Legal Secretary application: what to do next?

I sent off an application for a legal secretary position at a high-street law firm back in August. The position was to commence in September. About three weeks after sending off my application I phoned up the firm to get an idea of what progress was being made on my application and when I could expect to hear from them. The partner that I spoke to seemed to be pretty interested in my application. Our conversation ended by him saying: 'I'll need to give this some more thought'. I've basically waited patiently since. I was surprised that all through September and October the position was still being advertised in my local newspaper. Even with the words 'to commence in September' throughout all of this period.

Now, half-way through November and the position isn't being advertised any more and I don't know what to do. The partner that I spoke to on the phone seemed pretty interested in me and its still something I desparately want to do. It occurs to me that, what with the credit crunch and all, they may be unable to pay another employee. That's a possibility, right? Well, for a while at least, I'd be prepared to work without being paid. I'm wondering whether I should perhaps phone up and make some inquiries. But, just how far should I go?

Your thoughts would be much appreciated :)

President-elect Obama

Obama won yesterday's Presidential election with, what will probably be, 364 electoral college votes to McCain's 174.

I say 'probably' because a couple of states - North Carolina and Missouri - have not officially been called yet. Obama is likely to win North Carolina; and McCain is likely to win Missouri.

In my prediction (see previous blog entry) Obama won with 325 electoral college votes to McCain's 213. I was off by three states worth 39 electoral college votes. They were: Indiana (11), Virginia (13) and North Carolina (15). All of these were so-called 'battleground' states and showed a very small, but remarkable, lead by Obama in the days before the election. I thought McCain would have won them back in the final push of his campaign where he visited these states.

Election night for me began when the first batch of polls closed and ended when the last batch of polls closed. It was at 04:00 a.m. that the race was finally called here in the U.K. for Obama, immediately after the polls in California closed and the Democratic nominee was projected to win. The race, for McCain, ended much sooner than that though. Three important states with hefty electoral college votes were among those to close early: Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. Obama could win the presidency with one of these (at a stretch); McCain, however, needed at least two of these go red for him to be within a chance of winning. All three, as I predicted they would, went for Obama.

The highlight of the night was watching McCain's concession speech and Obama's victory speech. Both speeches are being compared very favourably with the best of those given in previous presidential elections. McCain seemed to have accepted defeat very well. Obama was more cautious - he didn't want to gloat and he wanted to be quick to push the success away from himself and into the hands of the American electorate.

It was a night of democracy and powerful oratory in action and it was just beautiful to watch.

My Prediction: Obama v McCain 325-213

What follows is my prediction for Tuesday's Presidential election.

There are a total of 538 Electoral college votes to be awarded. A candidate needs at least 270 votes to be elected President. In my prediction, Obama wins with 325 electoral college votes to McCain's 213.

Here are the states that I think each candidate will win. The corresponding electoral college votes are in brackets afterwards.

Obama (325)

California (55), Colarado (9), Columbia (3), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Florida (27), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), Nevada (5), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Ohio (20), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Washington (11), Vermont (3), Wisconsin (10),

McCain (213)

Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Missouri (11), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), Virginia (13), West Virginia (5), Wyoming (3)

In recent weeks the election has been fought in the following 13 battleground states worth 158 electoral votes:

Colarado (9)
Florida (27)
Georgia (15)
Indiana (11)
Missouri (11)
Montana (3)
Nevada (5)
New Mexico (5)
North Carolina (15)
North Dakota (3)
Ohio (20)
Pennsylvania (21)
Virginia (13)

I think Obama will win the 6 states in bold which are cumulatively worth 87 electoral college votes. In winning the other 7 states, 71 electoral college votes will be in the McCain column. 87-71.

This, though, makes the election seem closer than it really is. Outside of these states, Obama has a much clearer lead over McCain. Also, calling some of the above states 'battleground states' is a bit misleading because some of them clearly aren't. In New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Obama is ahead by at least 5 points. He is up in Florida too, but not by much. The reason that I put Florida in Obama's column is because I think he has ran a really successful campaign there. On the ground, he's pushed lots of Democrats and Independents to the polls in his early voting drive. The Obama campaign has further topped that off with adding a historic amount of new voters there. McCain definitely has support down there; but I think Obama has more. Just don't ask me how much!

Apologies for not being able to present the above numbers in an electoral college map. If I can find a way to do that, I will try to get it up.

University Report Cards

The national media is reporting today of a new scheme that will be piloted in 18 UK universities following the publication of a report suggesting that the traditional degree classification system is outdated because of its failure to recognise important skills.

To quote directly from today's Times on the purpose of the report cards:

The report cards will give information on students' performance throughout their time at university, such as a breakdown of grades by modules and details of areas in which they have excelled. They will be given alongside a graduate's traditional final degree grade, and aim to give employers, higher education institutions or other interested parties more contextual detail about a candidate's abilities.

Confusingly, The Times is saying that the report cards are intended to supplement the traditional degree classification system whereas the Guardian talks about them being an eventual replacement of the '200-year-old degree classification system'. The Guardian refers to them as 'achievement reports', though. Achievement reports will contain, amongst other things, a full breakdown of results for modules studied and any prizes won. The report cards are likely to be particularly useful to employers because they contain assessments of the student's presentational skills and ability to work effectively in a team.

Any student seeking a legal career after graduating will view this differently. Recruiters in the legal profession already, in my experience, manage to successfully identify an applicant's presentational skills and team-working skills. Especially on the solicitor side. Typically, as part of a training contract application to a city law firm (or really any commercial law firm) you will be required to write about examples of when you used these skills in application forms. After that, if invited to an assessment centre, the graduate recruitment team at the firm will be able to test your competency in these areas themselves.

Even recruiters in the legal profession might welcome this proposal, though. This is because it is veritable evidence that the applicant actually did the activities they say they did and used the skills they say they developed. At the moment, I don't believe the same checks exist by university tutors who, in their references to employers, are only really required to ensure the applicant has achieved the first and second year grades they stated in their application form.

U.S. Election - Al Smith Dinner

This is hilarious. An absolute must watch. The Al Smith dinner is something fans of The West Wing might know a little about from early on in season 7 of the hit show. It is an event held in New York at which the Presidential nominees from both parties speak at. Arnie Vinnick, the Republican nominee in The West Wing, didn't want to go it because he didn't want to be in a room with members of the Church. Matt Santos, the Democratic nominee for President in The West Wing called it the most "political non-political event". That is an apt description of it. Here's the clip from YouTube of Obama's speech - it is hilarious. Who needs debates on policy when this Presidential race can be decided by determining who the best stand-up comedian between them is?!

U.S. Election - Final Presidential Debate

The third and final Presidential debate took place last night and having watched all three (as well as the Vice-Presidential debate <--Nerd Alert) I can say, without a doubt, that it was the best one so far.

Both candidates were on the ball. Many of the problems that I highlighted of the previous debates were not repeated, only hinted at. In the last debates, Obama had attacked McCain's campaign comment that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong". McCain had defended that he was referring to the American workforce and was not being delusional about the current financial crisis. Likewise, McCain attacked Obama on his campaign statement in which he expressed an apparent willingess to sit down with the President of Iran "without preconditions". Both of the candidates were stretching their interpretation of the other's remarks. But not in last night's debate.

Instead, over an hour and a half, the candidates were both asked questions on eight issues. The first question (as with previous debates) was the economy. McCain immediately found what would become for both candidates a point of reference: a plumber in the toss-up state of Ohio by the name of Joe Wurzelbacher (or just Joe). McCain tried to explain how his economic and tax plans would be best for Joe's small business and how under an Obama presidency, he would be taxed heavily. This was a bad example though. Obama countered (as in previous debates) that because Joe earned less than $250,000 per annum he would not have to pay more tax. McCain said that Obama was intent on "spreading wealth around Americans" which he called a form of "class warfare". But that's a clear distortion of what Obama is actually doing.

The third and fourth questions were about the candidates leadership in the current election campaign and their respective verdicts on their opponents running-mate. Both stated that they were unhappy with the way the campaign has turned negative in recent weeks. Obama did well in clearing up the misconceptions over his actual relationship with Steven Ayers and ACORN, a voter registration service, that has been in the news because of allegations of corruption.

Interestingly, when it came to discussing the respective running-mates of the candidates, McCain had more negative things to say about Biden than Obama did have about Palin (which was, in fact, nothing). McCain identified Palin as a role model who, in particular, understood children with special needs. Obama simply agreed with McCain on these points; however, in his support of Biden, he was able to offer more substantial evidence: his foreign policy experience and his record for fighting crime.

The sixth question was about healthcare and the same spiel was regurgitated by both candidates only this time they addressed Joe from Ohio in particular. What a lucky guy he must be! On top of all of his current worries he's probably being pursued by the press and being asked about his views on how the candidates performed in the debate.

The final topics debated were: Roe v. Wade and Education. The former question is important because the next President is likely to appoint at least one judge to the bench (probably two). So what criteria will they be using? McCain is in favour of overturning Roe v. Wade and stated that he will not require a litmus test to be passed by potential appointees. Obama stated his position on a woman's right to choose and the specific requirements on which he would ban partial birth abortion (i.e. the mother's life is not put under risk). For this part of the debate at least, your either for one candidate or against them. I support a woman's right to choose.

On education, neither candidate was able to pin down the reason why America is able to invest so much in its students yet it performs consistently less better than it should against other countries. Obama, however, was the only one to identify the element of parental responsibility in showing children the benefits of knowledge and learning.

It was clear from this debate that McCain hasn't changed the content of his policies so much as he has changed the way he expresses them. Obama, as commentators have pointed out, tried to play it as cool as possible. This strategy is obviously because it was difficult to tell what sort of tone McCain would adopt in the debate. That McCain was angry can be seen from a statement that he made early on in the debate: "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have done so four years ago". Ouch. This didn't stop Obama concluding at the end of the debate that only he can effect the requisite change required in America and that American cannot afford to commit itself to four more years of the "same failed politics and the same failed policies" of the past eight years.

Man Booker Prize 2008 Winner - The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga

Aravind Adiga has won this year's Man Booker Prize for his novel The White Tiger.

This was the first novel that I read after it was long-listed back in July. I thought it was a pretty decent book at the time but I didn't expect it to get shortlisted or be the winner in the long run.

What I did like about the book was that it was thoroughly original, modern and very readable because of its engaging characters. However, I didn't like the way the novel was structured. The main character - the White Tiger of the novel - is Balram Halwai. We learn early on in the novel that he kills his master (at the end of the first chapter in the book, I think). Over most of the next chapters, the author explores Balram's relationship with his master and this is really where the novel is at its best. Adiga used humour well and there were some interesting subplots. Then I quickly found myself at the end of the novel and I still didn't understand why Balram had to kill his Master to get what he wanted. I understand his entrepreneurial ambitions but not why they lead to him committing such a vicious act. The socio-political parts of the book were the best parts, I thought, and were what remained with me after closing the book.

In my last post I mentioned that dream winner would be Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole. This was a much longer book that Adiga's and whilst some of the criticisms that I have made of Adiga could equally be applicable to Toltz, I found the novel resonated with me much more. In fact, when Michael Portillo this year began to announce the winner, he said: "The Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008 is a debutante novelist..." - this meant either Toltz or Adiga from the shortlist and I leapt up with joy, but it was not to be.