Interview Success Workshop

An interactive workshop enabling you to reach your full potential in interviews.

On Tuesday 22^nd May 2012

From 6pm – 8.30pm

There are countless books available that tell you how to prepare for an interview, the research to do, the answers to give, what to ask, and what not to ask.  But this is just the tip of the iceberg. These resources rarely show you HOW to do these things.

This workshop is different.

You will leave with practical tools and techniques that you will be able to use immediately to:

• Get into a confident, resourceful state
• Communicate effectively with the interviewer (verbally and non-verbally)
• Banish negativity
• Be clear about your goal

Having these capabilities will enable you to do yourself justice in the interview, to perform at your absolute best and maximise your prospects of success.

The event will be held at Bond Pearce, nr Bristol Temple Meads (map) and refreshments are provided courtesy of Hays Legal

To book a place email careers@bristoljld.co.uk

]]> http://www.bristollawsociety.com/bristol_law_society/events/bristol-jld-holds-an-interviewing-workshop/feed/ 0 http://www.bristollawsociety.com/legal_life/the-estate-of-the-late-dr-timothy-dominic-hemming/ http://www.bristollawsociety.com/legal_life/the-estate-of-the-late-dr-timothy-dominic-hemming/#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 08:22:02 +0000 Leon http://www.bristollawsociety.com/?p=3030 more]]> Dr. Timothy Dominic Hemming late of Hall Floor Flat, 27 Canynge Square, Clifton, Bristol BS8 3RB died on 11^th August 2011.

Would anyone knowing the whereabouts of a Will please contact Peter Golding of AMD Solicitors, 77-81 Alma Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 2DP – Telephone Number  0117-9738205.

BLS Events’ Team

Established by Sean Campbell, a professional and highly experienced construction solicitor, who, since 1997, has practised at top construction law firms including Masons (now Pinsent Masons) and leading Bristol and London law firm, TLT, Codobo Law aims to provide legal advice to construction and engineering clients at every stage of a project from procurement to project completion, including advice on dispute avoidance and resolution.

Working for end users, developers, main contractors and specialist subcontractors and consultants Codobo Law also provides training for its clients.

Sean commented:

“I am extremely excited to be launching a new law firm at a time when the construction and engineering industries are facing a challenging marketplace. Without the significant overheads of large traditional law firms, we give our clients a commercial advantage by ensuring they benefit from specialist advice and training at very competitive rates.”

Bristol Law Society welcomes another firm to what is one of the most dynamic legal markets in the Country.

Codobo Law can be contacted at:-

Codobo Law
Park House
10 Park Street
Bristol
BS1 5HX

Tel: 0117 908 4624
Fax: 0117 907 4701

The move follows the Society’s launch earlier this month of the Compliance Reference Group (CRG) pilot to enable Compliance Officers of Legal Practice (COLPs) from the top 100 firms to submit enquiries to the Law Society on regulatory issues. Plans to extend that scheme to Compliance Officers for Finance and Administration (COFAs) are well advanced.

Now the Society is offering the service to all firms via the Risk and Compliance Service. In both initiatives, if an individual or firm follows advice from the CRG or Risk & Compliance Service and subsequently finds that action is being considered or taken against them by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Law Society will stand by that individual or firm.

Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson said: “The expertise of our practitioners in our Risk and Compliance Service should be made use of by all the profession. There is clearly a demand for it. Both schemes harness the “wisdom of the profession” to equip individuals with advice and support to help compliance.

“The compliance community who are members of the Risk and Compliance Service will be able to benefit from the same level of support that the top 100 firms within the Compliance Reference Group receive. This new initiative enables that to happen.”

Risk and Compliance Service members who are COLPs or COFAs will be able to submit queries to the Service, which will then be considered by Law Society regulatory compliance experts, together with a panel made up of practitioners. The Society says that measures are in place to ensure consistency between the advice given by both the CRG and the new Risk & Compliance Service initiative.

This latest service is in addition to a range of guidance and support to members on outcomes focused regulation and wider compliance issues including practice notes, online training, diagnostic visits and more.

The new service is due to go live on May 8 2012.

Find out more about the Law Society’s Risk & Compliance Service

In producing this document, they have explored, in particular,

• the effect on salary levels and numbers of training contracts provided, and
• access to the profession and impact on equality and diversity.

BLS would encourage you to send your comments on this impact assessment to trainingconsultations@sra.org.uk by 11 May 2012.

The report, together with the comments the SRA receives, will be presented to the SRA Board at its meeting on 16 May 2012 as part of the board’s discussions on the minimum salary for trainee solicitors.

The report is 123 pages long and as part of its findings shows that a large percentage of training contracts are already at a salary in excess of the minimum salary.

In the last decade there has been a steady increase in services available to support perpetrators of domestic abuse. Probation services have introduced the IDAP (Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme) for perpetrators serving a custodial sentence, and many local councils have commissioned programmes to be run in their area for those not eligible to access the probation’s service. For many working in the field of family law it is now becoming common practice to refer perpetrators to these programmes, although it has become evident that many solicitors do not know what such a programme entails.

Many solicitors now recommend a perpetrator access a perpetrator programme to show a willingness to change their behaviour; this has often proven favourable when applying for child contact in divorce proceedings. Although perpetrator programmes are beneficial in this manner, their primary aim is to reduce risk and minimise abuse. The issue, therefore, lies where perpetrators do not acknowledge their behaviour as abusive, and solely access a programme on the basis that it will strengthen their legal argument. Those who blame their partner’s behaviour, stress or substance misuse may not benefit from a programme in the way a perpetrator who acknowledges their abusive behaviour will. If this is the case it would be recommended to signpost them to a service such as Respect,www.respectphoneline.org.uk where a worker could assist them in acknowledging their behaviour.

As a solicitor advising men and women in accessing perpetrator programmes it is useful for the solicitor to understand what such a programme entails. A majority of perpetrator programmes use cognitive behavioural therapy to alter the thought process and address dysfunctional emotions through a goal oriented systemic process. Most accredited programmes will run for around 30 weeks, though some run for up to 52, and will take place once a week for around 2 hours. Programmes will look at all forms of abusive behaviour, physical, emotional, psychological, financial and sexual. They will encourage perpetrators to acknowledge their own abusive behaviour and teach coping mechanisms and tools to reduce the risk of them using abusive behaviour in the future.

All perpetrators accessing programmes are assessed for suitability. Due to the length and high cost of the programme, perpetrators must show a willingness to change their behaviour. This assessment is generally made through a series of 1-2-1 sessions prior to the commencement of the programme. Due to the frequency of perpetrators dropping out of the programme once child contact has been granted, most programmes will not accept referrals for perpetrators where there is an ongoing court case.

A further issue is the limited number of perpetrator programmes which run across the UK. Most large cities now have a service dedicated to working with abusive men; however for some there may be a requirement to travel to another county. Not only does this make it costly to travel to, many services will charge an increased rate (to either the perpetrator, social services or the local authority) for clients living out of the local area. This often acts as a deterrent to many perpetrators wishing to access support.

There is a further barrier for females and men in same sex relationships who perpetrate domestic abuse. A majority of perpetrator programmes are geared towards working with heterosexual men, and cannot offer support for female perpetrators or males that perpetrate abuse against male victims. Although there has been an increase in services working with these client groups they are unfortunately still few and far between.

Many perpetrator programmes running in the UK also offer parallel support for the victim of domestic abuse. The aim of this is to increase the safety of the victim, ensure the perpetrator is engaging whilst accessing the programme and to offer ongoing practical and emotional support.

Some UK domestic violence services also offer ongoing 1-2-1 support for perpetrators of domestic abuse. This work often follows the same structure, acknowledging the 5 main types of abuse, and looks at coping strategies. 1-2-1 work allows sessions to be more personalised and caters more to the specific needs of the client. However, there is evidence to show that 1-2-1 work is not as effective as group work when reducing the abusive behaviour of a perpetrator.

Although only a brief introduction, it gives an insight in to the vast field of domestic abuse and lays a foundation for what will be discussed in this series of articles focusing on domestic violence and the law. For more information please visit martintrainingandconsultancy.co.uk or contact Luke Martin by e-mail martintandc@gmail.com.

One of the major social events of the summer is the Bristol Law Society Summer Party. This is happening on what we hope will be a balmy summer’s evening on 12th July at the Riverstation. Look out for further information and booking details.

Whilst booking, you may want to think about getting in early to book for the Annual Dinner at which the prestigious Bristol Law Society Awards are handed out. Should your firm be nominated in one of the categories? 12th October is the night to note. And don’t forget the Legal Sunday service on Sunday 14th October at Bristol Cathedral.

Bristol Law Society will be holding its popular conferences again this year – booking details to come – with the Civil Litigation Conference in June, the Private Client Conference in September, and the Property Conference in October. These are excellent ways to earn CPD hours, network with local professionals, and find out current developments from the array of top line speakers.

The Annual Quiz may have been and gone, but the very “popular” Music Quiz is again taking place in September, Thursday 20th this year, so if your firm wants to challenge for the position of being top pop brains that is the date for your diary.

As always, look out for emails about these events and check the website here.

Christopher Quinlan QC advises, appears before and chairs disciplinary tribunals in a growing number of sports, including rugby union, football and British Horseracing Authority.

He chairs Rugby Football Union disciplinary tribunals. He has chaired a large number of such hearings, including sending offs and citing complaints, competition appeals and child protection cases. He chairs cases at all levels of the game, including English Premiership and International. He also chairs disciplinary hearings arising out of European Rugby Cup and Six Nations matches.

Christopher Quinlan QC is an International Rugby Board Judicial Officer. He was a Judicial Officer at the Rugby World Cup 2007, presiding over a number of disciplinary hearings during the tournament. In addition, he was the Judicial Officer for the Under 19 World Championship held in Ireland in April 2007. He acted as Judicial Officer for Rugby World Cup 2007 qualifying matches staged in Italy, Georgia and Portugal. In June and July 2008 he was in Australia to act as the judicial officer for two test matches Australia played against France.

Christopher Quinlan QC has chaired hearings involving breaches of anti-doping provisions and was appointed a legal member of the recently established National Anti-Doping Panel.

As well as rugby union, Christopher Quinlan QC has chaired a number of Football Association Appeal Board hearings and also been instructed to chair disciplinary proceedings in other sports, including lawn tennis.

In the previous article I looked at the meaning of “knowledge”, “knowledge management” (KM) and at some of the generic benefits that KM can bring to law firms.  The next few articles in this series look at some of the common questions that medium sized and small law firms ask and show in practical terms how KM strategies can help.

There is no doubt that lawyers need precedents.

Precedents reduce the amount of time fee earners spend reinventing the wheel; they speed up the time it takes them to produce documents, improving productivity; they take care of the repetitive work, which helps with leverage and commoditisation and frees senior fee earners to concentrate their efforts on complex value-add work.

Working from a central collection of precedents, rather than individual collections (paper or online) can, when carefully drafted, help a firm speak in a single house-style, avoid unnecessary jargon and promote a single branding message, and improve quality assurance.

Databases are useful for law firms for precedents, forms, practice notes, contact information, checklists, processes and workflows, CVs and profiles, and common clauses and information for tenders.

Return on Investment

Precedent databases are useful for law firms, but they are not the only way that law firms can improve the creation, capture, management, utilisation and flow of knowledge between fee earners.

Too many lawyers assume that the best thing that they can do to improve the way knowledge is managed within their firm is to buy an expensive IT database or upgrade their existing system.  This is a misconception.  IT is only part of the solution.  Once basic document and information retrieval needs are met, some law firms can get a greater return on investment by using other KM strategies, rather than investing more in IT.

David Snowdon, Cognitive Edge, often emphasises that “We know more than we can say and we can say more than we can write down” i.e. when a firm tries to specifically codify its “knowledge” beyond basic precedents, standard letters and workflows etc, it often finds that much of the value is lost.  This is not always because people resist codifying what they know for the business because they fear losing the power that knowledge brings, although that can be a motivation in some cases.  It is because much of what triggers recall in the knowledge-giver is context-based and much of what is understood by the knowledge-receiver is based on non-verbal cues, questioning and interaction.  What triggers a later recall by the receiver also often depends on stories and context.

You will have experienced this yourself.  If you ask a fee earner “What did you do about causation in that case concerning the woman with the limp in Nottingham” he/she is far more likely to recall a point of law or successful tactic, than if you ask them to write down all their thoughts on the topic of causation for your database.  Similarly, the fee earner listening to the story about the case of “the limping woman in Nottingham” is far more likely to understand the issue quickly, make a judgment about whether they trust the “knowledge” provided and is far more likely to recall the legal point at a later date within the context of the story that they have been told.  Where the information that they are given doesn’t fit squarely with their issue, two experienced fee earners will usually understand this and together come to a relevant story about the issue, or reach a suitable starting point for further traditional research, quickly and efficiently.

Once law firms understand this, they can see how connecting their staff to discuss their past and current matters can be a powerful tool, worthy of investment, rather than trying to go beyond their fee earners’ basic needs for precedents and codify everything that their lawyers know and contain it within a written database.

There are many ways of connecting staff within law firms:  creating knowledge maps and directories so they can easily find the right person, improving opportunities for networking and collaboration, mixing teams up for training sessions, improving social opportunities, “ask an expert” coffee mornings, knowledge fairs, even Japanese-style “talk rooms”.  The important thing is that law firms should understand the value of connecting people and the return on investment achieved by it and to take this into account when devising all kinds of non-chargeable activities: training, networking, business development meetings, socials.

Hélène is the author of The KM Handbook, due to be published in July 2012 by The Law Society and founder of Knowledge Network West, the knowledge-sharing and networking group for information specialists in law firms in the West.  She is published in KIM Legal and Solicitors Journal and has been a speaker for Ark and UWE. Hélène has an approachable, practical and engaging style, with a no-nonsense, no-jargon philosophy.