10 Types Of Law Student

Law students come in all sorts of shapes and sizes

1. Born to Die: the corporate careerist

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Bruce Springsteen was apparently born to run – I’d like to see him being cross-examined about that claim, preferably by Ussain Bolt or his cook. Others –Brenda Hale, for example – were born to be wild. Wildness exists in many forms. Lady Hale takes us on a walk to the wild side in her heroic judgment in Stack v Dowden. We take a similar trail to the law’s dark side in Lord Steyn’s teasing judgment in Daly: “context is all,” his Lordship reminds public lawyers.

Unfortunately, most law students will never reach such legendary heights. Most law students were born to die a slow and painful death at a Magic Circle firm. The corporate careerist will have idealised about being a partner at Linklaters whilst the rest of us fought over Pokémon cards in the playground. Yet the soulless students will be unfazed by the criticism levelled at them; they’ll remind you that you’ll be stagnating in debt as they pay off their mortgage at 25, or that you’ll think a getaway to Margate is the dream as they board a private jet to the Bahamas.

Signing their training contract at Slaughters, Lady Gaga will race through all their minds: “Baby, I was born this way.”

2. The Sell Out

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Frank Sinatra had few regrets, or at least too few to mention. But the Sell Out will have regrets worth vocalising. When asked about their biggest regret at a Hogan Lovells training contract interview, they will lament their decision to get a tattoo of Shami Chakrabarti on their arse.

“I was 16. I wanted to save the world but then I tried salmon maki for the first time and realised that the world was not worth saving.”

Long gone are the days of student activism: they will spend their first pay cheque on a Chanel handbag or Mercedes Benz.

3. The Charlotte Proudman wannabe

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A fine warrior of social justice, the Charlotte Proudman wannabe will make sure everyone in the lecture hall can see the copy of the Big Issue they bought on the way to the Faculty.Being on the left is trendy. You’re a hardback socialist, your granny was a feminist who interviewed Che Guevara, and you did a TEFL on your gap year in India. Mummy is an artist and you spent your childhood in the Tate Modern whilst the rest of us laughed along to Catherin Tait. Remember to wear your hammer and sickle with pride. (If you haven’t got one, you can get one at my nana’s antique stall in Shoreditch – you know, the one who interviewed Che Guevara.)

4. The GDL Trust Fund Dumbo

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Dumbo will have dreams of solving commercial law’s most mind-boggling conundrums but won’t know how to use an ATM. The only thing they know about trusts is that they’ve got one. Dumbo tried their hand at art school but was lobbed out when Picasso started to turn in his grave. Not even a summer school at Central Saint Martins could save them. After a gap-yah or two, they went to Malta to read English as a second language, coming back three years later to the BPP Law school, still none the wiser as to how to work an ATM. Daddy Gregson is desperate that Dumbo doesn’t end up busking in Shoreditch, so forks out 17 grand in a last-stich attempt to save the family cress. Dumbo fails the GDL and joins the army. His Eton College brethren welcome him to Sandhurst with open arms. They, too, failed the GDL.

5. The Wannabe Academic

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The Wannabe Academic’s social calendar will be filled to the brim with lunchtime seminars; from the fox-hunting ban to quangos in Uzbekistan, they’ll have enough shit to spout out for an hour before claiming their free Pret sandwich. Whilst everyone else shares notes in a frenzied panic on the eve of a contract law exam, they will be wanking at the French Civil Code

6. The One Who Should Have Done English Literature

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Oliver Wendell Holmes once famously said that “the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience’. Tell that to the poor chap who has nightmares about land law problem questions. He thought an original argument involved analysing the imagery in Blackstone’s Statutes on Contract, Tort and Restitution. He’s desperate to write a feminist critique of contract law, but doesn’t know what privity is. He could spend hours talking about Mill’s harm principle, but doesn’t know the mens rea for murder.

Notice the intentional use of gender pronouns: that poor chap is me.

7. The Hard Wired Scientist

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- They bullet point their essays

- And do not write in continuous prose

- Because long sentences scare them

- But that doesn’t matter

- Because they will go into tax law

- And make lots of money

8. The Rugby 2:2

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Since he can remember, Xander always wanted to be the next Jonny Wilkinson but daddy had other ideas. He was shipped off to law school, where he met Horatio and Hugo. The three bonded over port, cheese and the fact that their parents wanted them to be the next Lord Denning against their will. They make a pact never to open an Equity textbook and spend their three years together getting pissed and lamenting the incremental growth of their penises in the changing room

9. The Jekyll and Hyde

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The Jekyll and Hyde will ruthlessly compartmentalise their work and social life until it gets the better of them. Usually from Bristol University, they will spend their weekends raving on coke. They get through their first year unscathed, but develop a drug addiction during the summer when their friendship group go to Colombia to find themselves.Second year is tough, but they get through with the help of study drugs. By third year, they’ve spent all their money on Ritalin and weed.

10. The Wannabe Attorney

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The wannabe attorney prefers mooting to sex. Enough said.