press with off the wall stunts to gather publicity for his numerous business ventures and boost his Virgin brand. Indeed, the rail franchise recently came out on top after querying the merits of a competitors bid succeeding over its own.

This time, however, the employees are the disaffected party and the company runs the risk of rebellion. The new uniform includes new red blouses through which dark bras can be seen. Adding further insult, the blouses are said not to be particularly well fitting.

By way of ‘compensation’, female staff who have complained about the uniform have been offered £20 vouchers to fund the purchase of more appropriate underwear.

According to Andy Cross, Virgin’s business support director, the introduction of the uniform across the network has been suspended until the end of the month, “to allow time for employees to ensure that they have a uniform they feel comfortable in.”

If this is a PR stunt, it may attract a new type of passenger to the rail network, but will do nothing for the brand amongst forward thinking women and more conservative customers. Much has been done across the transport sector to dispel the image of the glamorous ‘trolley dolly’ in an age of equality amongst the sexes. Whether the men’s uniform is equally ‘ill-fitting’ is yet to be seen.

Third Party Harassment

If the uniform is as revealing as it has been suggested, the female employees may have a claim on the grounds of sex discrimination under the Equality Act. With 3,500 employees, there could be a significant fall out for the company and any number of grievances and complaints from within the ranks as well as from disgruntled or offended customers.

The move has come at the same time as an employer’s liability for harassment of its employees by a third party is set to be discontinued under the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, which received Royal Assent last month.

We have all seen the adverts of Branson dressed up as Usain Bolt and Mo Farah, but perhaps in his next advert he might be encouraged to don one of his own more revealing uniforms?

For more on workplace dress codes, see how Harrods made the headlines and for a puntastic commentary to this story, visit LondonLovesBusiness

The article was first published in the Spring edition of ACEVO’s Network magazine

The momentum may be with Alternative Business Structures (ABSs) right now as they pour through the newly removed gates to providing legal services – but high street solicitors still have a few secret weapons up their sleeves.

For example, they can spell and employ apostrophes correctly (unlike Apprentice contestant Alex Mills’ new legal brand Dynamo Legal). And they are of course qualified in the law (unlike many of the paralegals set to be employed by ABSs over the next few years). After the novelty of legal market deregulation wears off, such attributes could yet save the day, reckons Junior Lawyers’ Division’s new chief Heather Iqbal-Rayner.

In the meantime, Iqbal-Rayner is intent on playing the likes of Dynamo Legal at their own game by focusing on the “solicitor brand”.

“It’s important to convey to the public the quality of service we can offer. If we don’t do this, they will think it’s OK to use an ABS staffed by paralegals,” she tells Legal Cheek‘s Kevin Poulter and Alex Aldridge over tea and biscuits in the magnificent confines of the Law Society’s Chancery Lane headquarters.

In sending out this message, Iqbal-Rayner is conscious that she’s walking something of a tightrope if she’s to balance it with her other main JLD aim: to boost diversity.

“Increasing diversity means opening up new routes to becoming a solicitor, including non-graduate paths,” she says. “The key thing is that people know, however it is arrived at, that the title of solicitor denotes quality and an ability to deliver the best service.”

At a time of crisis for the junior end of the legal profession, will Iqbal-Rayner rise to the challenge and become the JLD’s Churchill?

Hear the podcast at Legal Cheek

The criminal Bar scored a coup this week when – for the first time in recent memory – it got some positive coverage in the right wing press. Sadly, the comments on the online versions of the articles illustrate just how big a challenge it’ll be for criminal barristers to get public opinion on their side in their battle with the government…

Poor public attitudes, hinted Attorney General Dominic Grieve to Legal Cheek‘s Kevin Poulter last month, that criminal barristers will have to change if they are to have any chance of preventing a new era of G4S law.

In this week’s podcast, Legal Cheek editor Alex Aldridge joins Poulter, who’s a solicitor at Bircham Dyson Bell by day, to reflect on whether winning over the public is a realistic goal for the criminal Bar – and, if so, how quickly it can be done.

Alternatively, have criminal barristers been too slow to engage with the issue of how they are perceived by the rest of society – rendering Monday’s court boycott more a collective sharing of pain rather than a realistic attempt to save the Bar as we know it?

Listen to the podcast on Legal Cheek