Hi! I'm Sharon

I'm an aspiring Barrister with a lot to say about my experiences on the Bar and this includes tips for aspiring lawyers. 

 

This blog is also a place to read my thoughts on what is occurring in the legal world, the news and other world events!

 

Be prepared for brutally honest content. I don't believe in sugar-coating anything because I want to help you as much as possible so you can make realistic decisions.

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I was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and moved to the UK with my family when was seven years old. We lived in Luton for about four years. We moved to Leighton Buzzard where I attended lower, middle and upper school and sixth form. 

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I obtained my LLB from the University of Law, Birmingham and a year later I enrolled on to the BPTC LLM with the University of Law, Bloomsbury.

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Sounds easy doesn't it? Well it wasn't!

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It looks so easy seeing people obtain degrees and show off their results or success stories but we don't actually stop to think of what people went through behind closed doors to achieve everything they have.

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I decided that I wanted to have a career in Law in the last year of my A-Levels. At my school, we were asked about our career interests as early as year 9!! I had no idea what so ever I wanted to do so I would hate to hear these questions because I hated to feel like I didn't have my life planned out. 

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Funny isn't it? That at such an early stage of your life you feel pressure to have your future life already figured out. When I was younger I did have an interest in becoming a doctor... but that dream soon died when I watched embarrassing bodies. I realised there was no way I could do this day in and day out, especially after my lunch break! (I really love my food and the thought of bringing it back up most of the time did not appeal to me). 

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Excuse me digressing. So back to my previous point, because I didn't know what career I wanted, I chose a variety of AS Level subjects which were Law, Health and Social Care, Triple Science and English Literature. 

I decided to drop the English Literature in my last year of A-Levels because I realised I really hated it and frankly, I did not understand how or why we are expected to draw conclusions of what the author was thinking when writing their book. 

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I have always found it rather silly that my grades depend upon an interpretation of what an author wrote in their book because I feel my own interpretation will be different to someone else's interpretation, but that does not mean either of us are wrong however we would be marked on the interpretation we give?

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Anyway, I during my final months f studying, I applied to study Law at University and I really enjoyed Criminal Law so thus felt like this is the only path I would follow (boy was I wrong!!).

 

I spent a lot of hours in the library and thankfully I passed very well in my exams and exceedingly well in my final Law exams. I also had a chance to talk to some solicitors and barristers and obtained some work experience in a law firm. After my research, I decided that I wanted to be a barrister and from that moment on, I never changed my mind on this. 

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If you have decided you wish to be a barrister, do not let anyone discourage you! I had so many people try and scare me into not following this path and had I had a weaker self image, I think I would have given up and wanted to be solicitor instead. The best thing you can do from an early stage is to research exactly what you have to do in order to become a barrister and you must be realistic and face the facts so that you are not surprised by anything when you are on your way to become a barrister. 

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I relocated to Birmingham to begin my first year and it was great. I began my second year and within a couple of months, my Mother passed away and I made the decision to move back home (in Bedfordshire) to support my dad and siblings during this time. People at this point were discouraging me of continuing the course and encouraged me to drop out and defer the course or just work instead.

 

You can imagine the thoughts running through my head at this time, but I decided not to do all these things and to instead carry on with the course and commute each day to Birmingham and back (I attended University Monday-Thursday 9am-3.30pm - So you can imagine how demanding this was for me). I was also working part-time on a Friday and Saturday all day and Sunday was my church day.

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This continued on for two years and all I can say is that it was EXHAUSTING!!! But God made a way and helped me to overcome things that people (and sometimes myself) thought were impossible. I really believe that you don't have things happen to you that you have not got the strength to overcome. 

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After completing the course, I spent the summer holidaying in Ayia Napa with my girls and then to Zimbabwe with my family (this was an awesome summer!). When summer was over, I graduated and decided to hire out my grad gown and cap and a photographer just to be extra with the celebrations. 

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A year later I enrolled on to the BPTC LLM in Bloomsbury on the full time course, but I changed this to the part time course because there was a change in the financing of my course. I was commuting to uni. I also had to quickly look for a job to work which would finance this for me while studying and I applied for a care assistants job in the town I live. I was a bit skeptical because I felt I really needed a legal job but then I faced reality and decided this was not the time to be picky and I felt a legal job could have been too demanding for me, especially just starting the course. 

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This job turned out to be the best decision I made!! I worked for an amazing company which was so very supportive of my studies and very flexible to suit this too. Why am I telling you this? I say this because I think there is too much pressure on law students to constantly work in the legal field whilst working to become a lawyer. Yes it's great if you can, but you have to do what you have to do and if it means a non-legal job to fund your education, then do that!

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My Masters was in Family Law and I so very much enjoyed this! I assisted applicants in courts all over London in their cases - all dealing with their children and the respondent in nearly all cases being a Father. 

It was great to advocate on someone's behalf in court, nerve wracking, sometimes confusing, but always satisfying. 

 

I have a few more exams to write on the BPTC (I should have finished the course last year but Covid-19 paused the assessments), then I will be finished!

 

It has been a long time coming but I'm almost there!

 

 

Sharon Shumbambiri.

@SharonAtTheBar 

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