The circle of life

It’s that time of year again; the QC lists have come out and the select few are rightly preening themselves and preparing party lists, guest lists and a huge to-do list for life’s next career adventure. The legal profession sometimes puts me in mind of a vast treadmill, the sort of thing they used to operate in Reading Gaol, with Oscar Wilde at one end pedalling away like billyo while composing piqued Facebook messages to Lord Alfred Douglas. Seriously, though, doesn’t it sometimes feel as though it never ends?

Making the grade

You get your undergraduate degree and then you have to get onto a post-graduate law course in short order, lest your original qualification should go stale. You work your socks off at postgrad level, realising that this is your last best chance to get a serious leg up on the competition.

Alternatively, you have a large time and loaf around for a year intending to put in some serious cramming in the last