A year after finishing the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and Queen Mary University of London law graduate Carmody Wilson is still without a training contract…
Unable to even find paralegal work, Wilson, who worked in journalism in her native Canada before moving to the UK to study law, has fallen back on her previous career to sustain her. This is somewhat ironic given that she left her life as a hack partly because she hankered after the security of being a lawyer.
Now, as Wilson knocks out copy on a freelance basis while making training contract application after a training contract application, she is uncertain about what to do next. Should she cut her losses or keep pursuing the lawyer dream?
On one hand, Wilson is buoyed by Chris Grayling’s recent U-turn on some of his proposed legal aid reforms, which, allied to a recovering economy, could improve training contract hunters’ chances.
But on the other she is aware that a blip in her academic record — Wilson got a 2:2 in her condensed LLB, despite receiving a scholarship to do it following excellent performances in her undergraduate English degree and a subsequent journalism masters — puts her at a major disadvantage that may be hard to recover from.
Still, after getting to two recent second round interviews at medium-sized law firms recently, Wilson has not lost hope, as she tells Legal Cheek editor Alex Aldridge in the podcast below.
This podcast is also available on iTunes.
